The story we hear today of Jesus curing the leper shows both his power, but also his limitations. His power because he can cure one of the most feared diseases in the ancient world. But his limitation because despite his strict warning to the cured man not to publicize what has happened, the man does exactly that – and there is nothing Jesus can do about it. In our days he would be swarmed by paparazzi and unable to step out of doors without being hounded. In his case he had to stay out of doors and still couldn’t get away from the crowds.
I somehow think his problem was not that there were crowds, but that these were crowds that came just because he was famous, and not because they wanted to listen to anything he had to say.
What about the leper? His perspective is interesting because of the way he approaches Jesus: “if you want to, you can do this”. This might seem obvious and hardly needs saying. Of course Jesus wants to – how could he not? But I think we have to look at this statement not from Jesus’ viewpoint, but from the sick man. He is coming to Jesus and rather than saying “I want this, please do it” he puts himself entirely in Jesus hands by saying this is a matter of what you want, not what I want.
We may find it hard to pray in this way. Our prayers start from what I want and continue down that path. It’s hard to truly step back and accept that it isn’t about what I want, and really, deeply believe that. The leper foreshadows Jesus’ own prayer in the garden before his death: “Father not my will but yours be done”. If we only had Jesus’ example we might be justified in thinking that is too hard a prayer to make. But if the outcast leper can do it then so can we. And if we party afterwards Jesus won’t hold it against us.