Lepers are the classic example of social outcasts. Today’s first reading (Lv 13:1-2, 44-46) sets it out very clearly, in stern legal language. That approach, in a world where disease was a complete mystery, and disfigurement was an obvious sign of god’s displeasure, was universal. It continued for a very long time. Mother Teresa’s first outreach in Calcutta was to people abandoned and destitute because they had leprosy. The US continued a policy of isolating lepers on the island of Molokai in Hawaii until 1969.
I doubt any of us have had any contact with anyone suffering from Hansen’s disease (as it is now called) or even know of anyone who had such contact. But the visible signs of social isolation are still obvious in our society. It’s hard to travel much around Santa Cruz, or San Francisco, or London, without seeing “homeless encampments”. I imagine the leper encampments outside the towns that Jesus was visiting would have looked very similar.
But of course people would not be looking at the encampments. They were in town to see the latest celebrity pass by. Jesus was suffering from the same fate as Lady Di or the Beatles – he couldn’t go anywhere without getting mobbed. It’s difficult to understand how a leper, who was forcibly excluded from town, could ever have got anywhere near him (Mk 1:40-45). It must have required extraordinary persistence and some significant risk on the part of that person – and it’s not like he could have had accomplices, as in the case of the guy on the stretcher who they let down through the roof.
Having got to Jesus, the leper begs. He has no pride, no dignity left. And Jesus sees through his pitiable state. He also knows that such a healing will make his own situation even more impossible. He tries to get the man on his side, to get him to accept his healing quietly, but the man cannot stay quiet (not surprising!). So Jesus, in curing this one man who asks him, accepts that it will isolate him even more from people he wants to connect with: “it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places”. He is now the outcast, because of his celebrity status.
Human societies have a very deep capacity to isolate people, for an extraordinary range of reasons, and sometimes no good reason. Jesus ultimately accepted the final isolation of a public execution. But he came out the other side. May we help those feeling isolated to know there is another side. May we be part of the cure, not the disease.