Every year we enter into Lent and are called to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We hear the words, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” We are called to conversion, to turn our lives more and more to Christ and to others, for all are children of God. But do we really believe that? Is this an area where many of us need continuing conversion?
Jesus often reached out to those who were rejected by others, those who were on the margins, those who were looked on with fear and suspicion.
Perhaps the most rejected were those who suffered from leprosy. What we call Hanson’s Disease today is true leprosy, a condition that not only disfigures a person but kills the nerve endings. Because of this a person may get cuts and feel nothing. Infection then sets in and the person often loses part or all of their toes, fingers and even limbs. Is it any wonder that people were afraid of lepers?
In Jesus’ time, there were other skin diseases that people feared were leprosy. This made people “untouchable” and they had to leave the community, live outside of town and cry out, “Unclean, unclean,” if anyone approached them. Sometimes those conditions would clear up and the person would go to the priest to verify their healing before being readmitted to the community. Many remained unclean and they died, alone and rejected.
What would it be like to be rejected in this way? What is it to be looked on with fear and suspicion? Unfortunately, we can easily fall into the trap of looking on others with fear and suspicion. I live in the Dilworth neighborhood in Charlotte, and most of my neighbors are Caucasian. When I see an African-American who is not cutting the lawn, delivering a package or involved in some service activity, I wonder if the person might actually live in the neighborhood. If it is a young man wearing a hoodie, I have to stop myself from wondering about him.
How incredibly different this is from Jesus’ attitude in the Gospel. He is not afraid of a leper, a Samaritan, or even the Gerasene demoniac. In fact, Jesus does what is unthinkable in His society: He reaches out and touches the leper, and “the leprosy left him immediately.”
Obviously, I cannot cure a person of disease. However, I can treat each person with openness and respect.
I can contrast my present experience in my neighborhood with my experience working in an African-American parish in Chicago when I was in theology, or with my experiences in India or Palestine. In those places I was shown an openness toward me as a stranger, an openness that I don’t always have toward others. It is an area in which I need further conversion.
The only time I felt that I was a stranger was not a matter of rejection or suspicion, but of being an oddity. In India’s Bihar Province, in an agricultural area, I went to the Patna Zoo to see the white tigers. As I was looking at the rare tigers, some local children standing nearby were more intrigued by my blond hair and blue eyes. Clearly, I was the oddity. To them, white tigers were old hat.
What is so important is to get to know one another and to come to appreciate the differences that make up the human family – in all of its diversity. In fact, we can come to be so comfortable with differences that we miss them when they are no longer present.
After I finished my Master of Divinity in Chicago, I went to Cambridge, Mass., to earn a Master of Theology. I lived on Lexington Avenue on the western end of town. I felt uncomfortable yet didn’t know what was wrong. About two weeks later, I walked into the center of Cambridge, and all of a sudden, I realized why I had been so unsettled. I hadn’t seen any African-Americans in the neighborhood. I was so used to being either in the integrated neighborhood of Hyde Park or in the African-American neighborhood of Englewood in Chicago, that seeing only Caucasians around me felt very strange.
Thank God for the greater diversity in Charlotte, but too often we are separated by neighborhood, by job, and by social status.
As we enter into Lent, perhaps we can examine our consciences to see if we have any “lepers” in our lives – any persons, who by race, language, disability, social status, sickness or mental struggle, make us uncomfortable, fearful or rejecting. Lent is a good time to talk to God about it and ask Him for the healing of our own hearts. We need conversion. Then when we get to Easter, may we hear Jesus say to us, “I do will it. Be healed.”
Jesuit Father John Michalowski is the parochial vicar of St. Peter Church in Charlotte.