“He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp” (Lev 13:46) – frightening and dreadful words.  Spoken to a people in the wilderness, a people on the Exodus betwixt and between the slavery of Egypt and the promised land of Palestine. These are words spoken about brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers.

Can you imagine being on this long journey to freedom in which your entire life is comprised of the people with whom you travel.  There are no others. They are your life. The ones on whom your depend to carry the burdens of the encampment – searching for firewood, mending clothing, tending the livestock, repairing the tents, finding and hauling water, and the list goes on. They are the ones upon whom you depend for safety, for hunting. The one with whom you sit around the fires at night telling the stories of the Exodus, the time of slavery, time of Father Abraham and Mother Sarah. The stories of who you were and who you are.  There are no others. They are your life.Imagine a possible contagion has begun.  A sore, a scab or a blotch appearing on the skin. The one the leaders warned about. The signs of an illness that could…. could possibly infect the whole people. “He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.”  Frightful and dreadful words.

Imagine yourself in the wilderness – the barren landscape, the quiet with only the wind moving among the brush and brambles.  It is your parent, or your child being sent into the wilderness to live apart.  Outside the circle of safety when the evening comes. Outside the easy camaraderie of the camp. Away from the comforting touch of those who love.  What would it feel like to see your loved one have to walk away, to be cast out, far enough away that in time you begin to lose the contact, the intimacy of their presence. To begin to know the first aching, that longing in your heart for the one now dwelling apart. They were a part of your life.

Imagine yourself as the one cast out. The same aching, that same longing. But also the questions:  why me? Why didn’t they come with me? Now what? This isn’t happening?  What do you do now? Do you shadow the people as they move on in their travels? Ever apart and yet so close. Do you set out for a new life? How long can one live without the intimacy of your people, without the stories that help you know who are? Without the support of the camp?  Without having your purpose in and among others? They were a part of your life.

This is not just a problem of ancient times. Those who suffer chronic illness may experience themselves as being outside all of the usual spheres of human activity. As the workplace carries on without them and their family goes about its business, they can feel isolated, out of the loop, helpless to contribute to the daily doings, left alone with their own suffering. While Christianity does not have regulations concerning ritual uncleanness and separation from sick persons, certain contagious conditions may require physical isolation.  Think of being a long term patient in an ICU where everyone who enters wears gloves, masks, and an isolation gown. There is never the touch of skin on skin. Everyone keeps their distance. It can seem to such a person that even God is keeping at a distance. The loneliness, the isolation can grow and be as bad as or worse than the illness itself.

In Mark’s Gospel (Mk 1:40-45), a man with leprosy leaves his prescribed separate space and reaches out for Jesus’ help. He is tentative in his request, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus responds with deep emotion. The verb splanchnizomai, usually translated “moved with compassion,” literally means to “have a gut reaction,” emphasizing the depth of Jesus’ feeling for the person “outside the camp”.  Jesus reaches out his hand to him, touches him, and… and what? Does he cross over to join the man in uncleanliness? Does he pull / restore the man back into the camp?  Or…does he extend the borders of camp?  … I would suggest that it is the latter – the borders are being extended.

For Jesus there are no outsiders cast out far enough in his world to make him shun them — not Roman collaborators, not lepers, not prostitutes, not the crazed, not the possessed. Are there people now who could possibly be outside his encompassing love? He welcomed the outcast; he embraced the very people whom others shunned. No one was beyond the circle of his compassion. No one was kept out of this new camp. And for this he was led outside the old camp, crucified and ultimately silenced.

But the silencing of Jesus’ compassion was not final. Paul, who proclaimed the Gospel to Jew and Greek alike, is evidence of the ongoing power of this compassion. He exhorted his hearers, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1) Down through the ages there have been others who continued this openness. Francis of Assisi kissed a man with leprosy; at the risk of their own lives, women and men welcomed runaway slaves into their homes; after Sept. 11, 2001, Catholic high-school girls wore head scarves in support of their Muslim friends.

This new camp in Christ will always need a strong center – without that we fall apart. But we will always need people on the edges, on the borders, the boundaries, willing to reach out, reach across and in welcoming the outcast, be on-going evidence of the power of the compassion of Christ. The embrace of Christ is without bounds;

The camp is expanding – if only we will extend the borders. “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”