This next Sunday is the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time in Lectionary Cycle B. The Markan narrative continues to move along. Our gospel for this Sunday is still early in the first major section of Mark’s Gospel which extends from 1:14 to 3:6, and describes the initial phase of the Galilean ministry. A quick summary of events so far include: the calling of the first disciples, Jesus’ ministry in and around Capernaum, taught with authority in the synagogue in Capernaum so that the people “were astonished at his teaching”, cast out a demon from a possessed person, healing Peter’s Mother-in-law, and later that same day healing all the sick that were brought to him. Then we read from last Sunday’s gospel:

35 Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and those who were with him pursued him 37 and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” 39 So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee. 

This week we consider Jesus’ cleansing of a leper (1:40-45). Donald Juel, (Mark, 43) connects our text with the accounts that follow this episode. Juel outlines the Gospel of Mark from this point to the end of Mark 3:6 under the title “Transgressor of the Boundaries.” This is just one of many stories in which Jesus will be accused of violations of ritual boundaries.”

Leprosy and the Man – The reading from the Old Testament, paired with our gospel, comes from Leviticus:

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron,  “If someone has on his skin a scab or pustule or blotch which appears to be the sore of leprosy, he shall be brought to Aaron, the priest, or to one of the priests among his descendants. If the man is leprous and unclean, the priest shall declare him unclean by reason of the sore on his head….“The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean. He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.” (Lv 13:1-2, 44-46)

The identification of the man who came to Jesus as “a leper” is not as precise as at first glance it may seem. Medical researchers who have examined the biblical data in Lev. 13–14 feel certain that the biblical term “leprosy” is a collective noun designating a wide variety of chronic skin diseases, one of which may have been interpreted in the modern sense of the word. Nevertheless, anyone who was identified as a leper was reduced to a most pitiful state of existence.

In addition to the physical ravages of the disease, his cultic impurity was graphically described in the Levitical provision about wearing torn clothes, warning others that he is “unclean” and dwelling outside the camp. Rabbinic refinement of the biblical legislation imposed many practical difficulties upon the leper, for even a chance encounter between the leper and the non-leper could render the latter unclean. Lepers were allowed to live unhampered wherever they chose, except in Jerusalem and cities which had been walled from antiquity. They could even attend the synagogue services if a screen was provided to isolate them from the rest of the congregation. In spite of these two provisions, however, leprosy brought deep physical and mental anguish for both the afflicted individual and the community in which or near which he lived. It is against this background that the significance of the cleansing of a leper by Jesus can be appreciated, whether the man in Mark’s account had true leprosy or some other frightful skin disease [William Lane, Gospel of Mark, 85-86].

Image credit: 12th-13th century Mosaic | Cathedral of the Assumption, Monreale, Sicily | PS-US