Matthew 8:1-4 NRSVue
1When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him, 2and there was a man with a skin disease who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 3He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be made clean!” Immediately his skin disease was cleansed. 4Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
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Reflection on Matthew 8:1-4
Inspiration from 2024-06-28 Daily Prayer
Jesus’ focus moved from the crowd to an individual in distress. The leper, whose condition isolated him, desired healing that would restore him to the community. Lord, heal our leprous spots, the parts of our lives that isolate us from others.
Jesus heard the leper’s request and touched him, saying, ‘Be made clean.’ Jesus desires to heal us. This is a story of restoration, not contamination. May we who have been touched by the Lord go and tell others what the Lord has done for us.
Further reflection
Lord, let me taste the drama of this eager leper. He was breaking the law, which forbade him to come closer than fifty feet to a non-leper or to exchange greetings with others. When this man's faith broke through legal limitations, Jesus not merely spoke with him but touched him. Jesus cannot bear to see us isolated from him.
When our Irish President Mary McAleese was visiting a leper colony in Uganda, she was placed, for her speech, at a safe distance from the ring of lepers. Like Jesus she broke protocol, walked across and, like her husband, shook each of them by the hand -- or in some cases by the stump where the hand had been. Overcome by her gesture, they broke into a spontaneous ululation of joy: a moment of grace.
Jesus’ welcome to the leprosy patient was the opposite of the current social attitude. The leper was an outcast, contagious and shunned. That one would even come near him was highly unusual. Because of fear, nobody touched lepers. Many of Jesus’ meetings highlight the fact that nobody is unwelcome in his house, at his table, in his presence. That is why we can pray at any time, ‘relaxing into the mystery of being loved and healed.’
Much of the life and work of Jesus was spent with the ill and the disabled, and often with people like this leper who nobody wanted. In the mind and heart of Jesus, nobody is unwanted. Throughout our lives, Jesus wants us with him, offering us the gift of love and calling, asking only love and the effort to love in return. ‘How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me?' is a psalm we might pray as we grow in awareness of all that Jesus does for his people.
Inspired by the man who suffered with leprosy, I begin my prayer not with my demanding a request, but with the phrase. ‘Lord, if you choose to, you can...’