Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B (11 February 2018)
Lev. 13:1-2, 44-46; Ps. 32:1-2, 5, 11; 1 Cor. 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45.
Theme: Jesus touched him.
Jesus has scarcely begun his tour of the villages of Galilee to announce the new Reign of God when he is confronted by the leper in today’s Gospel story. What happens next spells out for the reader one of the defining features of that Reign.
‘Leprosy’ in the Bible covers a range of skin diseases and need not be equated with Hansen’s disease. In NT times there was a connection between ‘leprosy’ and poverty. In his study of poverty in Roman Palestine Gildas Hamel quotes the Greek physician Galen (2nd century CE) who says that in times of food shortage, during the winter or in times of famine, country people were reduced to eating twigs of trees and bushes, wild herbs and even grass. As a result they suffered vitamin deficiencies that caused a variety of ulcerating skin diseases.
The leper in the story begs Jesus not for a cure but for cleansing, “…you can make me clean”. His greatest trial was not the physical ailment but expulsion from his community [Lv 13:45-56] and ritual uncleanness that would have excluded him from Temple worship.
Jesus’ response is often translated “Moved with pity”, sometimes “with compassion”. The Greek splagchnitzomai however is much stronger, and less polite. It is related to the word for intestines or guts, which suggests that Jesus was moved to the depths of his being. Perhaps he had this gut-wrenching feeling that “Things should not be like this!” and out of that deeply felt compassion he acted. Nicholas King in his commentary on Pope Francis’ proclamation of the Year of Mercy in 2015 says Jesus felt ‘gutted’ when the leper came to him.
Some ancient manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel have a different Greek word instead of splagchnitzomai. It is a word that means ‘anger’. If this was the original reading, some scholars suggest that it might have been prompted by Jesus’ “very stern warning” in 1:43, or that Jesus was angry because of the apparent doubt of the man that Jesus could cure him. It seems to me much more likely that if Jesus was angry it would have been at the system that further punished a man who was already a victim of poverty and disease. The weight of opinion however is that splagchnitzomai was most probably the original wording.
Jesus’ world-view was no doubt shaped by his familiarity with the Hebrew scriptures. Compassion is one of the attributes of God highlighted particularly in the Wisdom literature and the Prophets: Psalm 145:9 for example, “The Lord is good to all and has compassion over all that he has made”, and Isaiah 54:10 “…my steadfast love shall not depart from you…says the Lord, who has compassion on you”. Here the compassion of God towards Israel is an expression of his hesed, steadfast love. In both cases the Hebrew word translated ‘compassion’ is related to rehem = womb, another word that evokes the deeply felt nature of compassion.
In the closing verse of the story Jesus, who has touched the leper, is now the one who is marginalized. As Mary Healy observes: “He has healed the man with leprosy at a cost to himself—just as later in the Gospel he will take on Barabbas’ status as a condemned criminal, while Barabbas goes free (15:15)”. Jesus models the self-giving love of a compassionate God.
For Reflection and Discussion: 1. Have you experienced a deeply moving reaction to some situation of distress? How did it affect you? 2. In what way(s) does your own society marginalize some people? 3. Recount examples of selfless compassion that you know about.
Bibliography: Hamel, Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine (Oakland CA, 1990); Healy, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids MI, 2008); King, ‘From the Beginning’, The Tablet 269, 2130, 10-11 (2015).
This week’s Sunday Gospel Commentary was prepared by
Br Kevin McDonnell cfc, PhD., Australia, Bat Kol Alumnus, 2003, 2004, 2005.
Email address: klmcdonnell@edmundrice.org
[Copyright © 2018]
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PLEASE NOTE: The weekly Gospel commentaries represent the research and creative thought of their authors, and are meant to stimulate deeper thinking about the meaning of the Sunday Scriptures. While they draw upon the study methods and sources employed by the Bat Kol Institute, the views and conclusions expressed in these commentaries are solely those of their authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of Bat Kol. Questions, comments and feedback are always welcome.
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Bat Kol Institute for Jewish Studies, Jerusalem
1983-2018
“Christians Studying the Bible within its Jewish milieu, using Jewish Sources.”
gill@batkol.info Website: www.batkol.info
