On one level all four of this week’s passages speak to bodies which are hurting.  Na’aman, the Syrian general has leprosy, which in the ancient world meant any type of skin ailment, anything from a rash to an infectious, to a contagious disease.  Psalm 30 speaks of being healed from illness and promotes what could be interpreted as manipulative prayer used as a trick to heal the body.  In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul speaks of being in a race and torturing his body to win the imperial prize of an imperishable wreath.  Jesus heals a sick man and tells him to go to the priest and follow the temple traditions and rituals.

In 2 Kings 5, we see how class is intertwined with bodily healing.  We see, for instance, the role that servants, both female (verse 3) and male (verse 13) play in helping Na’aman to get cured, especially when he doesn’t want to accept their advice.  Na’aman keeps going to the rulers and upper classes, though it is the people on the bottom of the social scale who hold the keys to getting him what he needs in the situation.  On the one hand, one could look at the actions of the servants as being overly concerned with the wellbeing of their captors.  On the other hand, it could be that the female slave wanted him gone, so that she and her mistress could have some relief and private time away from him and the other patriarchal challenges to their lives.

There is a stark parallel to Na’aman’s actions and the ways in which certain parts of the Proposition 8 campaign, the ballot initiative in California that overturned marriage equality in the state, related or did not relate to other oppressed communities in California.  We rarely saw on television lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of varied racial and ethnic groups.  People of color, like hip hopper Kanye West known for his confrontation of homophobia in that genre, were not utilized in the Proposition 8 fight.  Perhaps, this biblical story can teach us the need to be more inclusive in our strategies for fighting oppression.  By the same token the actions of the servants also ask us to challenge oppressed groups who refuse to learn from their oppression to be allies with other oppressed groups.

	How have you experienced reaching across race, class, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and age lines to build coalitions to address community problems?  Have these efforts worked?  What have been some of the resistances to this work?

As with last week, we see Jesus in an identity struggle in Mark 1:40-45.  Jesus heals the leprous man but then tells him to go to the priest and pay the sacrifices in accordance with the Mosaic Law.  In this we see him making health care accessible in the community, but he is not portrayed as confronting the oppression in the system which requires those healed to pay a great price to the priests.  We see, just as in the Na’aman story, that those on society’s lowest levels gets the ball rolling in this story. It is the man with leprosy that tells Jesus he can heal the man if Jesus chooses.  Jesus states that he will do this, but then Jesus warns him not to tell anyone else.  Although scholars have referred to this as part of the “Messianic Secret” motif in the Gospel, it also points to some internal struggles within Jesus himself about when he should reveal himself, out himself, for the one who he is.  It seems that in his estimation the time is not yet.  Too many of us who struggle and wrestle with, “not now,” keep asking “then, when?”  While Jesus does make the move that he must address the physical needs of those hurting in the system, he has not yet come to the point of doing so openly and challenging the system on its forms of oppression.

The end of the story is also troubling.  Here we see that the man Jesus saved from leprosy “outs” Jesus throughout the town.  This passage raises the question of the ethic of “outing.”  Outing both presses one’s own position on sexual orientation, and, at the same time, makes visible same gender loving people in the community.  The ethics of this act, however, should be in the hands of the individual, her or himself.  One has to come to terms oneself with both the costs and benefits to the self and to the community of the act “coming out.”

Although Jesus is presented as prepared to address the physical needs of those individuals who are hurting, he has not come to the point of openly presenting himself as one who is challenging the system on its forms of oppression and empowering those who are oppressed to seek what is due them.  As the story ends, Jesus, having been outed as the one who chooses to address these problems is surrounded by those who are in need.  The risk of being true to oneself in relationship with others is that they may take away from you the right to decide when it is time for self-disclosure in the community.  But as Jesus shows us, it ultimately is worth the risk of being in relationship with others.  Clearly this is preferable to the option in 1 Corinthians 9 of torturing the self to become approved in a game where only one will win.

	How might Jesus have felt when he told the man he cured of leprosy , “Yes I’ll heal you, but you can’t tell anyone else”?   Have you been caught in this tension?  Have you, like Jesus, risked helping a person/group hoping they would be trustworthy in not “outing” you?  How have you dealt with the violation of trust, when it has occurred?