Rejected from Community

 

Aransas Pass Lydia Point Lighthouse

In Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent, Richard Rohr (on December 19) talks about Jesus’ healing of people in the Gospels.  He most often healed lepers - he always touched them - and he usually sent them somewhere else.  Lepers weren’t necessarily those we would diagnose with leprosy today.  They were those who were deemed to be unacceptable in society - diseased, contagious, disabled.  When Jesus heals them, he “pulls them back to social acceptability.  That is the healing.  The lepers are no longer disposable.”

I thought that was a profound look at healing.  And then I read his next sentences.  When Jesus healed the lepers, he became unclean himself. He became unacceptable.  “He changes places with them.“

And then this:

“Barren women and lepers are, of course, stand-ins for all of us as classic ‘before’ pictures.”

We have been healed.  We have been made acceptable-if not in society, then in the kingdom of God.  Jesus has taken our place.  Who around us has been rejected from community?  Who have you rejected from community?

I am part of the United Methodist Church.  There are some of us who have rejected those whose sexual orientation or gender identity is different than our own.  Truthfully, I don’t think it matters what your viewpoint is on this matter when I say that none of us are empowered to reject people from our community? Where are you healing people?

(Don’t misunderstand me - I do think it matters what your viewpoint is on this matter in the larger picture, but even if you hold a traditional viewpoint, rejected is not allowed, is it?)