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Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.
In today’s first reading, things could not get any worse. In the gospel, things do not appear they could be any better.
Best and Worst
There are the best of times and the worst of times. And today’s readings really give us that picture. The first reading, it’s a disaster. This is really a bad, bad place for Israel to be. But for the leper in the Gospel, it is a good place. It is the best of times.
In the first reading, there is this horrible, terrible thing that has befallen Israel. And in the Gospel, there was this horrible, terrible thing that had befallen the leper that was removed. There was healing. There was reintegration into society. We have the worst and the best.
But the irony is this, at one and the same time, the question in both instances is the same. Where is God? Where is God in the midst of this terrible tragedy that we have experienced? We thought God would save us. We brought the Ark of the Covenant. And the leper, where is God in the midst of all of this?
Notice in the first reading that what we don’t get is some of the back story here about the ways in which things have kind of deteriorated long before the battle with the Philistines. We know that they’ve not always been faithful. We know that they’ve not always concerned themselves with their personal relationship with God. We know that they’ve lost sight of who they were, who they are, who they should be. Their relationship is not really a priority in their lives, really.
Faith can be like that. Or shall I say the practice of religion can be like that. We may seem like we’re doing things in the name of religion that are good and wonderful. They bring the Ark, but their hearts weren’t converted. Their lives weren’t changed. They weren’t first disciples.
In the Gospel reading, we get a similar type of circumstance and situation. We do not know what really was the circumstance of the leper before the encounter with Jesus. And except for the excitement of the leper, we don’t know what really happened to the leper afterwards. What’s interesting, though, is what Jesus doesn’t say the leper should be or do.
He doesn’t say, toss aside all of the ritual in your life. I’ve healed you. Don’t worry about the Jewish law. Don’t worry about the practice of your faith. I’ve done these things. You don’t need to worry about that. What does Jesus do? He says, go show yourself to the priest and for your cleansing, offer what Moses has prescribed. That should be proof for them. In other words, practice your faith.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that one is contingent on the other. In other words, perhaps the man did have great faith. Maybe he was a practicing Jew before his ostracizing because of his leprosy. We don’t know. But Jesus wants to make clear that in our own lives, our faith is not always only about our own effort. Nor is it about magic.
On some level, it strikes me that in the first reading, there’s at least some element of magic. And as long as we have the Ark of the Covenant, everything will be perfect and it won’t matter what we do. Well, if that was the attitude, it didn’t work out so well. The question then is one for us today.
Do we allow God to really change our hearts? Do we allow God to really make us see everything in the world through the lens of our relationship with Jesus? Do we make time in our lives for personal and silent prayer? Or do we busy ourselves with lots and lots of activity, even good activity? Realizing or perhaps believing that we can separate the good that we do from the source of goodness. Let us ask the Lord this day to help us to open our hearts to God, to allow God to change us and to convert us and to make us into the persons that God has desired us to become.
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