AGAINST EXCLUSION
In Jewish society, the leper wasn’t just a sick person. He was, before anything else, impure. A stigmatized person, without a place in society, without welcome in any part, excluded from life. The old book of Leviticus said it in clear terms: «The leper will wear torn clothes and keep his head uncovered… He will go about warning in a loud voice: Impure, impure. As long as his leprosy lasts, he will be impure. He will live apart and stay outside of the village» (13,45-46).
The correct attitude sanction by the Scriptures is clear: society must exclude lepers from the common life. It’s what’s best for everyone. A firm stance of exclusion and rejection. There will always be in society those persons who are superfluous.
Jesus rebels against this situation. On one occasion a leper came up to him, surely warning everyone about his impurity. Jesus is alone. Maybe the disciples have fled away in horror. The leper doesn’t ask «to be healed», but «to be made clean». What he seeks is to see himself freed from impurity and social rejection. Jesus is moved, extends his hand, «touches» the leper and tells him: «I am willing. Be cleansed».
Jesus doesn’t accept a society that excludes lepers and the impure. He admits no social rejection toward undesirables. Jesus touches the leper in order to free him from fears, prejudices and taboos. He cleanses him in order to say to everyone that God doesn’t exclude or punish anyone with marginalization. It’s society that thinks only about its own security and thus raises barriers and excludes the unworthy from its bosom.
Only a few years ago we could all hear the promise that the highest leader of the State made toward its citizens: «We will clean the street of even the smallest delinquents». Seemingly, in the interior of a clean society, made up of good people, there is a «trash» that is necessary to get rid of in order for us not to be contaminated. A garbage, certainly, that can’t be recycled, since our jails of today don’t think about rehabilitating anyone, but exist to punish the «bad» and defend the «good».
How easy it is for us to think about «civil security» and forget the suffering of a few delinquents, drug addicts, prostitutes, beggars, and homeless people. Many of them haven’t known the warmth of a home or the security of a job. Trapped for ever, they neither know how to nor are able to get out of their sad destiny. And we, the exemplar citizens only think about clearing them from our streets. Seemingly, all very correct and very «Christian». And also very much against God.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
