Infectious conditions seemed to be everywhere when I was a child. School was a veritable breeding ground for infectious illnesses. I can recall the discomforts I suffered from those, now, all but thwarted ailments. It seems to me that I contracted them serially -- measles, mumps, chicken pox -- one right after another. My images from those days include lying in bed, memorizing cracks in the ceiling, oatmeal baths, lotions, and what seemed interminable periods of itchiness, during which I was forbidden to scratch. Not always successful, mittens were affixed to my hands to minimize the alleged danger of long-term scarring. But some conditions seemed actually to be desirable. As I recall some thought it would be good for me to be exposed to certain while I was still a kid. Apparently, some infectious conditions were more desirable than others.

Leprosy figures prominently in our readings for today, and back in biblical times that was decidedly not a desirable condition to contract under any circumstances. In order to grasp the full impact of today’s readings, it’s important to understand leprosy back then. Researching this sermon, I immediately consulted my Merck Manual -- the physician's desk reference -- a habit I got from my father, but a volume that can be indispensable to the hypochondriacs among us. Leprosy, it says, is a “bacterial infection that strikes surface nerves, skin and mucous membrane.” Its means of transmission is unknown, but if you want to avoid contracting it steer clear of handling armadillos or direct long-term exposure to tropical soil without cleaning. There are estimated to be 5 million people infected with leprosy in the world today and they can be effectively treated, even cured in many cases. The manual hastens to add that until recently lepers were thought to be incurable, highly infectious, and were routinely isolated.

In biblical times leprosy was more common. While there wasn't very much physical pain associated with the disease -- because it often causes numbness to the nerves it affects -- it did cause terrible disfigurement, emotional pain, and immobility. In time a leper's extremities could be lost to the disease. Other infections, like gangrene, would ensue and the victim would eventually die. Since people thought that leprosy was highly contagious, a sign of uncleanness, and God’s punishment for it, communities drove lepers away. They were untouchable and isolated -- left to suffer the pains of disfigurement, as well as rejection, loneliness, contempt from others, disgust with themselves, and loss of physical ability. The isolation that lepers were made to suffer was justified by the idea that God inflicted leprosy for immoral or unclean living. Leprosy was the most dread of diseases.

Since there are very few cases of leprosy in America these days -- less than 5,000 -- I wonder if that description of leprosy might apply to other conditions in our time? What conditions can you think of that are accompanied by other people's fear, the victim's emotional pain, contempt from others, shame, and isolation or death? HIV/AIDS immediately comes to mind. It's one of today’s most feared conditions -- believed to be highly contagious and contracted by unclean or immoral practices, even God's judgement. Drug addiction often causes its victims to be isolated -- in prisons. Homelessness, poverty, and homosexuality seem to be regarded as consequences of moral failure. More and more communities are pushing those who are homeless from among them by increasingly vigorous restrictions on how public property may be used. Why, even in churches, people of different faith perspectives can be lepers to one another or can experience themselves that way by other people's behavior. Fear of contagion, rejection or judgement, feeling the contempt of others, and isolation -- these can be experienced among people of different faith expressions. Yes. There are conditions that seem to have the same affect in our time that leprosy did back in biblical times.

What, then, do our scripture readings have to say to us? Well, one thing is that God was able to heal leprosy when nothing else could. Nothing is beyond God’s healing power. Elisha and Jesus healed lepers, and yet neither of them healed every leper, and none of us have their healing gifts. So what do these readings have to do with us? Do they appear in Epiphany simply to let us know that God is powerful and that Jesus is the Savior? That's the main reason. But I wonder if there's anything else that these stories might teach us, who already believe.

In each story, and especially the Gospel, there was compassion. The leper said, "Jesus, if you choose, you can make me clean." Mark says that Jesus was moved with compassion and that He responded with 3 golden words -- "I do choose. Be made clean." I do choose. What a marvelous phase! Jesus chose compassion. Of course others had already made their choices. The leper's community had already chosen to fear and isolate him. But Jesus chose compassionate and to act compassionately. Even though He didn’t need to, Jesus went so far as to touch the leper. His compassion resulted in healing. Though we may not have the capacity, miraculously, to heal people's afflictions, we do have the capacity to change a people's conditions by choosing compassion as Jesus did. In fact, the choice to act compassionately always changes the condition of at least two people -- the one who receives the compassion and the one who makes the choice for it. And that's a miracle. There's precious little compassion in our world, these days. And that’s contagious to -- compassion infects the others. Too often, people treat others as lepers. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that people in our time huddle so closely with those who are like them that the ancient leper dynamic is widespread -- treating as untouchable those who are different from our selves. But we can choose to follow Jesus' example -- His lead -- by choosing compassion for those we're tempted to avoid.

Who are the lepers to you and why are they your lepers? Is the leper someone who dresses, looks, or speaks differently? Is the leper someone of a different race or socio-economic background? Is the leper a victim of HIV/AIDS or addiction? Is the leper someone who is poor or homeless? Is the leper someone of different religious perspective? Is the leper Muslim? Is the leper liberal or conservative? It's anyone whose differences we fear.

The opposite of faith isn't doubt, you know. It's fear, and fear is infectious too. It was fear that gave rise to how people treated lepers back in Jesus' time. It’s still fear -- the fear of personal harm or that the way another is will rub off on us. It's fear that if we don't treat others like lepers they might harm us or treat us that way. Well, God can break the power of fear and can make us able to choose compassion, instead. And that can work miracles -- in the ones we treat as lepers and in our selves. While fear is infectious, so is compassion, and compassion is a desirable condition. We contract compassion by receiving it -- from God and others. That, in turn, makes us carriers – makes us the infectiously compassionate people that Jesus was. Compassion involves spending time with those we fear. It involves stopping and listening. It involves trying to see the world through their eyes and seeing them from God's vantagepoint. It involves reaching out, touching them and letting them touch us. It involves treating others, as we'd like to be treated -- not as objects of threat, contempt or judgment. It involves befriending those who are isolated, affirming those who are scorned, embracing those who are rejected, empowering those who are weak, upholding those who are judged, and loving those who are despised. I suspect that we might experience more compassion as we choose to give it to others. And then we might just become contagious, ourselves, as followers of the One who always treats us with compassion.