In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Then, as a part of their proclamation of God’s kingdom, Jesus tells his apostles to do certain things: cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. We might be wondering: How are we supposed to do these things as followers of Christ here in Yazzo City, Mississippi at the beginning of the 21st century? Well, let’s look at curing the sick. While most of us listening to God’s word do not have to power to perform miracles of healing and most of us here at mass today are not medical professionals, there are other ways we can cure the sick. A couple of weeks ago, Mary Rutledge & Margaret Oakes & I went to see some of the sick & shut-ins of our parish community out in the country one Sunday afternoon after all of our masses. You should have seen the joy in their faces to have us visit. We did not return until late in the evening, & I will admit I was quite tired at the end of a busy weekend. But, we did represent Christ & the Church to them in that visit, especially in the way we care for them & in the way we are praying for healing in their lives. We also brought the Eucharist with us to these sick and shut-ins, which was certainly Christ’s real presence for them in a special way. But, by those visits, I do believe we brought some healing into their lives & helped them feel the love of Christ.
Then, when we are asked to cure lepers, I think about Father Damien who worked with the lepers in Hawaii; I think of the leper colony in Carville, Louisiana, which on the site of an abandoned sugar plantation was the last place where lepers were treated here in the United States. There are no lepers for us to visit here in Yazoo City, but there are those who live in the margins of society in our community, those who are often forgotten by many of us. Do we pray for the prisoners or participate in prison ministry in some way? Do we reach out to the immigrants, the mentally ill, the homeless? Indeed, who are marginalized in our society & often treat as outcasts: what can we do to help cleanse them & feel a part of the bigger picture? How we help them feel accepted and loved?
When we look at God’s Word, in the way it pertains to the people of ancient Israel & to the particulars of their culture, perhaps at times it does not seem like it is speaking directly to us on the surface. But when we break open his Word & reflect on it in the light of the signs of our own times, God indeed has a message that is very relevant for us today.
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