Memorial United Methodist Church

Memorial United Methodist Church
White Plains, New York 10605

I-Thou Community

A Sermon by Joe Agne, Pastor
Based on Mark 1:40-45
February 15, 2009 (Not edited or proofread)

The Focus Scripture -- Mark 1:40-45

40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’

⁴¹Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’

⁴²Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

⁴³After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,

⁴⁴saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’

⁴⁵But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesuscould no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

“I-Thou” Community and Drs. Martin Buber and Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Wednesday nights we are trying to understand the current economic crisis and its impact on the world, all of us and the church. We are considering a coffee house type venture where people could come to support each other, learn of job opportunities, barter, study and just have conversation. Last Wednesday we pulled out a classic book, Journey Inward, Journey Outward by Elizabeth O’Connor. We looked at the chapter on the Potter’s House, a coffee house for decades in Washington D.C., discussing their commitment to “presence, service and dialogue.” This purpose was on the menu, “The Potter’s House is to provide a place of meeting between persons.” This purpose was based on the statement attributed to Martin Buber, a Jewish Theologian that all life is meeting, the coming together of the “thou”of each person. God says to Adam, “Where art thou?” God asked the same question of each of us. “Where art thou in your life.” Buber rejected the idea that any human is an “it” and affirmed that every person is a “thou.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. picked up the same theme. He said that sin happens whenever we “thingafy” any person. He affirms that no person is an “it.” Every person is a “thou.” Like Buber he encouraged us to enter all relationships as “I-thou” and not as “I-it.” Dr. King’s commitment to nonviolence included the affirmation that each member of our families, our neighborhoods and even our enemies is a “thou.” This seems obvious doesn’t it? Yet I so often catch myself “thingafying” someone or a group of persons, especially when I feel like they are rejecting or thwarting me. Sometimes people who want to control populations or groups will “thingafy” a group – Nazis portraying Jews as less than human, white persons depicting Black men as violent, rich people rendering poor people as lazy, politicians describing Muslims as terrorists and some religious people deciding that love between people of the same gender is the cause of marriage breakdowns in our society. You get the idea. “Thingafying” prepares people for war and provides reasons to exclude and scapegoat people.

“I-Thou” Community and Jesus

Now lets look at our Gospel this morning. In the time of Jesus, people with leprosy were “thingafied.” Partially this was done by naming them by their disease. They weren’t “people.” “They were lepers.” They were defined by their disease. They were removed from the population and declared untouchable. The process for them to be allowed to re-enter community was for a priest in the temple to give them a bill of good health. Until then they could not eat with their families, worship with their community, sleep with their lovers or even be touched by their friends. They were chased out to the uninhabited areas. The medical system of their time did not work for them. They were not a “thou.” They were an “it.”

Jesus encountered the person with leprosy, who begged Jesus to be healed. It says in our translation that Jesus was “moved with compassion” and “touched” the person and the leprosy left him. Something very important just happened in this story. Jesus touched a person with leprosy. Jesus touched an untouchable person. The person becomes clean and is sent to the priest for the certificate they he is cured. At that very same moment Jesus becomes unclean. Why? He touched a person with leprosy. Now, Jesus is not welcome in the approved community of his time. Do you see the power of this transaction? Jesus acts in a way that includes the person he touches. This act excludes Jesus.

The phrase “moved with compassion” is a cleaned-up translation. Actually the words translated in this way actually mean “moved with anger.” What is Jesus angry about? Apparently he is angry about the way some religious people are complicit with a political and economic system that “thingafys” people. It not only fails their health; it excludes them from the love of their friends and family as they are struggling with their health. Yesterday I was in a demonstration in White Plains against the state tax cuts proposed by Gov. Patterson. These cuts negatively impact all citizens and especially poor people – their health, the education of their children the services people need to live. The very things that Gov. Patterson opposed before he was governor he now supports. His policies “thingafy” poor people. They treat individuals of the least means as an “it” and not as a “thou.”

I-Thou Community and Us

This week, I heart a writer on the radio talk about cure and heal. He told the story of a person whose home was broken into and everything was taken. The one who lost everything was devastated. Later the police found everything and gave it back to the home owner. Everything was restored. The writer said the home owner was cured but was not healed. Cure can be an event. Healing is a process.

In Jesus’ time many people cured. The surprise in this story is not that the person with leprosy no longer had the disease. Many had the power to do this for another. The difference is that Jesus touched the outcast, became an outcast and sent the person, no longer with the disease, to the priest as part to Jesus’ confrontation with the religious/health/political system of his time.

This was risky behavior by Jesus. He was committed to an “I-Thou” community. We are followers of Jesus. We can take the same risks.