Unrecognize the Borders
Humans
have always taken pleasure in constructing borders. The walls of those borders
are so impervious that even God cannot get through without the fear of being
abandoned. Borders have become the epicentre of human cognition. Any attempt to
fidget with these would result in cognitive dissonance. Frantz Fanon, a French
West Indian Psychiatrist explicates;
Sometimes people hold a core
belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works
against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a
feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And
because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore
and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.[1]
Jesus
was a victim of cognitive dissonance. He was executed for throwing the
perceptions and beliefs of the people to question. In order to safeguard our
borders we chose to exterminate him once and for all. But we often forget that
no border is so indelible that cannot be washed away by the blood of Jesus. The
life and ministry of Jesus teaches us that the borders should not only be
transcended but also refused to be recognized.
The
Scripture portion for today i.e. Luke 5: 12 - 16 exemplifies one such occasion where
Jesus refused to acknowledge the human constructed borders of purity and
pollution. The passage illustrates the cleansing of a leper. One of the painful
things of being afflicted with a contagious epidemic (leprosy here for
instance) is that your identity dissolves into it. You are henceforth known as
the bearer of that particular disease and your name is totally obscured. This is
evident in the pericope as the leper is not named but is recognized with his
disease. This makes me also complicit of the sin of using the term ‘leper’ for
this person (instead of his name) as I interpret the text.
The
social location of a leper during the time of Jesus was really agonising. He was
not only considered but also asked to proclaim himself loud enough “Unclean, unclean”.
Leviticus 13 ought to be read to understand the magnitude of discrimination. The
Jewish historian Flavius Josephus writes;
Moses expelled from the city both
those whose bodies were attacked by leprosy and those with spermatorrhoea. He
segregated until the seventh day women whose secretion occurs for them in
accordance with nature, after which he permitted them, as already pure, to
associate with the community. Similarly, it is prescribed by law for those who
have buried the dead to associate with the community after as many days... He
banished lepers completely from the city-associating with no one and in no way
differing from a corpse.[2]
When
menstruants and those “defiled” by the dead were isolated within the city, lepers were excluded from the cities. Milgrom, in his commentary on Leviticus, suggests
that the leper defiles foods that are with him in a tent-even without coming
into contact with them—and therefore he is excluded from the camp, unlike other
“unclean” individuals.[3] Thus
anyone who would come in contact with a leper would consequently be “unclean”.
Bearing
all these rigidified notions of purity and pollution in mind, Jesus shows the
nerve to refuse the acknowledgment of such a border and touches and cleanses
the leper. Last year in my meditation entitled Polluted
Christ I juxtaposed this passage with Dalits and spoke about the
subversiveness of touch in the context of untouchability. This year I intend to
speak about the healing of the leper as a counter paradigmatic act of
challenging the impasses of Priesthood.
Jesus
through his injunction to the leper “Go and show yourself to the Priest” (Luke
5: 14) shatters the Levitical Priesthood and inaugurates the arrival of a new
priesthood; the priesthood of all humans embedded in Christ. According to the Levitical
code it was the prerogative of a priest to examine and pronounce an afflicted
person as clean (Lev 13: 43) but Jesus through his pronouncement to the leper “Be made clean” (v
13) elevates himself to priesthood.
The examination and pronouncement
have already been made (by Jesus). Instead, the injunction to show himself to
the priest is a challenge to the current priesthood. The former leper is to
show the priests that he has been healed independently of them. Thus, he goes
to them not to be examined and classified, but “as a witness to them.” That is,
he is to go as a prophetic witness, not a patient. He is to testify to what has
happened and to the one who has made and pronounced him clean. The indication, therefore,
is that a new priesthood has arrived, summed up in Jesus himself.[4]
Another
fascinating thing that the text reveals if we pay close attention to the syntax
and semantics is the fact that Jesus becomes the New Temple. The leper’s way of
approaching Jesus makes this blatant – “When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his
face to the ground.” (Luke 5:12) This act of bowing and prostrating is typical
of the worshippers approaching the Tabernacle/Temple. This act reiterates that
Jesus is not only the new Priest but also the new Temple from which healing
springs.
The
Priesthood of today has fallen into the vicious circle of Clericalism.
Clericalism needs to be whipped and denounced as it is the wayward progeny that
came into existence with the illegitimate fusion of imperialism and ecclesiasticism.
Instead of being the representatives of Christ, priests have become the slaves
of a tyrannical hierarchical empire. Denominational fidelity gains precedence and
prominence over fidelity to Christ. The church needs to reaffirm its historical
and rebellious roots as a radical and democratic community of equals i.e.
ecclesia. The vices of institutionalism have demeaned the sacrament of orders.
The
Orthodox Ecclesiology offers an alternative. We believe in Sacerdotal
Anthropology which proposes humans as “Priests of Creation”. Orthodoxy perceives
the created world as a “cosmic liturgy” in which humans collectively form the
Priesthood and the wider creation the Laity. Dishearteningly despite such subversive
theological, anthropological and cosmological subsistence the Orthodox Church also seems to have fallen prey to clericalism. This is because the hierarchy which should
have been kenotic (self-emptying) has become oppressive. Mathew Briel opines;
The sin of clericalism is a
fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of hierarchy. Instead of viewing
hierarchy as a form of self-emptying love (kenosis), clericalism views the
hierarchy as a structure of power. In this way, although the danger of
clericalism has been especially pernicious in the Catholic Church, all branches
of Christianity that have a high regard for hierarchy are susceptible to
clericalism.[5]
Lent
should be a time for all of us to renew our inherent vocation of Priesthood. The
yardstick of Priesthood should be Christ himself. Drawing inspiration from
Jesus’ encounter with the leper let us refuse to recognize human constructed
borders that impede human communion and acknowledge the vestiges of divinity in
our fellow human beings and the wider creation. Let us also pray that may
clericalism be uprooted from the churches so that they become truly inclusive
devoid of any form of discrimination. I conclude with the Monday Soutoro vespers
of the Orthodox Church which states;
Let your body be a church and
your mind a glorious sanctuary. Let your mouth be a censer and your lips be a
smoke of the incense and let your tongue be a minister to appease the Godhead. Amen
Prayers
Dn.
Basil Paul
[2]
Louis H. Feldman, Flavius Josephus:
Translation and Commentary, Volume 3: Judean Antiquities , Books 1-4 (Leiden:
Brill, 1999), 308-9.
[3]
Hannan Birenboim, “Expelling the Unclean from the Cities of Israel and the
Uncleanness of Lepers and Men with a Discharge according to 4Q274 1 I” in Dead Sea Discoveries (Leiden: Brill,
2012), 41.
[4] Nicolas
G. Piotrowski and David S. Schrock, “You Can Make Me Clean: The Matthean Jesus
as Priest and the Biblical –Theological Results” in Criswell Theological Review 14/1, 2016, 9.
[5] Mathew
Briel, “Clericalism and the Sexual Abuse Crisis” https://publicorthodoxy.org/2018/08/23/clericalism-and-the-sexual-abuse-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR2vFsX6erM8emEEHir2P0d5qlsas0MX02ieI3Fjsjsl8PrWqVAXzkZ1zlM.
Comments
Post a Comment