Morning after thoughts, 6th Sun after Epiphany

Well, there are still many things swirling around in my mind about this text.....like, for instance, the way it ends:

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

99 out of 100 commentators take that to mean that Jesus is now *so popular* because the [former] leper didn't keep his mouth shut like Jesus had *sternly* told him. Due to this extreme popularity, the tiny narrow streets & alleyways simply could not accommodate the huge crowds of the villages that desired to see Jesus, so now he had to stay out in the countryside.
I generally accept that this is the original intent behind Mark's point, however, the alternative is at least worth considering.

We have to remember that Jesus JUST TOUCHED A LEPER. That makes HIM unclean now. Even if he doesn't contract leprosy himself, he still needs to go through the prescribed purification process in order to become "clean" again. It's as though he touched a dead body. Furthermore, if he was interested enough in upholding the Jewish customs concerning these things that he instructed the Leper to go to a priest & submit to the prescribed manner of being declared "clean," (vs 44), then he should do the same, HIMSELF, given that he had just had physical contact with a Leper. And here's the thing......maybe he *did*.....but Mark doesn't say he did. It just says now he can't go into the villages. Maybe it's because he's too popular.......but *maybe* it's because he's been associating with the wrong people. Maybe it's because a large segment of the culture now views Jesus as UNCLEAN.

The thing about that latter possibility is that there will always be the risk that when we TRY to follow Jesus....when we TRY to go where he went and interact with the hurting, disenfranchised, like he did, we'll end up touching the "wrong" people and losing points in the "in crowd" for it. This takes wisdom and discernment. To lose face for being a jerk or a weirdo is not our calling. But to lose face for touching the lepers of our society is.

cheers,

TM