Feb 13, 2000

James R. Gorman

Two weeks ago I went to the dentist to have a crown put in. I had long ago gotten used to the plastic gloves that medical professionals and police use these days. The strange odor of plastic (or whatever they're made of) used to bother me and the otherworldly feel to the plastic on my skin is a bit strange. I never have liked the masks that they must wear. But now it is just one of the smells and feelings you get used to when being cared for by folks who must protect themselves from only God knows what.

At first the experience of plastic gloves at the dentist's office sort of put me off. It put a kind of distance--a barrier--between me and the professionals. The plastic was kind of accusatory. "You may have a disease that I don't want to get." I know that it could work the other way around, of course. I know it could be a prevention of spreading a disease from another patient to my mouth and that the plastic gloves prevents that.

But one of the times the dentist put his hands into my mouth two weeks ago, he was just checking to see if the crown was fitting properly and he didn't put the gloves on. I felt his bare hands on my mouth; it was strangely comforting to me, to feel his hand on my face and lips (to the extent to which I could feel anything with my lips. He put in an anesthetic that numbed me all the way to the back of my head!).

But I was strangely moved by being touched by the dentist with his bare and uncautious hands.

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This is a deeply touching and yet mysterious story about Jesus and the leper. That part of the story we understand is deeply touching. But there is much about the story that lies beyond our understanding and that makes the story a mystery.

The leper approaches Jesus at the city wall and makes a somewhat impertinent request. "I know it is within your power to heal me, if you should so choose." And Jesus reaches out and touches the man with a contagious skin disease and says, "I do choose. Be made well."

Jesus touches people who are not supposed to be touched. A man was brought to Jesus who could not hear and had a speech impediment. Jesus took him aside privately and put his fingers in the man's ears and then Jesus spat on his hands and touched the man's tongue (Mark 7:33). In another story, people brought a blind man to Jesus and begged him to touch him. And Jesus did touch him. He put saliva on his hands and put his hands on the eyes of the blind man. (Mark 8:23).

And each touch of Jesus must have sent shivers up the spine of the righteous and the holy. When Jesus put saliva on his hands and put his hands in the man's mouth, those around him must have gone "Eeuuuwwww!"

Our age is not so different from Jesus'. We are fearful of touch in the same way that people of Jesus' time were.

And, truth be known, we have much to be afraid of. But here we have these strange stories of Jesus touching untouchable people in untouchable ways.

People with skin diseases were not to be touched by anyone in those days. They were, in fact to stay out of the entire city lest healthy people touch them and get their disease. There was not a lot of social permission to touch such people in those days. There is not a lot of social permission to touch anyone in our day, much less those who might be contagious.

But Jesus reaches across the enormous divide of custom and (let's face it) common sense to touch this leper. And by touching, healing. Maybe even healing in the most profound sense. For to be touched by another is to be honored. To be taken seriously. To be held in high regard by the one touching you.

Our current fear of touching is not just a fear of communicable diseases. It also has to do with the abuse of touch by some. And now we have to teach our children about good touch and bad touch. It's sad. So, few of us touch for fear that our touching might be misconstrued. We have to content ourselves with a pat on the back. A hand on the elbow. A firm shake of the hand that doesn't linger too long.

As a result, we are as touch-starved as were the people of Jesus' day. And it is no wonder that those who traveled with Jesus were stunned by his capacity to touch especially the untouchables.

At Faith Church we have our own kind of leper colony. The program for the mentally disabled that Goodwill runs here every day is a treasure, as you have heard me say countless times. Janet and Ruth and I go over to visit that program once every day we are here just to check in on our favorites.

One of our very favorite "clients," as we call them, is a woman called "Lupe." Her name is Guadalupe and I sometimes call her "my lady of Guadalupe." Lupe evidently came from a loving home where there was great and demonstrated affection. Lupe loves to hug and be hugged. She loves to be touched. Her device for getting touched is to touch her own face or elbow or knee and say something that sounds like "Hurt." Or "Ow". Or we think we have one phrase figured out, "Ow dee dow." We think that means I fell down and she'll point to some part of her body that is hurting.

And when you touch that part of her body, often her face or her arm, she slows down. She closes her eyes, her eyebrows make a kind of tent on her forehead and her mouth forms an "O". Lupe, who is normally very active, will become pliant in our hands when she is touched.

Not very many years ago, folks like Lupe were hidden away from society. In England the hospital called "Bethlehem" was reserved since the early part of the 19^th century for patients with mental or emotional diseases and the locals began to refer to any kind of chaos as "Bedlam." But now, thanks to programs like Goodwill, we can draw near to those who were not so very many years ago untouchable, and we learn in the process the miracle of touch.