Touch – there is touch that harms: the child or spouse that has been abused, the victims of rape and violence know that touch can be very painful and destructive. But there is also the touch that heals: the touch of a loved one, whether an arm across one’s shoulder, a gentle kiss, or the holding of hands. One of the hardest things about aging is the loss of being touched. When you lose your spouse or your closest friends, who will touch you?

At the heart of today’s gospel is a touch. Jesus touches a leper. In doing this, he breaks a taboo. Leprosy was a disease that struck terror in the heart. It left one untouchable. When a person was declared to have leprosy, one had to leave the community – leprosy was seen as both contagious and polluting. It made you a castaway, shut out. The disease was also understood to render a person unfit to worship God. God who is all holy, all pure, could not be approached if one had leprosy. Usually lepers covered their heads so that their breath would not touch another and they rang a bell, shouting unclean, unclean. And into this situation, Jesus came.

Jesus knew all of this nevertheless he cut through the religious and social taboos. He allowed the leper to approach him. Then he did the unthinkable. He reached out and touched him before he cured him. When Jesus touched the leper, this touch was God’s kiss. Why did he do what the law forbids? The touch shows Jesus’ great compassion for the outcast, the sinner and the sufferer. He touched the leper that he might show that all things are clean to the one who is clean himself. To show that external uncleanness does not defile the clean of heart. He touched him to teach us to despise no one.

Leprosy may be a thing of the past in our country but there are still those treated like lepers – still those who are despised or rejected. There are people and situations that we cast out – that we don’t want to talk about because it is too difficult or too sensitive or too complicated. Racism is still present in our culture and often times our silence upon hearing a racist comment, our avoidance of confronting the comment, keeps it alive. Often times alcoholics and addicts are shunned or rejected – we avoid loving confrontation. Those suffering from mental illness are often rejected as are the handicapped, the elderly and the frail.

Jesus understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich, the thirst that can lead people to drink from muddy waters. Jesus stretches our capacity for compassion. He challenges our idea of love. Each of us has a great capacity for love. The pity is that it often goes unused. We have it in our power to reach out to those who are suffering the pain of rejection. We could rekindle hope, bring back the zest for living, in someone else...we could actually reflect the infinite compassion of God.

By looking at Jesus we see how a Christian community should deal with sinners and the people society rejects. Who are the ‘lepers’ – the outcasts of our day? We know how Jesus would have treated them. How do we treat them?

When Jesus touched the leper, this touch was God’s kiss. The first listeners of this story would recognize its truth. The people in Mark’s community would take it into themselves. They knew that at baptism they had been touched by God, cleansed by the divine touch. And so God continues to act, using water to touch our skin and oil to soothe us. God touches us through the embrace of the sign of peace at Mass. Most deeply, God touches us through bread and wine that enter our bodies. One of the most beautiful moments in the liturgy occurs when we receive communion. We come forward, hands outstretched, and the host is placed upon the palm of our hand. Pure gift from a God who will enter our being as gently as we swallow. Then God sends us out to touch our world with love and compassion, especially those considered untouchable, because there are no untouchables with God.