JESUS IS OUR MODEL

VI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Leviticus 13:1-2,44-46

It is easy to judge and condemn the past. And this is a prevalent attitude nowadays. We are faced with the “cancel culture”, in which everything and everybody not in accordance with the politically correct has to be cancelled. The cancel culture imposes ignoring, despising and banishing anybody that questions the new dogmas which reign in the social and political arena. This may include to take out statues of important figures of the past, to change names of streets and public buildings or even to shame and threaten anybody into submission. And the tech giants have given themselves the power to police the world and to banish whatever doesn’t please them or goes against their ideas.

We may be appaled with the first reading, hearing the harsh treatment inflicted on all those who were suspect of having leprosy. To protect the community from this contagious disease, they were excluded, thus becoming outcasts. This measure of self-protection is presented with religious motives since everything in all aspects of life had a religious dimension. Considered impure, the leper was isolated and separated for fear of making the whole community unclean, rendering it incapable of giving worthy worship to God. We may question the religious motives and consider them to be unfounded. Jesus ignored those rules of uncleanness and touched the leper with love and compassion, setting new ideals for people to pursue.

However, during this time of the covid pandemic, we have seen whole nations being put under lock-down to control the rate of infection. Most of us have experienced the big impact which the lock-down have in all spheres of life. In old times, the leper was excluded as if he was already dead. Now, under lock-down, the whole population is forced to live a lonely life, each one in his own house, always keeping a social distance from the others. Any kind of highly infectious disease forces us to recognise our fragility and our mortality and we are faced with our fears and uncertainties. In this situation, we may ask where is God and what kind of relationship we have with him. It seems that, on the whole, our society forgot Him and lost all reference to him.

In the second reading, St. Paul gives two basic rules: a) “whatever you do at all, do it for the glory of God”; b) “Never do anything offensive to anyone”, but “try to be helpful to everyone at all times”. Everything for the glory of God and the benefit of others. We will never go wrong if we try to live by these two rules. And as a model, we must look to Jesus Christ. In everything, we must try to imitate him, following his way of life.