Subversive Humility

2 Kings 5:1-14

Mark 1:40-45

The gospel reading today offers us a powerful image of Jesus as the one who boldly announces and demonstrates the drawing near of the kingdom of God and does so in a way that holds together the humility of Jesus with God’s active resistance to the kingdoms of evil. In this story we find what at first glance might seem to be irony. On the one hand Jesus’ actions announce a subversive healing authority in the life of the man with leprosy and on the other hand, in verse 44, he sternly commands the man healed of leprosy to silence. How might we interpret this command to silence? Surely such a profound demonstration of the healing power of Jesus should be broadcast as a sign of the kingdom of God? We can understand Jesus commanding an evil spirit to be silent as he did in the Synagogue at Capernaum (vs25). But why command, and sternly command, a man healed of leprosy to silence?

When we hold this gospel story together with the story we shared from the Hebrew Bible, I am led to contemplate how in both stories there is this reticence to draw attention to the prophet who is announcing the powerful healing grace of God.

In the story of Naaman we cannot fail to note the emphasis on Naaman’s greatness in contrast with the humility of the means of his salvation. In verse 1 we are told that Naaman was a great man and in high favour with his master… We contrast this with the messenger who brings him hope who was a young girl taken captive from the land of Israel.

Naaman goes to Israel prepared to reward his healer with greatness. He carries with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. When he finally comes to the house of the prophet, the prophet sends a messenger and refuses to even meet Naaman.

Naaman is furious with the way his sense of himself as important is met with the anonymity of the prophet and he boasts of the great rivers of Damascus and ridicules the Jordan. At every juncture of this story greatness is met by humility. In the end it is only when Naaman humbles himself and bathes in the Jordan that salvation is known in the form of his healing.

The anonymity of Elisha in the healing of Naaman points the reader of the story beyond the prophet himself to the God of the prophet, whom Naaman acknowledges in the end. When Jesus commands the leper to silence he is attempting to remain anonymous and to draw attention to the confrontation of the kingdom of God with the kingdoms of the world. The key in the both Elisha’s and Jesus’ behaviour is humility.

We don’t often equate humility with kingdoms and powerful healings that confront the status quo. So, what is humility if it is not merely shyness? Of all the theologians and philosophers sitting on my book shelf the one I turn to most readily for lessons in humility is A.A Milne and his profound reflections in the stories of Edward Bear, more commonly known as Winnie the Pooh. In the stories of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh we discover that Pooh, as he is known by his closest friends, is a study in humility. In the chapter called “Pooh and Piglet go Hunting”, Pooh Bear is to be found walking around a spinney (an English word describing a small wood). Having completed one circumference he discovers a set of footprints that he supposes belong to a mysterious creature known as a ‘Woozle’. Piglet joins him and together they walk around the spinney discovering regularly that there are more footprints and therefore more Woozles. Piglet gets nervous and Christopher Robin, who has been sitting in a tree branch watching them, laughs. Of course poor old Pooh has been tracking his own footprints around the Spinney. Pooh has a moment of self-realisation. He suddenly sees himself and recognises himself very clearly. It is as if the window cleaner (that Frank spoke of last week) has come and cleaned Pooh’s mirror and he can suddenly see himself in a way that he couldn’t until Christopher Robin laughed. His words touch the heart of all human experience. I have been foolish and deluded… and I am a bear of no brain at all.

This is a common theme in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Unlike Rabbit, Owl and Eeyore, Pooh is said to have very little brain. Pooh knows this about himself and he accepts it. And yet as the stories are told it becomes apparent that all of the animals in the stories love Winnie the Pooh. He is a poet, a song writer and a thoughtful and caring neighbour. Despite his humble status, his wisdom is often on display and we the readers of the stories are led to feel and think what Christopher Robin often says. “You’re the best bear in all the world”.

Winnie-the-Pooh’s humility is his ability to recognize himself clearly, to embrace himself with all of his limitations. Humility in the case of the prophet Elisha was his ability to know himself, the prophet, as distinct from God the healer. Humility in the case of Jesus was his ability to know himself the human being as distinct from God, the one who breaks into the present with the new kingdom. In John 12:44 Jesus says, Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. Jesus’ own divinity, if we read the gospels carefully, is found in his humility; his recognition of himself as human and his willing embrace of that recognition.

In the case of Jesus healing the leper, the command to silence given to the leper is not only an expression of humility but also a subversive and confrontational act. Jesus demonstrates subversive humility not only in the recognition of his own humanity but in the recognition and embrace of the leper’s full humanity. Is it possible to speak of humility as being subversive and confrontational? It is not only possible but it is in fact at the heart of the meaning of humility that it confronts the powers and undermines them. This is demonstrated in a delightful story told by Bishop Tutu… (I don’t give way to animals…I do).

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy can be seen as another example of humility that confronts the prevailing powers. Sitting on the lawns in front of the old Parliament House it is in stark contrast to its surroundings. Writing in the opinion section of the Canberra Times a week before Australia Day this year Jack Waterford commented that to many the embassy has caused offence and in some cases “splenetic offence”. He wrote, “It does not belong there. That’s the point. It’s an embarrassment. That’s the point. It’s an unwelcome reminder that the rich country, the lucky country, the egalitarian and relaxed land of the fair go, of mateship and multiculturalism has a dirty little secret…”

The presence of a humble tent in the midst of the halls of government serves as a subversive and confrontational symbol of the quest for justice. In humility human beings see themselves clearly, understand and embrace their own limits and indeed enter ever more fully into their own limits. Out of this emerges an authenticity that in its simplicity confronts the demons and the powers that are ever seeking to seduce human beings into embracing a false understanding of themselves and their world.

In today’s gospel story the confrontation shifts from what has, up until now in the gospel of Mark, been a confrontation with the openly demonic to a confrontation with the more subtle bondage of religious purity laws. A ‘leper’ approaches Jesus. His challenge to Jesus has a double meaning that reveals the heart of the conflict between the Kingdom of God and the religious purity codes. If you choose, you can make me clean.

On the face of it this is a challenge to Jesus to heal the man of his leprosy, and that is certainly what it is. But there is another element to the challenge. Implicit in it is the plea to be pronounced clean according to the purity laws. The man with leprosy will never be embraced by society, religion and family until such a pronouncement of ritual cleansing is made by the appropriate authorities. The leper is suggesting to Jesus that he has the authority to do what according to the law only the Priest can do, pronounce him to be clean according to the law of Moses and end his bondage to isolation from the community.

So, we have set the scene for a serious confrontation between the good news of the Kingdom of God and the bondage of the purity laws within which the leper is held captive. This story is found in all three of the synoptic gospels (Mt 8:1-4 & Lk 5:12-16) but only Mark includes reference to how Jesus was feeling in the midst of this challenge. Verse 41 tells us that Jesus acted out of pity for the man with leprosy. I wonder what moved Jesus with pity? Surely the leprosy itself, no doubt the social isolation that came with having his particular disease, but even more profoundly (and I wonder if this is what transformed Jesus’ pity into anger) pity for the man excluded by a religion powerless to embrace him with healing.

Jesus breaks the purity law. First he declares the man to be pure and clean by physically touching him. Then he brings the hoped for physical healing. And now Jesus is angry; angry that the religion of the people, his own religion, is powerless to liberate them. We might expect Jesus to storm off to the priest with the man and demand to know why they could not help him when clearly Jesus, a country Rabbi, could. Surely this would be a great opportunity for Jesus to spread the word about himself and this new kingdom he was preaching about?

Jesus commands the leper to silence. He embraces with humility his own humanity and effectively says, “This is not about me and the miracle I have just performed, this is about the kingdom of God confronting the kingdoms of the world with the power to heal and liberate.” Jesus himself steps into the background and seeks to highlight the approaching reign of God. We are reminded of the words spoken about him in the Philippian hymn…

…though he was in the form of God,
(he) did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸ he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:6-8

By sending the now liberated leper to the priest Jesus brings the kingdom of the world into confrontation with the kingdom of God. Our translation renders verse 44 as “…show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.” Ched Myers, a socialist commentator on Mark, argues that the real sense of the Greek is that Jesus means the offering is to be given by the leper as a “witness against them”, and indeed the same phrase in the Greek (eis marturion autois) is used by Mark elsewhere to give that sense of witnessing against (6:11; 13:9). Jesus has demonstrated that the kingdom of God can do what the religious kingdom of the world cannot; bring healing and liberation to those who are lost and excluded.

So in this story the command to silence offers us a picture of a Jesus who embraces humility in himself and thus becomes a vehicle for a subversive confrontation between the kingdom of God and the legalism of the purity laws.

What is the invitation to us in this story? I am suggesting that this story invites us, as the gospel always does, to follow Jesus in this, to be his disciples. Jesus embraced his own humanity, which means he embraced his own limitations, his own emptiness. But in doing so he discovered and encouraged a new power, the power of the kingdom of God that confronted and subverted the existing powers.

If we are to follow Jesus then we are called also to embrace our own humanity in full realisation of our limits and indeed our emptiness; what Matthew calls our “poverty of spirit”. Yet by embracing the emptiness of our humanity we are not being defeatist. On the contrary, it is when we, with humility, realise our emptiness and embrace it that the powerful, liberating saving presence of the kingdom of God is able to break in, confront the powers of evil and bondage and bring healing and liberation.

To put it in plainer terms, discipleship is not about us setting up ministry programs that will save the world. Discipleship is about us discovering the healing, liberating presence of God in the darkest and most empty extremes of human existence. It is when we let go of trying to build the kingdom of God ourselves and allow ourselves to be fully human alongside our fellow humans, to embrace one another in loving acceptance of our shared, limited and empty humanity, as Jesus did when he touched the untouchable leper, that we unexpectedly discover the liberating presence of God that has a power to undermine the powers of this world. When we recognise ourselves and our fellow human beings in this way we are able to participate in God’s reign. It is this humility that allows us to see and embrace our own humanity and that of those who are different to us, as Jesus was able to do with the leper. It is this humility that allows the kingdom of God to draw near to us.

We are called to embrace ourselves and to embrace our neighbours in humility before God, and then to celebrate the liberation that emerges amongst us. Let me finish with the quote from Thomas Merton that I have given you in the bulletin this morning.

The truly sacred attitude toward life is in no sense an escape from the sense of nothingness that assails us when we are left alone with ourselves. On the contrary, it penetrates into that darkness and that nothingness, realizing that the mercy of God has transformed our nothingness into His temple and believing that in our darkness His light has hidden itself. Hence the sacred attitude is one which does not recoil from our own inner emptiness, but rather penetrates into it with awe and reverence, and with the awareness of mystery… (Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience).