Deacon Mike Meyer / Sunday, February 11, 2024 / Categories: Blog, Homilies Imitate Christ Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary TIme When Fr. Chester asked me to preach today instead of my usual first Sunday of the month, he explained that he thought it would be better to hear about World Marriage Sunday from someone who’s married. That made sense to me, but I began to question his motives when I read today’s readings. Leprosy? I’m supposed to preach about skin diseases on the day we celebrate marriage? You’d think the Church could’ve come up with readings that are more suitable to the occasion than leprosy. Well-played, Father Chester. Well-played. What’s a preacher supposed to do with leprosy on World Marriage Sunday? Should I emphasize the “for worse” part of the “for better, for worse” wedding vow? Maybe I should counsel against the “Seven-Year Itch.” Somehow, I have to figure out how these readings are relevant to us today. I guess I can’t just scratch the surface of these readings. I’ll have to dig a little deeper to see what God’s message might be. Our first reading from Leviticus makes our skin crawl. Scabs, pustules, blotches, reading it’s like binge-watching an ancient version of Dr. Pimple Popper. What’s going on here? Well, today’s passage sets forth the law concerning skin diseases, which translators collectively and mistakenly call leprosy. To the modern ear, the law sounds harsh: people with severe skin diseases must present themselves to the priest, and if the priest declares them “unclean,” they have to dress in mourning clothes, keep a safe distance from others on the street, and live apart from the community until their disease clears up. While we might be tempted to give the Jews a bad rap for the law’s strictness, we have to remember that this law comes from God. It’s a divine commandment of self-quarantine to prevent the spread of disease. Note that I said self-quarantine. The law doesn’t tell the community to expel people with skin diseases. There’s no condemnation or accusation of sin here. The law tells people with skin diseases to remove themselves from the community for the good of the whole. It promotes self-sacrifice for the good of others, a noble, virtuous, and Godly act. Hang onto that for a moment while we dig into our Gospel. In our passage from Mark, Jesus compassionately cures the leper who kneels before him, begging, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus’ response is crucial here. The leper doesn’t repulse him. He doesn’t send the man away for fear of catching his illness. He doesn’t criticize or repudiate the law either. He was moved, “in his guts,” as the Greek original tells us, to free the man from the constraints of the law by touching him and saying, “I do will it. Be made clean.” Jesus willed that the man be cured. He willed the good of another. Self-sacrifice and willing the good of another are expressions of the highest form of love. You see, there are several words for love in the original Greek texts of the Bible, but the highest form of love is agape (ἀγάπη). Agape is benevolent, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. It’s God’s love for humanity, made manifest through Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross for our sins. It’s the love that compels Christ to remain with us always until the end of the age through the gift of the Eucharist. When Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as he loved us (John 13:34), he uses the verb form of agape. When Saint Paul tells us that “love is patient, love is kind,” he uses the word agape (1 Corinthians 13:4). When Jesus tells us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), he’s using the verb form of agape. This agapeic love, self-sacrifice and willing the good of another, is essential to all human relationships, especially MARRIAGE! Let’s start with self-sacrifice. Marriage begins with self-sacrificing love; it’s giving oneself to another. As Saint Pope John Paul II explained, “Betrothed love differs from all the aspects or forms of love. Its decisive character is the giving of one’s own person to another. The essence of betrothed love is self-giving.”[1] In marriage, we surrender ourselves to the one we love, a gift that makes it possible for two very different people to live side-by-side, through thick and thin, unto death. Couples don’t always agree, and in those times, we can’t adopt a “my way or the highway” attitude if we want our marriage to succeed. We can’t serve our wants and needs exclusively without considering our spouse’s. As hard as it sometimes may be, agape demands that we give a little and take less, that we sacrifice and compromise. That’s the kind of love that holds a marriage together. Now let’s look at willing the good of another. Saint Thomas Aquinas defines love as “the choice to will the good of the other.” Willing the good of another is the kind of love that gets us through the tough times, like when our spouse gets under our skin or scratches our last nerve [not that that ever happens]. It’s another expression of agape. Let’s face it: every one of us can be difficult to live with now and then, and sometimes, we’re not very lovable. Yet, our marriage vows call us to love anyway (that’s the “for better, for worse part”). You see, “love, as distinct from ‘being in love,’ [isn’t just] a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will, deliberately strengthened by habit, [and] reinforced (in marriage) by the grace that both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other.”[2] How’s this possible? Think about it: we don’t have to like somebody to want them to be well, happy, or safe. That’s agape; that’s the benevolent, unconditional love God wants us to extend to everyone, most certainly to our spouses. God’s message to love each other with agapeic love is a fitting reminder to married couples on this World Marriage Sunday, but it applies to everyone; we all have skin in the game. Not everybody’s married. Not everybody wants to be married. Not everybody should be married, but we’re all called to love. Saint Paul makes that clear when he tells us in our second reading to “imitate Christ,” the perfect example of benevolent, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. Why should we? Because that’s the kind of love God intended for us to share when he created us in his image and likeness. That’s the kind of love that will carry us through the challenges of this world into the glory of the next. That’s the kind of “love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, [and] endures all things,” . . . even leprosy. Readings: Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; Psalm 32; 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45 [1] Karol Wojtyla, “Betrothed Love,” Love & Responsibility, trans. H.T. Willetts (London: William Collins Sons & Co., 198), 96. [2] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1980), 109. Superstar! Imitate Christ Print 224 Tags:Deacon Mike Meyer Preaching Deacon Michael A. Meyer Year B Love Please login or register to post comments.