I received an education in how people like to group people into categories when, as a junior in high school, I moved back to Minnesota from Chicago. The high school that I chose was a microcosm of cliques, of those who were “in” and those who were “out”. Having been in the same school from kindergarten, students over time had been sentenced to social ghettos within the high school. There were the jocks/cheerleaders, the popular kids, the geeks, the street kids, the hippies, and so on. Being new to the school, I could not be assigned a specific student ghetto. As a result, I floated freely within the social ghettos of the high school and quickly learned the difference between a genuine welcome and a phony welcome. I chose the clique that welcomed me genuinely and in doing so met my future bride.
In the scripture readings today we experience the social ghettos of 1st century Jewish society. There were those people who were the religiously righteous and those who were the ostracized. Jesus floated equally among the contrasting religious ghettos of his society. What the religious righteous of his time could not wrap their minds around was why Jesus didn’t spend more time with them, and why he spent more of his time associating with and ministering to the lepers, social and literal, of their society, namely, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, and all they considered “sinners.” As the Gospels illustrate, Jesus was very astute as to who welcomed him genuinely and those who did not.
In our relationship with other people we like to think in categories of “us” and “them.” What this Gospel demonstrates for us is that there are no “lepers” estranged from God. There is no “us” and “them” in God’s eyes. All humanity, regardless of race, culture, religion and nation, are children of the one, true God. The religious and social ghettos we construct in human society and within our own parish are in direct conflict with the Divine plan of God. This Gospel challenges all of us to reexamine the way we order our world.
