PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

Mark 1:40-45                                                               JESUS OUTSIDE THE CAMP

Sermon February 15, 2009:  People's United Church of Christ, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

 

 

To be on the outside, marginalized, is a felling most of us have had sometime in our lives.  It's comforting to see that Jesus is out there with us in those times.

 

          Being "outside the camp" was a common phrase in the Old Testament story of the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt and their march across the Sinai desert toward the Promised Land.  Several things happen "outside the camp."  When Aaron and his sons were ordained as priests in the new cultus of Mount Sinai, there were sacrifices for them.  One of these was the sacrifice of a bull:  the new priests would lay their hands on the bull's head, and then the animal was sacrificed as a sin offering.  But there are certain parts of a bull that are not a worthy sacrifice to God, so it says:[1]

 

 

On the other hand, some things were "outside the camp" because the camp was full of muck and noise, and Moses did not mix that which is holy with the clamor of camp life:[2]

 

 

But mostly, to be "outside the camp" was to be an out-cast from the people.  We read about a leper whom Jesus healed outside the town.  This is what the Mosaic Law said about lepers:[3]

 

 

The word "unclean" doesn't mean "dirty":  it means "ritually unacceptable," that is, this person was prohibited from attending the sacrifices.  Lepers were supposed to stay away from God.  I'll bet you know how that feels—not to be worthy.

          I remember a man in my home church whom everybody respected.  He probably lived as good a life as anybody there.  He had a kind heart and an open hand.  But something had gone wrong in his life and he felt unworthy before God' so when we celebrated Holy Communion he just passed the trays on to the next person and didn't eat and drink.  In a symbolic gesture he was placing himself "outside the camp."  What can you do if you feel that way?  How can you become reconciled to God?  In a practical sense, conversation with the pastor or with a spiritually minded friend could be very helpful; but that help ultimately comes not from me but from Jesus, who found himself "outside the camp" and surrounded by mobs of unruly people.  Jesus is out there with us, and our own personal kinds of leprosy are made clean.

 

          But sometimes it's hard to recognize Jesus coming out to us—don’t you think?  The inspiring pictures of Jesus we have seen all our lives, that surround us in this sanctuary, that our children are looking at in Sunday School right now as I speak—the white man who has just had a bath, slim, hair combed, clothes ironed:  the picture of Jesus we carry around in our minds is a town Jesus who can go into the synagogue and read the scripture lesson, and we feel no distance from him.

          This is the image of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin.  He's more European than Palestinian.  The great religious art of the European masters often has Jesus dressed like a European prince.  But the real Jesus looked more like a modern Arab (except for the oil money):  he never owned much, he slept outside and didn't have an iron or shampoo, and after he had some confrontations with scholars in the synagogues he was banned from the buildings—he did his preaching standing in a fishing boat, or on a hill-side "outside the camp."  It surprises us to recognize this Jesus in the spirituals of the African-American heritage:

 

 

These words communicate the universal experience of those who get left out—"outside the camp."  Jesus met the leper there and cleansed him.  He met the slave there and freed her.  And Jesus is there for you, too, if you will recognize him.  Jesus is out there with us when we need a savior. 

 

          I met a widow—her husband had recently died; and she was facing a tax audit during her bereavement.  She kept coming to church, and the people of Jesus stood by her out there in that new desert of pain and terror.  She didn't just get through it, as we say:  she had her life reclaimed.  Jesus is out there with us. 

          Several years ago I went through the check-out line at a grocery store, and the girl who was working as the cashier said, "I know you!  You daughter's name is Beth, isn't it.  I went to high school with her."  I didn't recognize the girl, but I said, "Oh, are you one of Beth's friends?"  And she said, "No, I wasn't part of her crowd—I was pretty much by myself.  But knew her."  I didn't know what to say.  She looked sad about it.  Jesus is out there with us anyway—the "in-crowd" already has its reward.

          There was a middle-aged man named Earl, but he looked exactly like the pictures you see of General Robert E. Lee, and he had that soft central Virginia accent, too.  He working in a technical section of a bank, and he smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day, he couldn't sleep, he worried about whether his job would be there when the bank was bought out, he worried about his mother who was already in the third stage of Parkinson's Disease.  Earl was a mess.  He was part of a group at church that was studying prayer and finding ways to let go of "issues" and let God be present.  He learned to pray.  Jesus is out there with us, even when we think we've got to solve it all alone.

          Have you ever known anyone with osteoporosis so bad that sitting in a hard chair will fracture a bone?  She had a daughter living nearby who watched out for her, and a house-keeper who came in every day; but she was alone at night, and she was in almost constant pain.  But she always wanted a prayer before I left her house.  She knew where her strength came from:  Jesus is out there with us. 

          Yes, Jesus calls us all to do better than we have been doing; but he meets us where we are—and often it's "outside the camp."

 

          You know somebody who is "outside the camp" and can't get back in.  You may be out there, too; but your friend doesn't know that.  You have a message of good news to share:  that Jesus is out there with us.  Leprosy of any kind doesn't matter:  what matters is the love of God.  May Jesus Christ be praised.

AMEN