Brief synopsis of the readings: In our first reading from Leviticus Moses and Aaron receive instructions from God on what to do with someone who has a skin condition. That person shall present himself to a priest and if found to be leprous and unclean he shall be declared so. He then must separate himself from the rest of the community “making his abode outside the camp.” In Mark’s Gospel a leper approached Jesus and asked to be made clean. His leprosy immediately left him but Jesus told him not to tell anyone except the priest who can declare him clean (which will allow him to rejoin the community). The man then told everyone what Jesus had done and this publicity forced Jesus to remain outside of town. “He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.”

OK, let’s begin with the obvious: both our readings today deal with leprosy and how our ancestors dealt with it. Today we call it Hansen’s Disease and it is treatable with antibiotics. But lest we think ourselves superior to those we read about, let’s dig a little deeper.

Our ancestors didn’t know much about leprosy except that it was progressive, horribly disfiguring and crippling. Though we know today that it is not very contagious they didn’t know that then and most assumed it was some kind of curse from God. But if it was truly God’s curse they should not have been afraid to coming down with it. Under the “curse” theory you get sick from displeasing God, not from contact with a bad person. The fact is, much of the reason people were shunned was because it looked awful and they made others afraid.

And if that weren’t enough it’s also generally assumed that what we now call leprosy covered a variety of skin diseases. The first reading describes anything on the skin, “a scab or pustule or blotch.” Frankly it covered nearly everything other than smooth skin. Given the level of fear this caused it’s hard to imagine the priest looking at some skin anomaly and deciding it’s nothing lest it turn into something serious.

As I said, we can’t look back on them with contempt given the obsession we have about skin today. We can cure leprosy but we also spend fortunes on skin diseases like psoriasis, acne, eczema, rosacea, to say nothing about attempts to cure wrinkled skin that results from aging. While we say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder we seem to have a universal revulsion toward those we consider ugly or disfigured.

But the purpose of these readings isn’t to give us permission to revile those we find ugly. Today’s Gospel appears pretty ordinary: someone with a disease asks Jesus to cure him and he does. Unlike other Gospel passages Jesus doesn’t compliment the man on his faith or tell him to bathe in a particular body of water. He only tells the man to present himself to the priest, which the man was required to do to be declared clean. Then Jesus does something puzzling.

He tells the man not to tell anyone about the healing and the surface this seems silly. In a community as small as this one, everyone would have known this man was healed. Now this isn’t the only time Jesus asks for (and doesn’t get) anonymity. This is sometimes referred to as the “Messianic Secret” and there’s no completely satisfying answer why he does this. In this instance it appears possible that Jesus just didn’t want to be overrun by people who needed healing, and he had a point. After the man told everyone Jesus found he needed to remain outside of town in deserted places. Interestingly enough Jesus needed to act like a leper and avoid other people.

Others have suggested that Jesus just wanted the man to tell the priest quickly, lest Jesus’ enemies find out about this and convince the priest not to declare the man cured. But maybe…

I think sometimes we get ourselves into a place where we see Jesus’ healing as simply long ago and far away. But if there’s anything that the Incarnation gives us, it’s the ability to do as Jesus did; as a matter of fact Catholic students for generations were encouraged to read a book called The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. Obviously we can’t cure disease by simply saying “Be made clean” as Jesus did but we can cure disease or at least the way we look at it.

Part of this encourages us to learn about diseases and their healing, much as we found the antibiotics to treat leprosy in the 1940s. The use of vaccines and other scientific treatments have made long dreaded diseases little more than a footnote in history.

But with the diseases we read in today’s readings we can also change how we view and treat those who suffer these diseases. There’s nothing wrong with admiring beauty and having our own taste of what we think is beautiful. But I believe we need to be more aware of our reaction to what we perceive as ugliness. Just as extending kindness to someone with leprosy won’t give us leprosy, being kind to someone whose appearance we find difficult won’t make them contagious.

I do volunteer work for a few organizations that support military members and veterans. Because of advances made in body armor many members who would have died in previous wars come home alive but disfigured. Some have lost limbs, some cope with brain trauma and some have suffered disfiguring burns. Our gratitude and patriotism calls us to embrace them and not make them feel even more marginalized.

But I believe that we are called to expand this to everyone. When we say we don’t believe disease is a curse from God we need to act like it. When we see someone has been forced to the margins we need to invite them in. If reaching out to a wounded warrior is a mark of our patriotism then reaching out to an outcast is a mark of our faith.

And finally, that allows all of us to be one of the priests in the first reading. We have the power to declare someone cured.