The Rev. Keri T. Aubert   February 15, 2009

2 Kings 5:1-14

Psalm 30

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

John 1:40-45

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, RCL 

This past Thursday, February 12, marked the 200^th anniversary of the births of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. I was quite surprised when I realized that they share a birthday. I’d never thought of them as contemporaries, perhaps because they occupy places in such different realms of history. Yet Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, less than two years before the start of the American Civil War. These men left legacies that are important even today, but in very different fields: politics and science. However, both of these fields were then and are now in conversation with—and sometimes in conflict with—a third very different field: religion.

It can be hard for us to imagine that, before the Civil War, people used religion to argue, not only against, but also for, slavery. On the other hand, I think we are well aware that people of faith land on both sides regarding the theory of evolution. It’s not a controversy that pops up very often on our public radar screen here in Vermont, but in states like Kansas and Louisiana, it’s often in the news. In a Gallup poll released last week, only 39% of Americans said they believe in the theory of evolution, while 25% say they do not believe in it. Perhaps most surprisingly, 36% have no opinion either way. The poll also finds that “Those who attend church most often are the least likely to say they believe in evolution.”[i] We might also observe that those who are anti-evolution are also often more generally anti-science. Consider this quote from a Methodist Sunday-school teacher in Kentucky: “Science is Satan's way of confusing the faithful.”[ii] 

While I would guess that most of us are among the frequent churchgoers who do believe in evolution, there’s still no getting around it: taken literally, the Bible both supports slavery and claims the world as we know it to be created in six days a few thousand years ago. Taken literally, the Bible also says that Jesus exorcised demons and cured illness. In today’s gospel reading we hear Mark’s story about the healing of a man with leprosy. It’s important to understand that, in Jesus’ time, the term “leprosy” would have included what we now identify as leprosy, the mycobacterial skin infection also termed Hansen’s Disease. But it would also have included a variety of other non-infectious skin conditions such as psoriasis. Leprosy was incurable and debilitating and therefore certainly to be avoided.

And yet, whether a person had infectious Hansen’s Disease or non-infectious psoriasis, the prescription was the same: a person with a skin condition was considered “unclean” until such time as a priest certified the condition as cured. For many, the state of uncleanness would last the rest of their life. Anyone touching someone with leprosy would also be unclean; this of course posed particular problems for Jewish priests. People identified as lepers were to avoid contact with others and live away from populated areas. This would have the further effect of limiting their means of support. Therefore, even persons free from painful health problems would suffer isolation and poverty.

For many centuries, and even in this country, isolation remained society’s primary means of dealing with leprosy. In 1894, the United States Public Health Service opened the nation’s first national hospital dedicated to the treatment—and housing—of people with Hansen’s Disease. It was located on the east bank of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in the small town of Carville. Originally called the “Louisiana Leper Home,” this so-called “leprosarium” came to be known colloquially simply as “Carville.” Despite the beautiful grounds and excellent facilities, not everyone at Carville entered willingly. According to one source, “Many patients entered the hospital under mandatory quarantine and never left again.”[iii] Fortunately, research conducted at Carville contributed to the development of treatments that greatly reduce the severity of the disease, and also to the development of drugs that reduce its communicability to near zero.

By the time the hospital finally closed in 1998, it had housed hundreds of patients. At the time of its closing, 124 patients still lived there. Let me read you a segment from one news story at the time:

Rachel Pendleton, 68, who came to Carville a half-century ago, welcomes the chance to strike out on her own.

“I want to go out and live a normal life,” she says. “I spent the best years of my life in here. I do not wish to spend the last years of my life in this place.”

Pendleton was just 14 when mysterious, numb lumps appeared on her legs. When state health workers came to her home in Corpus Christi, Texas, to take her away, her parents weren't even allowed to hug her good-bye.

Many of those sent to Carville changed their names to spare their families embarrassment. They couldn't vote, marry or commingle with the opposite sex.[iv] 

The hospital at Carville now houses the National Hansen’s Disease Museum, which features exhibits about the residents, the staff, and the disease that brought them together. It was perhaps courageous of the staff to work there, but it turns out that leprosy was never as contagious as once thought. I am not a public health expert, but I am the mother of a teenager, and I cannot imagine letting her go. Our experience of the disease over the last hundred years suggests that our reaction to it was not completely grounded in truth and may have been unduly influenced by fear. All of this leads me to question whether the mandatory quarantine of people with Hansen’s Disease was a good idea. This might give us reason to pause when we are again tempted protect ourselves by isolating others.

We might also notice that Jesus’ example, set two thousand years ago and as described by the gospel of Mark, seems to be saying the same thing. Perhaps it is beside the point whether Mark’s story about the leper is literally true. Mark seems to be saying that we cannot protect ourselves by isolating others. Put more generally, Mark seems to be saying that we cannot allow one part of God’s creation to suffer so that other parts may prosper. In our world, as in Jesus’ world, the people suffering are often those who are disadvantaged due to mental or physical illness, race or ethnicity, or, quite simply, poverty. In our world, the earth itself is in a precarious state of suffering. When we read the Bible from cover to cover, from Genesis to Relevation, the story is that of God’s continuing presence and merciful redemption. As we seek and serve Christ in all persons, striving for justice and peace, we too participate in and help further God’s continuing creation. Sometimes even politics and science help us on the journey. Leaders and thinkers like Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin remind us that we can and really must employ politics and science as tools to help take us to where God is leading us.

In response to the conflict about evolution, a group from the national Episcopal Church put together a document called The Catechism of Creation. It says this:

The God of evolution is the biblical God, subtle and gracious, who interacts with and rejoices in the enormous variety, diversity, and beauty of this evolving creation. When we contemplate the tremendous gift of freedom God has bestowed upon the creation, and how the Holy Spirit preserves in covenantal faithfulness the physical laws, powers and processes that enable such variety and beauty, these thoughts may move our hearts to a deeper admiration, awe and gratitude for God’s works. They may inspire a curiosity to know God’s creation more deeply, celebrate it with thanksgiving, and devote ourselves to caring for it.[v] 

As we know God’s creation more deeply, we come to celebrate God’s healing in our own lives and in the world around us. For the man in Mark’s Gospel, the man who was cured of his leprosy, the news was too good to keep secret. Let us be like the cleaned man, spreading the word freely, that people might flock to God from every quarter, caring for one another and all God’s creation.