Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Leprosy is  a terrible disease.  We hear about it regularly in the Bible.  The disease begins with specks on the eyelids and on the palms, gradually spreading over the body, bleaching the hair white wherever they appear, crusting the affected parts with white scales, and causing terrible sores and swellings.  From the skin the disease eats inward into the bones, rotting the whole body piecemeal.  Wherever the leper went he was required to have his outer garment torn as a sign of deep grief, he was also required to shave his whole head and cover his head with his clothing, a sign of lamentation at death—his own death.  Furthermore, he had to warn passersby of his condition by crying out “unclean, unclean!” wherever he went.  He couldn’t greet anyone or receive a greeting, because in the middle east in the first century, you didn’t greet someone without embracing them, which would also make that person unclean.  If you were blessed enough to have your leprosy go away, you didn’t just go home.  You had to show yourself to the priest, who examined you and quarantined you for seven days, just to make sure you really were healed.  On the eighth day you had to make offerings and sacrifices and be involved in a very lengthy and elaborate ritual to declare you clean and fit to return to society.  Leprosy was no joking matter.  (Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Leviticus 13-14)

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