The Insidious Infection of Love
We use medicine in our modern society to be made whole, purified, cleansed. But ancient Hebrews of the Near Eastern variety used community and rest as a healing agent, a short time away from community and a return to society signified (and more than a signal, possibly effected?) the individual’s healing. Got a rash? Take a seven day vacation! (Lev 14:9) Then be welcomed back into a community.
Community heals! –
There were all kinds of reasons people were asked to leave the camp – but none of them were as severe as an anonymous infection the Hebrews called “tsara’ath.” Both people and houses can have this “infection” tsara’ath (sometimes wrongly translated “leprosy” – leprosy does not have the symptoms mentioned in the text, like turning your hair white). The word tsara’ath simply means an insidious infection. Something that starts small and spreads in an unrelenting, insatiable crash course to devour its host. Think kudzu, think cancer, think Al’Qaeda.
Tsara’ath – Isn’t that what the church eventually becomes to the Roman Empire and to all prevailing power structures of this world? The unstoppable spread of God’s insidious love and his relentless pursuit of all people looks like mildew or an infectious disease to those in power who have the most to lose, but for those who have nothing to lose but their own life, they’ll find the abundant life waiting for them in God’s family. Community heals.
The earliest Christians saw things upside down from the ancient Levitical priests that created the purity codes mentioned in Leviticus. They took care of the sick – they voluntarily left the camp – to bear the disgrace of others – because they saw Jesus doing the same thing. (Heb 13:12)
Catch the disease that Jesus was infected with – and go outside the camp – and find Jesus Christ himself, and a community of tsara’ath waiting to welcome you there.
Tsara’ath – the Kingdom of God sneaking its way into our world, pursuing our hearts, is an infection!
jdoloris are discussing. 
jdoloris 7:16 pm on July 7, 2010 Permalink
Mark, how do you turn God’s love into something disturbing? haha. Really, I just got a bit lost in the paradox. If I had no experience of the way you like pointing out paradoxes of Jesus, I would use you as an example of all the off-their-rocker christians. But then again, Jesus taught things in disturbing ways, getting himself killed for it, to make his hearers reach deep into a relationship with him in order to understand. Even as I write this I’m not sure if I’m criticizing or enjoying your thoughts. Just as Jesus sometimes disturbs me with his violent images, so you are have disturbed me with this post. Take that however you’d like, as I’m not sure I can assign it a definite feeling.
Mark 7:54 pm on July 7, 2010 Permalink
Doloris,
Thanks for the awesome comment. I totally love falling somewhere between enjoy and criticize in my readers’ responses. The more I think about it – the more the audacity of Jesus’ message knocks the power-mongering Christians (or at least W.A.S.P. Americans) off their rockers of privilege and prestige. Maybe I am “that guy” when it comes to radicalism…and no doubt I take images/concepts to the extreme sometimes – but I feel like Jesus has been castrated and sterilized to the point of utter uselessness in our culture.
There’s a great book by a renown atheist (Richard Dawkins) called The Selfish Gene which is all about how ideas are infectious. “Memes” he called them. Essentially, the gospel is a meme – an infectious idea that cannot be stopped!