For Everyone's Safety

Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.  Mark 7:15

For Everyone's Safety
By Rev. William Dohle

It's amazing what we'll do to keep "safe."

At the writing of this devotion, the Ebola crisis has hit.  All around the world, people are being quarantined and set apart, thrust outside the tent as it were, for the safety of others.  So far 4000 people have died of it in West Africa and many more than that have come down with the virus.

For the safety of others, those who come home from these areas are being set apart.  The separation begins right from the start.  When Ebola is suspected, suits are worn by others around them.  The individuals go into seclusion while the rest of the world watches and waits on their condition.  Many to most of those quarantined never contract the virus.  A few do.  And those that do are isolated away even more with doctors and nurses now in full haz suits to protect them as they work on the one being treated.  Those that survive all of this(and the virus) are released back into the public.

But the few that contract and die from the disease die a very lonely death, separated from their loved ones by fear and strong plastic.

As much as I feel this is necessary...I wonder.  I wonder if can see the similarity between what we do to others for public safety and what the ancient people did for the same reasons.  Do we fail to understand the reasons why people from the dawn of time through today were isolated from their communities?  Do we see that it was for the good of the many.

The directive to isolate others with disease comes from God himself in the book of Numbers.

The Lord said to Moses, “Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has a defiling skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body. Send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp, where I dwell among them.” The Israelites did so; they sent them outside the camp. They did just as the Lord had instructed Moses.(Num. 5:1-4)

This seems rather harsh and cruel at the first read.  After all, if my wife is one with a defiling skin disease or a discharge(which often happens when a woman is hemorrhaging), she would be sent outside the camp?!  What's up with that?!

And yet I know too that if this were "modernized" and the defiling skin disease was, say, Ebola, I know that I would support isolating them outside the camp.  It's only logical to isolate those who can pollute(and possibly kill) the community!

But just because it's logical and practical doesn't mean it's right.  And Jesus himself shows this to be true.  Jesus, on multiple occasions, steps outside the norm and embraces the unclean.  In each and every case he does, not only does he make himself ritually unclean(and unfit to worship in the Temple of God), but he also takes on their uncleanliness as his own.  He does this...

To the woman afflicted with a bleeding disorder.
To the corpse of a young girl
To the lepers who cry for mercy.
To the demon possessed who live in the cemetery.

Each and every time, Jesus crosses over those boundaries.  He takes off his Haz-mat suit that protects him from the uncleanliness of others and he embraces them in love.  That love is so transformative that it can actually heal them of their ailment.  Their problems are not merely physical but also communal.  By welcoming them and embracing them in love, Jesus is bringing them back into the community who drove them away.  He is welcoming the outcast!

And Jesus calls us to do the same!

There is fear surrounding Ebola and every deadly disease.  People want to isolate themselves and their loved ones from possible infection.  Haz mat suits and other protections help doctors and nurses do their jobs without fear of infection.

But even as we isolate those who are sick, we must at the same time wrap them in love and remember them in our prayers.  We must consciously remind ourselves that they are not outside of our community.  No matter how sick they become.  No matter how infected.  They are still loved and cherished by Christ, and by us.

Christ crossed boundaries.  Christ dared to go against these verses in Numbers, to step outside the camp and welcome the others.  And Christ can empower us to do the same.

God you set boundaries around us for our own protection and the protection of others.  Give us strength the know the time to cross those boundaries and follow after your Son.  Be near all those who are infected with Ebola and those tending to their needs.  Keep our community open to them.  Amen.