A contemporary theologian has said that "God longs for the healing and well-being of all human beings, even those about whom, left to ourselves, we would choose not to care."

Jesus' healing ministry is a focal point of Mark's Gospel, as the story moves back and forth between the macro and micro, from the large panorama of the crowds pressing round to a tight focus on an individual face starkly present and demanding. One person, in great need. One person, broken and faithful, in whose voice can be heard the voice of all who despair, in whose face can be seen the pain of all who suffer, in whose pleading can be felt the longing of all who yearn for wholeness and love. In today's reading, it is the face of a leper, one about whom, if left to ourselves, we would, no doubt, choose not to care.

Says Mark: "A leper came to Jesus, knelt before him, begging him saying, 'If you choose, you can make me clean.' Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out to touch him, saying, 'I do choose. Be made clean!'"

A leper. A healing. Jesus' ministry in a nutshell. What is this story showing us?

For Jesus, healing was not so much about "curing," in the narrow sense, as we might think of it today, as it was part and parcel of the in-breaking of God's new kingdom. Remember the whole package Christ brings: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised and the poor have good news preached to them? All because the Spirit of the Lord dwells in Jesus the Messiah. In his ministry, healing is always a sign of something much greater, a sign of God's compassion for people, especially for "the least of these." It is about the healing of community and relationship, wholeness for individuals and for the nations. Healing is for one and for all, and its purpose is reconciliation and new life. The healing of individual persons is centered in the restoration of wholeness to society.

Remember that Hebrew society was organized around strict rules and regulations about purity and impurity. This was understood as a way of delimiting what was holy and what was unclean. Nearly every aspect of life was defined as being clean or unclean, pure or polluted, holy or defiled. This was all based on a notion that one achieved holiness by separation from that which was unclean. Jesus was always getting himself in trouble, crossing the boundary between clean and unclean, holy and defiled, showing how the love of God breaks all those barriers down and leaves no one beyond the pale of grace. As one writer put it: "The healing acts of Jesus were themselves the message that he had come to set [people] free."

Says Mark: "A leper came to Jesus, knelt before him, begging him saying, 'If you choose, you can make me clean.' Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out to touch him, saying, 'I do choose. Be made clean!'"

You see, by virtue of being diseased with an ailment that caused sores on the skin, the leper was automatically ritually impure. To touch him would defile Jesus and render him unclean. What does Jesus do? I know many of you have seen those popular bracelets with the initials W.W.J.D. Well, in this story we get to see exactly what Jesus does and it changes the world. This is a paradigm shift, if there ever was one. Instead of Jesus being defiled by the unclean leper, the opposite happens. Jesus chooses, the Gospel insists, to reach out to him. Jesus has compassion for this man and extends his hand to touch him. And instead of Jesus being defiled, the leper is made clean. The power is in Jesus and in the liberating message of God's all-inclusive love-the power to teach and preach and heal. No boundaries. No one off limits or beyond the pale. No one expendable. No one not worth bothering with. The healing power of God's Good News in Christ Jesus is strong enough to overcome all brokenness and make the world whole.

So, where do we go with this, we who would strive to be his followers and carry on his ministry in our time? Henri Nouwen once said that "too often our help remains somewhere between our minds and our hands." If that's true, how can we get our desire for healing, our best intentions for healing, unstuck from that limbo twixt mind and hand? What would help us to choose as Jesus did, and offer real healing and hope?

I want to share the story this morning of one extraordinary woman who has created a way to bring healing to two communities of people who many in society might write off or ignore-people who are in prison and people who are blind. Gloria Gilbert Stoga had fifteen years experience in non-profit organizations. She served on a commission to develop private sector employment for low-income residents under former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani. But as she developed a deep desire to create a new program for those most overlooked by society, she found an opportunity in a most unlikely place. Modeled upon a program she had heard about in Ohio, Gloria Stoga started "Puppies Behind Bars," in which prison inmates raise and train puppies that will serve as guide dogs for the blind.

The puppies are bred at guide dog schools and donated for training by carefully screened inmates. The prisoners learn how to care for them and teach them basic commands until the dogs are about two years old, when they graduate to further instruction at Guide Dog Training Centers before being matched with a blind person. The puppies live in the prisoners' cells and spend all day and night with them, and the bonds that develop are close and loving. While the puppies are being trained, lives are being transformed.

Of course, prison officials were completely skeptical at first. They feared for the puppies' safety and doubted the possibility of success. Similarly, the staff of the Guide Dog Centers shared most of the stereotypes about prisoners that are shared in the larger society. As one blind man from the Federation of Guide Dog users said, "I'm no bleeding heart liberal. I realized that there are a lot of misconceptions about prisoners. There are a lot of misconceptions about blind people, too." Mr. Stanley is now an advocate for the program, having experienced how the stability of the prison environment and the dedication of the prisoner trainers are producing dogs well-trained to serve as excellent seeing-eye dogs.

Perhaps, what no one could have anticipated is the effect the puppies are having on the prisoners themselves and on prison life, the growth in spirit, confidence and self-esteem of the puppy raisers. One prisoner participant said, "These dogs and this program have given me the opportunity to become human again." One woman inmate said that she lived in fear the whole eighteen months she was raising her puppy, fear that the director would realize that she was unworthy of the program and take the dog away from her. It was not until the day her dog left for Guide Dog school that she realized she'd been given the ultimate gift of trust.

Another inmate, who, as many, cried the day his dog "graduated," said, ". . . my puppy has proved to me that I still have the capacity to fully love. I was not sure about whether I could ever really love again, but thanks to this puppy, now I know that I can." Another inmate said, "I always failed at everything I did in life, but now I know how to do something right: to help a blind person by raising a dog for them."

On the other side of the prison walls, Judy, a nurse, blind since a stroke a few years ago, who received a guide dog named Lucie from the program, said, "There is a walking trail in the woods near our house that I used to walk all the time, but I had to stop . . . when I lost my vision. With Lucie, I can once again walk on that trail and hear the birds sing and feel the cool, fresh breeze from the trees wash across my face . . . with Lucie, I feel I can do almost anything."

In reflecting on the similarities between being blind and being incarcerated, one guide dog user wrote, "They are prisoners of their actions, and we of our biology. Through these dogs, we are all given the opportunity to be the best that we can, to overcome our limitations, to break free."

This is just the kind of healing that makes lives whole and sets people free. There are countless ways this healing can be made real in our world. What would Jesus do? My guess is that he would rejoice in the work of Gloria Gilbert Stoga through Puppies Behind Bars, work that helps heal prisoners and those who are blind. My guess is that he longs for each of us to choose to reach out, to find a way to move past whatever barriers separate us from one another and from the love of God. To have compassion for "the least of these." To stretch our minds and hearts large enough to make space for healing, for reconciliation, for the birth of hope and new life.

The Good News in Christ Jesus is given that the blind might see, the lame walk, the lepers be cleansed, and the prisoners set free. All boundaries are torn down. This is the ultimate healing of our world, longed for by God and made incarnate in Jesus, our Savior.

May God give us courage to choose to use our hands, our minds, our words, our actions, our hearts in the service of Christ's healing ministry. Amen.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2003. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.