In the gospel, Jesus is approached by a leper. He is moved by compassion, the deep gut-wrenching response that identifies with the suffering of another. Who are today’s “lepers,” people whom some consider as “polluting” society by their differences in race, culture, social mores, or physical and intellectual disabilities? What are our attitudes to those we might consider as weakening the moral fiber of society – the drug addicts, the HIV/AIDS sufferers, those in prison? Are we on the side of harsh, punitive justice or compassionate, restorative justice?

In the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law we have a vignette of the mission of Jesus, the free man, who cares nothing for taboos that prohibited the touching of a woman not one’s wife, and especially on the Sabbath.  Jesus has healed the tormented man in the synagogue, and he will make no discrimination between male and female, even though to hold the hand of the sick woman could earn him the accusation of ritual uncleanness.  Compassion has a more urgent hold on Jesus.

Jesus healed the man of the unclean spirit, and the people called this action of Jesus a “teaching”: “[They] asked one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority.’” It is God’s presence and power that is the lesson not only to learn but to encounter.  Ultimately we are all students of the one teacher, whose authority is ordered to our salvation. From this school we never graduate; this teacher is always guiding us. This education is perfected for our final purpose: to know God.

Jesus does not issue orders to his followers like a charismatic military leader; he offer no rallying call to a revolutionary war, but he does make promises. Do we live as though we believe these promises? How constant, how radical are we in our following of Jesus to which we are invited by our baptism? How discerning of its demands are we in our contemporary society, and has Jesus priority in our lives?

This gospel proclaims that all discipleship is an active and involving relationship with Jesus: a following, seeking, staying, finding, and dialoguing with him.  We hear how each decision to follow Jesus is a response to a statement about Jesus’s identity as Lamb of God, Rabbi, Messiah, by people whose ears and hearts are open to the Word of God, who hear his invitation through the words of friend or stranger, through events of joy or sorrow, or who discern a moment of religious significance in the everyday.