Imitators

 

The Spiritual Waiting Room

Imitators

Witnesses   Evangelizers

Touch   Cleanse   Renew

I Am Of Christ

Fulfill

(Photo and poem by Kathy McNamara)

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 11:1

Be imitators of me just as I am of Christ.

Mark 1:40 to 42

A leper approached Jesus. He knelt down and started begging Jesus, saying "If you want to, you can make me clean."

Jesus was moved with compassion and reached out His hand. 

Jesus touched him and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean."

The leprosy left him at that moment, and he was made clean.

Reflection

We are given the choice of who we wish to imitate in our lives. Some of us choose to follow a sports hero. Others model their lives on a great singer or actor. Still others have been very moved by a special teacher who has influenced them. For others it might be someone on Tik Tok.

Paul, in the First Letter to the Corinthians makes a very bold statement. He is asking the people in the community at Corinth to imitate him. 

Our first reaction might be, "Who does he think he is?" It seems like a very egotistical statement. 

If we look closer though, what Paul is really saying is that he tries in his life to imitate Christ. He is really asking the Corinthians to focus on Jesus and to try, as best they can, to follow what Jesus said and did.

Paul can make that bold statement because he has given himself fully and completely to Jesus. His whole life as an evangelizer was to proclaim Jesus with his every thought, word, and deed.

We learn in our reading from Mark what that involves. We see Jesus as a healer.

This is not an ordinary healing. Jesus breaks the Law by touching the man who has leprosy. This action would have made Jesus unclean. 

We see the love of Jesus clearly in this story. He is not limited by the confines of the Law. He puts the wellbeing of this man first.

This man was breaking the Law also by approaching Jesus. He was hoping that Jesus could help him and restore him to the community. The lepers had to live by themselves and keep their distance from everyone else because of the fear that they might spread this disease and infect others in the community.

Jesus saw his desperation, his desire for more human contact, his wish to be with others. Jesus made him clean so that he could be with everyone else. The man was so filled with joy, that he ignored what Jesus commanded him about not telling anyone. He let everyone know what happened to him and who cured him. 

Our challenge is to imitate this compassion and love of Jesus in our lives. We are called to reach out to those in our society who are ignored by others. There are many lepers in our society today who are not suffering from the physical disease of leprosy but who are just as ignored by people today as the lepers were in the time of Jesus.

Who are you going to imitate?

1. Who are some of the people that you have followed in your life?

2. How do you try to imitate Christ?

3. Whom do you feel are the lepers of today?

4. What do you feel as you reflect on Kathy's photo?

(Scripture adaptation, reflection, and questions by John J. McNamara)