Yesterday a couple of lepers asked if Jesus was going to come and "heal" us. We laughed at them, but in fact, last time we did this, that was exactly what happened. A minister and two other men visited the camp in the role of Jesus and a couple of disciples. Joe and I have been trying to figure out who might show up to play the part this year. We suspect it might be one of the Cleveland clan, but agree that it's hard to imagine Nate, perhaps the most likely candidate, playing the role without his usual trademark ironic flair. (Try to imagine Bill Murray playing Jesus. There you go. That'd be Nate.)
In Rabbi's Meeting, Joe and I sit on a bench a bit away from the other teachers, but still participate in the discussion. Head Teacher Shane points out that this is the behavior expected of leper pupils in classes today. I'm not really very focused on the discussion until Roger the Cowboy, draped in his green "Rabbi" robe for the simulation, stands up to make a point, then proceeds to remove the strip of cloth from counselor Natalie's face which marks her as mute. Then he tells us all not to reveal the identity of the Messiah. Ohhh. Roger is playing Jesus. Didn't see that coming.
I cheat and lower my bandana to teach my classes. My throat's feeling better today, but there's a lot of background noise, and I just don't project that well. Mid-morning, I see one of the lepers waving to me from across the hill, en route to another class. Her bandana is gone; she, too, has been "healed." I signal congratulations and go on to the next class, relieved to have further evidence we're on the downward slope of this thing.
While everyone (but the lepers) waits in line for lunch, the Pharisees and "Jesus" get into a very public argument. Pharisee Jeff shouts loudly enough that we can all hear him, but Roger's replies are hard to catch from 50' away. The argument appears to center around a "paralytic", who is obviously about to get healed. One of the lepers makes a beeline for "Jesus", pressing straight in through the crowd, which is of course completely inappropriate given his diseased status. I'm proud of him. Jeff ad libs outrage: "You bring a leper among us?!" We can't see or hear much of what happens after that, so we back off to a more comfortable spot to sit and wait our turn to eat (and/or be healed).
After a bit, the leper who forced his way through the crowd comes back bandana-free with another "healed" leper. "Unclean," we mutter at them, but they say, "Come on! Come and get healed!" I shrug and eye the six or so remaining camper-lepers; it's their move. But no one moves. Joe plays the skeptic: "Who is this guy? I don't trust him." The five or so campers sitting with us know this is an act, but their lack of motivation to go surprises me. (I think the biggest reason for this may be loyalty; the experience has drawn this group together pretty tightly, and no one wants to abandon the others. Further, they've all chosen to follow the rules of the simulation, and barging into a crowded dining hall is pretty clearly outside those rules.)
Our inertia clearly baffles these two as well: You could get this fixed now, and yet you just sit there? They waste little time on arguments. One of them grabs a girl and carries her bodily toward the dining hall. The other one, significantly shorter, makes a move to do the same, realizes it isn't going to work, then turns to me, grabs my arm, and drags me after him. It's enough to get everyone moving (and laughing), and we shove our way into the dining hall en masse. Everyone else is there too, and "Jesus" isn't rushing any of his encounters, because magical healing powers aren't really the point here. So there's a significant line, and we have no choice but to wait.
I'm hoping for a batch healing, like the ten lepers in Luke 17 (then we can one-up them by all coming back to say thanks!). But when he finally gets to the first leper, it's clear "Jesus" isn't going that route. Meanwhile, we're all blocking the salad bar. Pharisee Shane tells us to move along: "You're creating a disturbance!" I'm prepared to ignore him (his heart clearly isn't in it; he's as eager to be done with this as I am), but some of the leper-campers leave, so Joe and I follow them out. He and I have to be last anyway, in order to chaperone any remaining lepers through rest period (which follows lunch).
And last we are. The remaining leper-campers eat outside with us, then disappear into the dining hall and disperse bandana-less with friends. We see Pharisees leaving the dining hall, removing their robes with relieved expressions. Eventually Roger emerges, clearly exhausted, and Joe and I make our requests. It's strange to role-play that your friend is divine, but not as strange as it might be; Roger is already someone I think of as being an awful lot like Jesus. I vaguely remember him telling me my sins were forgiven and to follow God all the days of my life. But I don't end up recording any details about this encounter, because by the time I get all of this down it's two days later; in fact what my journal says at this point is "I am SO READY TO BE DONE WRITING ABOUT THIS." What I do remember clearly is the overwhelming relief that now things can get back to normal, which I think is really the opposite of what you'd feel walking away from an encounter with the Son of God, assuming you took his teachings seriously.
Even though there's no need, I put a word in my fellow cabin counselor's ear and take my rest period in the "leper cabin." I don't nap soundly, but for an introvert like myself, having time alone is restful in a different way. And I really, really need rest right now.
* * *
Typically, as we file toward the campfire or into the dimmed Great Hall for devotionals, we are hushed or shushed, preparing to enter a time of focus and listening. But tonight the Hall is fully lit with raised roof: campers not just singing but belting out "Awesome God", beating time with thunderous stomps and claps. The burden of the past 24 hours has been palpably lifted, and the result is an explosion of exuberance. A few of the campers even get up and dance (breakin' and a little swing), which surprises me; I'm not sure if that's frowned upon here or not. It sure would've been when I was a kid. I eye the ex-Pharisees, but they're relaxed, smiling, soaking it in.
After the singing, campers get the chance to speak about their experiences. The stories are many and wide-ranging. For some, the exercise was very painful; for others, even some lepers, it was no big deal (a couple even suggest it should have run longer). Everyone didn't take the same lessons from it, either, but it's far more interesting to hear what they've worked out for themselves, rather than having them just repeat something they were told. It's really lovely that no one ever gives us the authoritative purpose for the exercise, or tells us the Big Lesson we ought to have learned in case we missed it. Because maybe it's not the same for everyone, and that's okay.
From where I sit, it looks like the point of the exercise is to make real to us the impact that Jesus had on his community; more specifically, it creates a camp-wide yearning for things to be set to rights that, in some small sense, echoes a people's millennia-old desire for their Messiah. And that collective yearning is like a kaleidoscope-view of an individual's longing for God:
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
[Psalm 42]
This thirst is as personal and familiar to me as my own pulse, and all too often, as ignored. I can't say if the simulation is worthwhile for everyone involved. I can say that for me, 24 hours of discomfort and confusion are well worth the visceral reminder of that longing's source and purpose.
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2 comments:
I'm glad there was dancing ...
Oh, me too!
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