Unclean, Unclean

The title of this article was the cry of the leper in Jesus Name. They were a segregated people because their disease was not understood. They had to break off all relationships with family and friends. They could no longer associate with "normal" people.


A simple statement and examination of an incident in the life of Jesus should help us grasp what His attitude is toward those who have become the equivalent in our religious, emotional and spiritual society today.


Although Christian society has been instructed by Jesus to take care of the least of these, it has become rife with stratification representing religious classes, just as in Jesus day. We have people we prefer dealing with. We focus our efforts on reaching those that will benefit the particular type of people we like or would rather work with. Jesus in speaking of people who were manifesting this type of action in Jesus day, called them pharisees.


 Whenever the leper would go anywhere, he had to broadcast that he was a leper by crying out, unclean, unclean. This warned everyone to back away.


Although the church today would say it is not so, there is a respecter of persons spirit within the church. It is manifest in the way people with certain problems are treated; in remarks made when dealing with certain issues. There are numerous problems that are acceptable to have. When those problems are dealt with, there is not condemnation for them having to go to doctors, psychiatrist or psychologists. Pastors will even recommend certain of those professions and the person will not be treated any different after than they were before. There are pastors and Christian leaders who fall into this category and are still accepted as "normal".


Who then are the lepers of today? Who are these ones treated with fear and from whom most of the church backs away once they hear of the problems they are wrestling with?


The leper was considered incurable by the society of its day, both secular and religious. They were put outside the city, town or village. They had to live and eat at the mercy of the society of the day. They were what we would call today, at the mercy of welfare.


As I have worked in the ministry for over 45 years I have noticed certain lines that delineate the strata in the church. We use to call them cliques, favorites, or in the language of scripture, people who have respect of persons. I wrote of one aspect of it on Facebook recently


In recent years there has been an increase in the world and in the church of illnesses of the mind. Depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, and numerous other mental illnesses are becoming as frequent in the church as they are in the world. The world treats them and puts them in a category and maintains them in that condition. But what does the church do with these people?


Because of religious bias against illnesses, there is a segregation of the people with problems. The closer to the Charismatic/pentecostal/faith community you come, it seems, the more the bias against the people with tese conditions. 

Recently the Lord brought to my mind a story that underlines and even deeper schism in the Body. It is the incident in the life of Jesus where He healed ten lepers. Among the 10 lepers was an outcast. 
Luke 17:12-19

Luke 17:12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: 13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. 15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? 18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. 19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

In those days, "the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans." Here is one, among the outcast who was further outcast." We have these within the church. There are certain mental handicaps that are "acceptable" within the current expressions of the Body of Christ. Yet, there is one which is not. There are those who, through no fault of their own come from a background in which  Multiple Personalities have been produced. They were born into satanist cults where abuse was a way of life and the only way their soul could handle it was for them to Dissociate. Within these personalities are those who love Jesus. They do not fit within the Christian definition of "normal". These are outcasts even among those already cast out. 


We have found there are very few Christian resources to help them get free. You have the school of thought that treats them like all the alters are demons and so subjects them to deliverance ministry. When that does not work they blame the one who came to them for not wanting to be free. This wounds the SRA/DID/MPD person even more and sometimes causes them to fragment further. Forgotten is the description of the wisdom of God in James.

James 3:17-18

17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.  18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

Note that gentleness is one of the fruit of wisdom.This is best illustrated by the result of Jacob's wrestling his greatest fear out with God. It changed his character and nature which governed his approach from then on to all those about him.

Genesis 33:14

14 Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir

The word translated softly here is also translated gently elsewhere. The limits on my conduct become what the person I am trying to lead can endure, considering the fragility of their soul and spirit. 

These people we are dealing with are fragmented through no fault of their own. We have cared fro babies of 9 months who were clearly fragmented in this way. A child of seven had been fragmented into about 10 alters or more. They knew nothing else until they came to us. The church as a whole has rejected them, treating them like the 9 lepers most likely treated the Samaritan leper.

Church of God, Body of Christ I would challenge you today. There is a dire need in the Body of Christ to rescue the perishing. We have always thought the perishing were the unsaved, yet, in our congregations are those who are being treated as lepers. Saved people, who love Jesus, but came to us fragmented. The number of them is greater than most folks and ministry would think. Can we begin to pray for Jacob's change of attitude in our approach toward these people? Can we begin to ask the Lord how to relate to the fragmented, whether they have some "acceptable mental handicap" or are SRA/DID? 

The words of The Bread of Life, Who was fragmented or broken for us,  ring in my ears, as He commented on the gathering up of what He had fragmented to feed the 5000. "  

 John 6:12-13

12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. 13 Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

Of all that these people have been through, of all the breaking or fragmenting they have experienced, is it possible that Jesus wants it gathered together and brought to Him, by those of us who claim to be His disciples??????????????

More in a further blog later

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