The reading this week can be misleading to modern ears, in that the word leprosy is not likely just Hanson's disease, as we know it today, but rather (or also), it meant being born with a defect, becoming visibly diseased later in life, or if your body didn't function correctly, then you were unclean. So, as this would have been considered as much a spiritual matter as it would a physical ailment, the inflected person would be seen as needing a priest, more than a doctor. But, while most priests would avoided the unclean as perhaps some how deserving of their plight, we see in our reading that Jesus reached out to help an unclean one. But who would Jesus reach out to today? What does it mean to be an unclean one in today's culture? And what do we make of the fact that Jesus sent (literally, he forcefully commanded him) the healed person back to his faith community? And why would Jesus then command that the cleansed person not share the miracle? Please join our faith community this Sunday, as we consider these questions, and discern together how we can reach out to those who might feel they have no place in God's church