Smadditization

Mark 1: 41 Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him

“Smadditization”; do you know the word? I am almost sure you don’t. I didn’t either until I heard a well-known Jamaican lady use it. It means to make somebody (“smaddy”, in Jamaican patois) who is insignificant into somebody important. So if someone is trying to impress others with his own importance, then “him a gwa’an like him a smaddy” (he is acting as if he is somebody of importance).

Every day we see prejudice around us. People dis” (disrespect) other people for all kinds of reasons. It can be because of their looks, their poverty, their religion or their politics. Very often the weak, the poor, sick and the disabled are most badly affected. They are frequently made to feel like “nobody”.

In the time of Jesus, lepers belonged to the category of “nobody”. Leprosy was a very deadly and painful disease that made the victim ugly, as his body would be pretty much rotting away while he lived. It was considered to be so contagious that nobody wanted a leper to be anywhere near. The leper had to leave family, home and society. He could not work, had no way to earn money, was uncertain of how he would eat or where he would sleep and knew that there was no cure for his disease. In addition, the Jews felt that leprosy was a curse from God on a person who was a really bad sinner. A leper was a nobody.

When the leper came to Jesus, I suppose the crowds of people around Him scattered. They didn’t want this nobody to come near or to touch them. They probably tried to chase him away. He wasn’t good enough to be among them. He shouldn’t come near somebody important like Jesus. But Jesus thought differently. To Him this leper was an important person. Everybody is important to Jesus. He could feel this guy’s loneliness, his pain and his shame as people scorned him; and He had compassion on Him. Jesus did not just say, “Be healed”. He touched him! Not only was the leper healed of his disease, but the nobody felt like somebody (smaddy) again, because somebody cared enough to touch him.

Do you have times when you too feel like a nobody? Are there persons who let you feel unimportant, cheap or worthless? Always remember that to God you are somebody, somebody so important that Jesus died for you. Now that is smaditization!

Lord, help never to forget how important I am to You. Thank you for giving value to me and to my life, in Jesus’ name, amen.