Contagious

I was confused the other day. I was listening to this song from Ron Isley, Chante Moore, and R. Kelly entitled “Contagious.” The premise of the video is that Ron Isley plays this rough, Godfather type named Mr. Big who is in a relationship with Chante Moore’s character. He comes home one evening to find her cheating on him with R. Kelly and then it hits the fan. Now where I’m too stupid is I don’t understand, why in the world Mr. Big would say “you’re contagious… give me what you got” when he’s dealing with a woman who’s not faithful, who’s not virtuous, who doesn’t have any sense of commitment. Why would you label it as contagious? Then the spirit jumped onto me that many of us have the spirit of contagion, that once we have been hurt by a relationship. And rather than learn from that relationship, we then want to afflict that pain onto somebody else rather than using that experience as a healing mechanism! Why then, would I want that to be contagious, to jump on me, when I know the kind of pain that that caused, the kind of tears that that brought, and the kind of anguish that it made me feel! I don’t want that contagious! I want that under quarantine! And many of you sisters keep opening ourselves up to damaging; unhealthy relationships because you allow that spirit of contagion to not only afflict you, but to afflict every person in your circle! And so because you were mangled by some messed up, immature man, you gon make a sweeping generalization that all men are dogs! That’s just because the men you met with didn’t have any standards! But because there is a man out there that God has ordained for you, I know that God’s got to have something for me!

Now you’ll find in Leviticus that it gives an outline of a prescription of somebody who has contracted which was at the biblical times, season of leprosy. Leprosy was much akin to today’s AIDS virus. It was much akin because there was not a cure, and it began to fight off the defensive mechanism of the cellular, molecular structure. Let me see if I can say that in not so many med-school terms. It was unable then to combat and fight diseases. Therefore, once you contracted leprosy, things on your body began to fall apart. Your hair began to fall off. You began to go blind and worse yet, according to Levitical law, in the Old Testament, once you contracted leprosy you could no longer live with other people. What you had was contagious, and if somebody even sat in your seat, they were open to contract the disease! If they borrowed your clothes then that same disease could catch to them! So we find, in Leviticus, that lepers were made to live outside the city limits.

Now there was one leper, whom I loved, in Luke chapter 5, who heard that Jesus was coming through. He said “I know other folk don’t wanna be bothered with me! I know other folk don’t wanna talk to me! I know other folk whisper about me behind my back and talk about me at the beauty salon and on the golf course! But I heard about a man named Jesus! He don’t care what I got! And if I can just get to him!… I heard what he did with the woman with the issue of blood! All she had to do was touch the hem of his garment! All I need to do is just see his face! And there’s some of yall here, your family cast you out! Your friends dissed you! Your co-workers look down on you! But here is where you find out that there is a friend in Jesus! He said if you’re in sin, he’ll set you free! And some of us oughta go ahead and be honest that we don’t have another friend in the world other than Jesus! But I made up in my mind its alright! Because I’ve pulled out enough knives from my back! I done dispelled enough rumors! I’m tired of being lied to, lied on, and manipulated! I been through too much already! And so long as I got King Jesus…! Is there anybody here who made up in their mind, if nobody touch me but Jesus…

Now in verse twelve, it came to pass that there was a certain man, who had leprosy who heard that Jesus was coming so he bowed down and worshipped! The first thing you gotta do when you learn you’re contagious is you gotta say to folk “don’t touch me until I’m tested!” There are some relationships you cannot go into until you’ve been tested by God! And when God has tested you, to see if you’re faithful over a few things, then you know he’ll make you ruler over many! You oughta say “don’t touch me; I’m still getting tested!” Because God wants to test you…to see how you gon handle it when the negro walk away! He wants to see how you gon praise him, when you don’t remember the last time you had a date! How you gon shout glory when you know you bein flat lied to dead in your face! And there’s somebody here who can say “I been tested, but I believe I’m gon pass!” Is there somebody here who said “I ain’t gon let nobody steal my joy! Steal my peace! Steal my…