Loading...Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7: These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
Luke 17:11-19: On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
My friend, Kasia, was born and raised in Poland. She came to live in the United States just over 32 years ago with her American husband, Jeff’s former college roommate, David. Her path to citizenship was long, not only because the process takes nearly a decade, but also because it was a major decision for her. She did not want to lose her Polish identity. In the end, Poland and the United States provided the opportunity for her and their four children to have dual citizenship.
What I have learned in the over three decades of knowing her is that her Polish roots, culture, language and Catholic faith make a significant impact in the life of not just her family, but many of the people who have come to know and love them.
She learned the English language while teaching her children Polish. She maintains Polish traditions while accepting the hodgepodge of northern European traditions that came from David’s family.
Her experience from living in a Communist country and being educated in a vastly different system impacts how she responds to American government and education. I don’t always understand it, but I learn from it.
In addition to sending them to public schools, they sent their kids to Polish school to learn about the Polish culture, language, and history. Some of them still dance in a traditional Polish troupe, traveling to a variety of places, including Poland.
We heard in the reading from Jeremiah how the Lord directed those exiled into Babylon how to live. Exiled to an unfamiliar land, culture, and people, the Lord told them to create a life, to build homes and plant gardens and marry and build families, all the while praying for and making a difference in the welfare of the place they now were.
I don’t think the direction was to disavow their own culture, to assimilate, or to lose themselves and their history simply to get by in this new place. I think it was more about developing a culture of radical inclusion. Of building a beloved community where all would be welcome.
To me, Kasia continues to live a life very like that which the Lord required of God’s people during the Babylonian exile. While she chose to separate from her country of origin and was not exiled, she both embraces what is new to her -- and maintains the culture she knows. I am grateful to have been a part of her journey from the beginning and to have this direct experience with someone who is an immigrant and who stands firm in the culture of her forebears.
Her story is not unique. People around the world have moved from place to place for a variety of reasons. I’m pretty sure most of us here have roots from places outside of this country and many of us can trace our heritage back generations.
For me, my people came to this country from England, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden, bringing traditions, languages, and a willingness to risk it all to find a better life. They made choices to keep some of where they came from and to learn and become a part of where they ended up.
Over generations, families have grown by mixing up traditions, ethnicities, cultures, and religions, creating an amazing tapestry of life that is not always welcomed or understood, but has made the world what it is: a place where cultural and religious practices collide, blend, teach, and thrive, hopefully making the world a better place.
Jesus knew the story of the Babylonian exile. He knew that there were places in Israel where families grew by mixing traditions and religions and that there were other places where people attempted to keep bloodlines pure for the sake of religion and culture.[1]
He saw the diversity of communities as he walked around Israel, as he spent time in the port city of Capernaum, a city where strangers from around the world brought their unique items to trade from city to city.
And he knew of numerous religious practices, of pagan rituals, of the blending of both in some places and in other places, the effort to maintain the purity of their religious practices.
It is notable that Jesus did not ask the Samaritan, or any of the 10 for that matter, about their loyalties, their religious choices, where they lived, or their nationality. Jesus healed them because they needed to be healed.
That it was only the Samaritan who returned to give thanks is striking. This is a person who represents the “enemy” of the Jewish people because the Samaritans were “different.” They were often people of mixed heritage, people who blended religious practices and cultures to develop their own way of life. As a result, Jews and Samaritans feared each other.
In one of my bibles, I found a map from that time. I learned that Samaria sits between Galilee and Jerusalem. Is it any wonder that the Samaritans were a people who embraced an amalgamation of a variety of heritages, when they were in the place in between, a place where cultures and religions collided?
And isn’t it interesting that in this story, Jesus and his followers are in between Samaria and Jerusalem. That these ten men, exiled to the margins because of their illness, are caught between places of safety and security? This story takes place in what could be considered a dangerous no-man’s land.
Jesus could have chosen to only heal and protect the purest Jew. But, as we heard in today’s Gospel, he didn’t. He healed ten men with a skin disease because they asked for mercy and he provided it, expecting nothing in return.
As I said earlier, it is striking that the only man who returned to Jesus to say, “thank you” was not a Jew, but a Samaritan. A man who had no need to see a Jewish religious leader, because that was not his religious practice. But a man who Jesus healed because the man needed to be healed.
By returning to Jesus, this man, this outsider, received more than the healing the other nine received. This man was transformed both when he returned to praise God and when Jesus told him "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
Gratitude is a transformative sign of faith. According to Biblical scholar and commentator Matthew Myer Boulton, “Thanking is believing — or, to put it another way, [he goes on] thanksgiving is the unmistakable sign of understanding that a gift has been given. Gratitude, not obeisance or obedience, is the natural echo of grace.”[2]
Gratitude is the “natural echo of grace.”
This Samaritan, this outsider, this enemy of the Jewish people, showed more grace by taking time to return to Jesus to give thanks for his healing.
Did the others simply take their healing for granted? I doubt it. When their bodies no longer looked like corpses, changing their ritually impure, death-like images into what now resembled living bodies,[3] their lives would be completely changed by this healing. They would be able to return to their homes, their families, their very lives because of this gift. They may not have understood the depth of this healing in the moment, but really, how many of us would?
My hope is that they were deeply aware that this gift was undeniably from God, and that maybe one day they would be able to offer some form of thanksgiving at the temple.
There is a wideness in God’s mercy, the hymn says, like the wideness of the sea; there’s a kindness in His justice which is more than liberty.[4]
In this Gospel, Jesus shows us that God’s love is wider than we can imagine. Wide enough to embrace people who come from different places, who live in different ways, who are our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers. Jesus offers mercy and kindness, which is his own form of justice, giving liberation to those most affected by powers and principalities that place people in the in-between spaces where their lives are challenged by systems that do not know how, or are afraid to embrace others like Jesus.
My life is forever changed because of people who are different than me. People who have introduced me to a variety of cultures and beliefs, those who have entered communities, bringing their own gifts, those gifts that can only come from their cultures and experiences, to enhance the vibrancy of all they encounter.
If they feel like they are like the ten men from today’s story—stuck in the in-between, on the margins—I hope that I can be more like Jesus and find ways to ensure their wellbeing by bringing them to a place where love lives.
Amen.
[1] Swanson, Richard. https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/a-provocation-twenty-first-sunday-after-pentecost-october-9-2016-luke-1711-19/ “This little story uses an outsider as an example of gratitude. Though his roots in the local region were as deep as those of anyone else in this scene, Samaritans were outsiders, reminders of the divergence of faithful practice that happened when the Jewish community was separated into exiles and non-exiles under Babylonian domination. When the exiles returned from Babylon to the land of promise, they found communities that seemed (at least to them) to have blended themselves into pagan culture. Odds are that the Samaritans thought the same of the strangers from the east who had lived so long in the midst of another dominant culture. One result of this divergence is that this particular leper has no reason to get too excited about being checked by a priest belonging the other group.”
[3] As Matthew Theissen has argued, leprosy did not exist in the ancient Mediterranean context in which Jesus healed and Luke wrote.1 Instead, he argues, the sloughing off of the skin that resembles a decomposing corpse pointed to the origins of impurity: death. Here, Jesus resists this deadly force, the very source of the impurity, not just healing a disease but battling the encroachment of death upon human life. In short, this is a healing that points to Jesus’ extraordinary power to defeat death and its minions even before he faces a Roman cross and a tomb. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-28-3/commentary-on-luke-1711-19-6
[4] Hymnal 1982 #469; Author: Frederick William Faber, 1814-1863.
