Service for October 12 Eighteenth Sunday of Pentecost

Sermon for  October 12, 2025                              Eighteenth Sunday of Pentecost

Jesus is traveling in the region between Samaria and Galilee again, an area between the known and the unknown; the familiar and the unfamiliar for the little band of followers of Jesus. Jesus calls the one who returns to give thanks, a “foreigner.” The Greek word for foreigner used here is the root word for our word “genes” and for genesis. In the minds of those listening to Jesus, the foreigner, the Samaritan is so different that he has different ‘genes’; he has a different ‘genesis’ or origin.

I think a little history lesson at this point sheds light on the deeper meaning of this story.  This story gives us a glimpse of someone thoroughly foreign to Jesus and his little band of Jews. They were foreign because Samaritans were a reminder of the split that happened when the Babylonians conquered the land. The Babylonians hauled 3/4th of the Israelites off to live as slaves in Babylon, leaving only a 1/4th of the people behind to survive as best they could in the wreckage of their homeland after the siege.

The exiles were slaves in Babylon for 100s of years, long enough for generations to be born and die there. Long enough that Israelites only remembered their homeland through the stories passed down by their elders before they died. Eventually the Babylonians released the Israelites to return to their homeland if they wanted to. Some had assimilated and stayed in Babylon. But, those who returned to Israel from Babylon claimed to bring with them the true faith, the faith as written in the writings of what we know as the old testament. They returned to their homeland to find those who had remained had adapted to the surrounding culture of Samaria, a culture that the ‘true believers’, those who had been exiled thought was pagan. But the Samaritans probably thought the same thing about the strangers returning from the east who had lived so long in the midst of the Babylonians, they each now lived within a very different culture, with a very different religion.

It would be like all of us with heritage of a different country returning to the land of our great grandparents. We may have some customs or favorite foods that remind us of our heritage. But those foods and customs are not necessarily still favorites in the old country. The people who stayed behind in those countries have not been frozen in time. They’ve moved on as have we. Each group may look upon the other with confusion; wondering about each other’s traditions and beliefs.

I once heard a foreign exchange student from Norway say that her host family here in the U.S. was more Norwegian than her family who had never left Norway. Americans of Norwegian descent and resident Norwegians may all have been the same family at one time, but after much time and distance we’re so different we can hardly find any common cultural ground.

That was the situation between the Jews and the Samaritans. They didn’t trust each other. They didn’t understand each other. They ate different foods, cherished different traditions. For Jesus’ disciples it was unimaginable that there could be a good, or trustworthy or decent Samaritan, not because they were so different in any fundamental way. But because time and circumstance had created differences in custom and behavior, stories had grown up emphasizing the differences between them until they were exaggerated into demonization. But in all the ways that truly matter, in their basic humanity there was no difference.

Jesus travels in this borderland between the known and the unknown – with the claim of the right religion a matter of perspective. In this case, which religion is ‘right’ depends upon whether your family was dragged off to slavery or was left behind to survive in a destroyed, war-ravaged country.

Some people describe such border lands as ‘thin places’ places where the veil between heaven and earth; between God and humans gets very thin; even the distinction between holy and unholy, sacred and profane are blurred. Jesus often chose those places to travel, to bring healing, to the others who travel in the in-between places. In these thin places surprising things can happen.

In this borderland Jesus encounters 10 men with a skin disease that required them to keep their distance from everyone else. They were supposed to call out from afar “unclean”, “unclean” so that no one would accidentally come in contact with them and they would be blamed for corrupting another person. So, from a distance, Jesus instructs them to go to the priests and show themselves, healed of the skin disease. Nine of them do just that but one returns and throws himself at Jesus’ feet and gives thanks.

Much has been about the importance of gratitude from this brief story.  And that’s not a bad lesson to take away. We know gratitude is important. We have a lot of research that points to all the benefits of living a grateful life: health benefits, relationship benefits; even longer lives. But if all Jesus is saying is “Be Grateful” he didn’t need to drag in the foreign Samaritan to do it. He didn’t need to travel to the borderlands. There are simpler stories that could have made that point.

I think Jesus is asking us to look for goodness, even faithfulness in unexpected places. Maybe Jesus is saying that not only the people we call family, or the ones we’re comfortable with, those who are like us, are good, are capable of being grateful, or joyful, or humble, or angry, all of the emotions we find ‘normal’ when they’re expressed by someone who is like us! Jesus is saying that not only a select few are worthy of God’s blessings, God’s healing and wholeness. Those gifts are for all people without distinction.

As I worked on this sermon this week I was captivated by a question asked by one commentator. This one question made me rethink this short story and wonder at how our Biblical stories so often reflect ourselves more than God.

The question asked, paraphrasing verse 17, “The other nine, where are they?” The writer who posed this question went on to say, “What a wonderful question? Where did they go? With whom did they reunite to celebrate the amazing healing that God had worked in them?” “What if we hear Jesus speaking with a sense of wonder instead of with an angry, judgmental voice?

We never want to twist scripture to fit our own agenda, but I think it’s possible that this particular scripture has a history of being twisted.

Let’s look at it more closely. Everyone in this story has done everything right, they’ve acted according to their own character and they’ve followed the rules of the culture they lived in.

The lepers, or people with a skin disease were in that borderland where they were forced to live to maintain the purity sensibilities of the culture. They obeyed the law that said they must keep their distance from those who were healthy. If anyone got too near, they were supposed to call out a warning and they did just that.

When Jesus healed them, he instructed them to go show themselves to the priests as was required by law so that everyone would know that they had been healed; they were no longer a threat to the community; they could be accepted back into regular life with their family and friends. They could again work and marry and live normally.

If they continued to act according to their character, which they had up until that point in the story, then they would have followed Jesus’ instruction to go show themselves to the priest at the temple. They didn’t come back to thank Jesus because they were doing what Jesus told them to do. After that, acting according to the custom of their culture they would have given thanks at the temple. That’s where faithful Jews went to give thanks. Then, who knows what they would have done: found their families? Hugged and kissed them? Danced for joy? Joined in a celebration feast?

And the one who was not a Jew would also have done what was in keeping with his character. He would not have followed Jesus command to show himself to the priests at the temple, because that was not HIS temple. That was not his faith. He returned to thank the one most directly involved in his healing. He was a foreigner to Jesus but in this borderland, Jesus had met him and saw that he too was valuable, that he was worthy of being restored to life and so he returned to throw himself at Jesus feet in thanks! He acted in keeping with his character and what his culture expected of him at that time, in that place.

So, what about Jesus? Jesus ventures into that borderland as he so often did and wherever he went, he brought healing. He brought love, God’s love, God’s all-powerful love for all people. Time and time again, he spoke out against the religious authorities who were oppressing the people and he spoke out against the dominating power that was making all their lives miserable. Jesus consistently acts and speaks with God’s love for all people, not condoning the oppressors acts, but showing people how to live to overcome that oppression with love.

Jesus commands the 10 afflicted with skin disease to “Go, show themselves to the priests.” So, why do we think it reasonable that now, after they have done what he told them to do that he would condemn them? Why do we hear Jesus in this passage as speaking with an “angry voice”? Maybe Jesus was speaking in amazement and curiosity, wondering where they were now and what kind of rejoicing and reunion they were now enjoying?

It’s an old saying that we don’t read the Bible. The Bible reads us! Well, I think our interpretation of this passage as one of Jesus angrily denouncing the 9 people who did not return, reveals more about us than it does about Jesus. It reveals our tendency to think that God is like us, only more so; more powerful, more everything; even more judgmental.

So, maybe the writer of this passage was a little guilty of that too. Maybe the translators of the original Greek were guilty of that at times as well. Modern commentators have certainly taken this approach although many are beginning to question the lens through which we have seen Jesus’ words. And of course, we have to ask how we have been guilty of that?

I wonder what other passages we have been hearing through the voice of our own tendencies to be angry, judgmental, or self-serving? What would happen if as we read the Bible we keep in mind the character of God we know to be loving, compassionate and forgiving of all people? How would it change how we hear the words and how they might affect our lives and the lives of those we touch in the world?

All of this leads me to say, I invite you and encourage you to join with me and others as we gather after worship and other times throughout the week to study Scripture, and to talk about how what is happening in our world can be understood through Scripture and what God is calling us to do and to be at this time in this place.

The good news is that God is love and God’s grace and compassion and restoration and hope is for ALL people and the inspired word of God, in the Bible but especially in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh reveals God’s true character: love, compassion, forgiveness, GRACE! We give thanks for those gifts and we ask God to guide us in living that love, compassion, forgiveness and Grace in our own lives.  Amen