Prayer is a part of everyone’s life, in some form or fashion … I came across this prayer a few days ago … I think you’ll find it helpful:
Dear God, so far today, I’ve done all right.
I haven’t gossiped, and I haven’t lost my temper.
I haven’t been grumpy, nasty or selfish, and I’m really glad of that!
But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on, I’ll probably need a lot of help.
Thank you! Amen.
I’m sure the ten lepers prayed a lot …
But here they were, outcasts … on the boarder between Samaria and Galilee.
Ten lepers, nine of whom were Jews from Galilee and one Samaritan.
All descendants of Abraham, but they didn’t get along very well.
They were kissin’ cousins who didn’t kiss anymore.
No love lost between ‘em.
But disease cut ‘em all down to size.
Ten lepers.
Galilean or Samaritan, it’s the disease that made them a band of brothers now.
Shunned and despised by their own.
Condemned to a life of loneliness and misery.
Hanging together on the border.
Begging beside the road.
Seeking shelter in the heat of the day.
Trying to stay warm at night.
Stealing a goat now and then and maybe a skin of wine.
Even a leper likes a good dinner when they can get it.
When Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, he heads south from Galilee to the border region with Samaria, and then eastward to the Jordan River Valley, to head south again to Jericho, and then from Jericho up to Jerusalem in the highlands.
In the border region, ten lepers.
Standing at a distance.
That’s what the law required.
Keep your distance.
Stand back.
They cried out, Jesus, master, have mercy on us.
How did they know it was Jesus?
Luke doesn’t tell us.
But word gets around.
Jesus was a well-known rabbi.
Lots of friends, and enemies in high places.
Folks were keeping an eye on him.
Which was easy enough to do; Jesus made no effort to hide from the eyes of the authorities.
He said what he did, and he did what he said.
To proclaim the kingdom of God.
God is at hand.
Life can be different.
But we have to want it.
And want it bad enough.
And if ya’ mean it, then pray like this when ya’ pray:
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth.
As it is in heaven.
So the word was out.
Jesus was heading south.
To Jerusalem.
The religious heart of Israel.
The fabled city of David.
A city set on a hill.
And on the pinnacle of the hill, the Temple.
And its Holy of Holies.
Thousands of priests and Levites, musicians and attendants.
Sacrifices and burnt offerings, the smoke rising high above the city.
The temple offering pouring in from all over the empire.
Tourists all the time.
When Jesus said, I’m going to Jerusalem.
People sat up and paid attention.
This could get good.
It might go down bad.
This rebel rabbi and the Jerusalem establishment.
Toe-to-toe in the Temple Courtyard and on the streets.
The word was out.
Jesus is heading south.
Folks knew what was happening.
Jesus traveled with a group.
His closest disciples and who knows how many others.
So it didn’t take much for the ten lepers to figure things out.
That’s the rabbi I was telling you about.
Here he comes.
Maybe he can do something.
I’ve heard tell that he can heal.
When Jesus sees them, he tells them simply: Go and show yourselves to the priests.
The priests were the learned ones of the day.
They were charged with the care of the community.
The priests made the diagnosis.
If it was leprosy, the patient was declared unclean and sent away.
A person might be declared clean again, only with the priest’s permission.
The text is sparse on detail.
It simply says, on their way, 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.
Jesus rightly asks:
Were there not ten made clean?
Where are they?
What! Only a foreigner figures it out?
To the Samaritan at his feet, Jesus says:
Get up and go on your way.
Your faith has made you well.
Luke tells the story with a bit of wink.
What? Only this foreigner gets it?
Yes, only the foreigner.
Foreigners figure prominently in Luke’s Gospel.
When Jesus preaches in his hometown, everyone is impressed with his good words, until Jesus reminds the hometown crowd that God’s love has a very wide target.
Jesus preaches about a time in Israel when there was a severe famine in the land, but God sends Elijah to feed a widow in Sidon – a foreigner.
And then Jesus preaches about Elisha in a time when many in Israel were afflicted with leprosy, yet none of them were cleansed … only Namaan the Syrian, a foreigner.
By the time Jesus is done preaching, the hometown crowd is up in arms, seething with anger.
What’s all this talk about foreigners?
What do you mean by this?
What are you trying to tell us?
So they grab Jesus and drag him to the edge of a cliff.
We’re gonna put a stop to this nonsense right away.
No more talk about the love of God for foreigners.
We don’t like foreigners.
We don’t like the way they worship.
We don’t like what they eat.
We don’t like how they dress.
And we can’t understand their language, and when they try to talk our language, they talk funny.
Throw him off the cliff.
Do it now.
Enough of this.
But Jesus slipped through the crowd and went on his way.
To preach for a few more years.
To remind people that God’s love is really big.
Big enough for the whole world.
Big enough for everyone.
In the kingdom of God, there are no strangers.
For the love of God, there are no foreigners.
Like the parable of the sower, the love of God is scattered about, near and far.
Generously.
By the handful.
Seed flying here and there, seed flying everywhere.
God never runs out of seed.
God’s love is without limit.
Without condition.
No questions asked.
Day in and day out, the love of God at work.
At work in all things, for good.
All ten lepers are healed.
Can you imagine how eager they were?
Eager to get to the priests.
Eager to hear the words:
“You’re clean … you can return home now … to your wife, your children … friends and work … welcome back to your life!”
Who wouldn’t be in a hurry on this one?
But one of them sees what’s happened.
Really sees it.
Turns back before seeing the priest.
Before anything else.
Turns to Jesus.
To say Thank you!
I wonder what it felt like for him to leave his companions.
How long had they been together?
This band of brothers.
Begging for handouts.
Scorned and alone.
I wonder what the others said to him as he turned back.
Maybe they thought nothing of it.
After all, he is only a Samaritan.
Freed of their disease, they were free to return to their old habits and patterns.
Jews and Samaritans didn’t hang around together.
Free of the disease, a parting of the ways.
No need to linger on the boundaries.
They returned home.
Nine to Galilee.
One to Samaria.
The thrust of the story is simple.
Only the foreigner really has it figured out.
Where are the other nine?
These Galileans.
I’m one of them, and I just gave them their life back.
But only the foreigner returns to say thanks.
Every nation has its foreigners.
But who’s the foreigner?
Who’s the stranger?
Here in the states, someone from Greece is a foreigner.
But when we visit Athens, we’re the foreigner.
It’s a problem.
How do we deal with the foreigner?
Ancient Israel couldn’t get it figured out.
Foreigners were mostly unwelcome.
Except as slaves.
Yet one of the greatest stories ever told is about a foreigner, and her name is Ruth.
When Solomon dedicates the temple, he prays to the LORD on behalf of foreigners who may come to the temple for prayer, that the LORD will hear their prayers.
The prophet Isaiah says of the stranger: Don’t say you’re a stranger here, because you are not a stranger in the house of God [Isaiah 56].
But Ezekiel says, If you’re a foreigner and uncircumcised, stay outta the temple [Ezekiel 49].
Israel didn’t know how to deal with foreigners.
And I guess we don’t either.
Nations have boundaries.
Borders.
Passport controls and fences.
Every nation does it pretty much the same way.
Germany is trying to figure out what to do with Turkish immigrants, many of whom are Muslim.
France is trying to figure out what to do with the Romas.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t know how to deal with all the foreign workers from India.
And only in recent years has it become possible for a foreigner to apply for Japanese citizenship.
It’s a strange business, to say the least.
Here in the States, as well:
Arizona passes tough laws to stop and question people suspected of being here illegally, and yet Arizona leads the nation in welcoming political refugees from dangerous areas of the world … Arizona is now home to folks from all over the world, including Somalia, Bosnia, Myanmar and the Sudan.
Go figure.
A candidate for governor fires a housekeeper after nine years employment when she finds out the lady is here without papers.
In 1882, we passed the Chinese Exclusion Act – a ten-year moratorium on Chinese immigration and strict requirements on those already here.
In the late 1800s, Irish Catholic immigrants pouring into Boston and New York were the object of scorn and mistrust, because they were going to give the country away to the Pope … and we heard all of that again when John F. Kennedy ran for the presidency.
And in turn, the Italians and the Puerto Ricans went after one another – a tale told bitterly in the musical, “Westside Story.”
When France criticized our invasion of Iraq, it was no longer French Fries, but Freedom Fries.
These days, lots of fear and mistrust about the foreigner.
Most likely someone from Mexico.
Or from the Middle East.
The Statue of Liberty, a gift from a France, says on its pedestal:
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Words written by a Jewish American woman, Emma Lazarus.
Foreigners are always a problem.
Yet we might learn something from the Tenth Leper.
The stranger gets it right; the hometown crowd blows it.
After all, Deuteronomy [10:11] says:
You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
We all strangers to the love of God.
We’re all foreigners and aliens.
Paul calls us enemies of God.
Because our sin has driven far from the gates of God.
But God loves the stranger.
God loves the foreigner.
God loves the enemy.
There are no easy answer, but these days, when talk about “foreigners” turns dark, we do well to remember the love of God, and the foreigner, who got it right.
The Tenth Leper who said thanks.
Amen and Amen.
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