Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In today's reading from Luke, 10 lepers approach Jesus, asking his help. Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. Presumably this implies that they will be healed. When "unclean" became "clean" again, this needed to be certified by the priests. On their way to the priests, "they were made clean." One of the 10 comes running back, praising God, and falling at Jesus' feet to thank him. "And he was a Samaritan."

That line may not be so startling as it was nearly 2000 years ago. But as Jesus himself notes, Samaritans were foreigners. They were also considered to be vile by most Jews of that day. But this despised outsider is commended for his faith by Jesus. "Your faith has made you well." The word Jesus uses here is different from the earlier word saying he was "made clean." This word literally means "saved" and is often translated that way. It also has connotations of wholeness. And so by faith this outsider has not only been cleansed but has been made whole, saved, become a part of the people of God.

Last night at our session meeting (that's the governing board of a Presbyterian Church) we discussed a passage from Romans where Paul writes that we have "received a spirit of adoption." Brett, the other pastor here, recalled a family in his home church that had a large number of adopted children, children from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. We noted how different adopted families can look from biological ones, and we recalled how the Church is a family of adoptees. Christian faith is supposed to be a big tent, a diverse family of all sorts of people. It's there in our gospel verses today, and it's there in the famous words from Paul, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

Paul cites the primary divisions of his world, insisting that all divisions have been undone by this adoption that we have in Jesus. And so it seems to me that when our congregations mirror the divisions of the world, divisions of race, ethnicity, class, and so on, we fail to live out our calling to be something new, to live out the oneness we have in Jesus.

O God, may our congregations become places of welcome and diversity that fully reflect the family of our adoption in Jesus Christ.

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