Today’s scripture: Luke 17:11-19 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (John Seksay):
Today’s scripture has Jesus crossing borders, specifically between Samaria and Galilee. Both were part of the original Israel, but foreign wars had divided the nation. The Assyrians invaded northern Israel and ruled there while their power lasted. Judah, spared the brunt of the Assyrians, found themselves swallowed by their successors — the Babylonians — a few generations later, with many taken into exile. The foreign empires faded, but their legacy lived on in the divided land.
The tribes of Judah considered the northern Samaritans tainted by Assyrian influences, and the Samaritans considered the southern Judean culture rife with Babylonian corruptions! The cultural division was entrenched to the point of becoming separate political entities. Each community had its own high temple, like separate denominations of Christianity today. Each felt it was the “true faith.”
But they still shared the heritage of Moses, especially in the rules handed down in Leviticus. Their laws for clean (tahor) and unclean (tamei) had the same source. Both communities had descendents of Aaron, the brother of Moses, whose key role was to regulate the isolation and purification of whomever or whatever was deemed unclean. These priests were called kohen. Any visible malady of the body (including leprosy) was subject to quarantine at their command, and they alone could declare a person officially clean once again. Despite being in a political no-man’s-land, Jesus simply commanded these ten strangers to report back to their kohen. He didn’t stop to ask which political “denomination” each person honored.
In this I see the deeper point that Jesus was making. The carpenter Jesus might be a Judean by family kinship, but the gift of the Messiah belonged to all of God’s people. This boundary was artificial and superficial in God’s eyes! The reports of a recently unclean Samaritan thanking a Judean rabbi for curing him must have been startling to both denominations!
Thought for the day: Many borders are set by men and not by God. Lord, help me today to honor Your boundaries, not my own.
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.