10-7-19 - Outside the Lines

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

This week’s Gospel reading finds Jesus outside the lines again – traveling to Jerusalem through a region between Galilee (home base) and Samaria (“Other-Land”). “As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!'"

Why were they keeping their distance? Because leprosy – often a catch-all term for skin diseases of various sorts – was considered very contagious, and having any such blemish made one ritually unclean, unfit for temple or community activities. (If you want to read Mosaic law about skin diseases, their treatment and the lengths to which someone who had been healed had to go to be reinstated into full community, read Leviticus 13 and 14 – and 15, if you want to get into really gross stuff....)

Lepers had to stay away from other people, so they often lived in small groups outside villages. But these ten must have known something about Jesus, because they call him by name; they call him “Master,” and cry, “Have mercy on us!”

Who lives on the outskirts of our communities, exiled by their diseases, misfortunes – or what they fear we think of them? Where I live now, there are many who are homeless, living in encampments in the woods. They’re no different from housed folks – but left too long at the margins, they can become isolated and edgier, less hirable. Who is calling us, who bear the name and ministry of Christ, saying, “Have mercy?” Someone of a different nationality or ethnicity? A stranger, or someone we find strange? Someone who is poor or unhoused? Maybe just someone we know socially, whom we find annoying or troubling, and so we keep our distance?

Who comes to mind? What keeps her or him on the edges of your life? How do you feel about inviting that person closer? How are you being called to pray – for him/her? For yourself? Perhaps you feel on the outside of a community, wishing someone would hear your cry?

Jesus knows he can make these lepers whole, because the power of God flows through him. We have been promised that same power flows through us, as we are united in Christ. So we might have more to offer than we think to the people on the periphery of our vision, our life.

This week’s story is about healing, inside and out. As we journey through it, let’s start by opening our eyes to notice who’s calling to us from the edges, the margins, outside the lines. That’s so often where we find God.

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