You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
You know the expression, “a world of hurt.” That is where we live, often surrounded by suffering and pain, deprivation and injustice. And thanks to global communications and interconnectedness, we are confronted daily by the immediacy of suffering the world over, images of refugees and starving children as urgent to us as homeless persons in our communities. Don’t we have to pass some of it by?
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.”
The priest and the Levite are the bad guys of the story (after the robbers, of course…). We expect more of religious leaders than we do of ordinary folk, which makes their indifference to the man’s suffering even worse in our eyes. We might spare them some sympathy: as religious leaders dedicated to temple worship, they each had a duty to maintain ritual purity, which would have been violated by coming into contact with a dead person. For all they knew, this man was beyond help. And perhaps they had schedules to keep and tasks to maintain, which is often what keeps us from stopping and responding.
What is radical in Jesus’ story is who he places in the role of hero: a Samaritan, the wrong sort of person from the perspective of Jesus’ Jewish listeners. And why does the Samaritan man stop to check out the situation? He was moved with pity.
We live our days in the tension of competing claims, conflicting responses. Our compassion may often be stirred, yet we are also caught by the often delightful demands of work and family, and the need to maintain some balance in life. People who stop and give all the time often burn out or cheat their families of their best selves. So when do we stop, and when do we walk on?
We can learn to notice when we are moved by compassion or a desire to help. When you feel these things in response to a person in need, offer that reaction in prayer and ask God: "Are you inviting me to offer myself in this situation? Are you up to something that you’d like me to participate in? What shall I offer? What shall I hold back?" Make it a prayer conversation, not your decision alone.
If we approach this parable only from the standpoint of ethics, only as the ones who might help, forgetting that we also are ones who have been spiritually left for dead, for whom Jesus gave everything to reclaim, restore and renew us to wholeness, we miss the point. When we remember how much we have received, it helps us know when and how to give.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label loving our neighbors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loving our neighbors. Show all posts
10-3-22 - Keeping Our Distance
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”).
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 – in the Bible a catch-all term for skin diseases of various sorts – was considered very contagious. 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 keep away from 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 out, “Have mercy on us!”
Who lives on the outskirts of our communities, exiled by their own diseases, choices – or what they fear we think of them? Is anyone calling out to us, people who bear the name and ministry of Christ, crying, “Have mercy?” Someone of a different nationality or ethnicity? A stranger, or someone we find strange? Maybe someone who is poor or unhoused? 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 outside a community, wishing someone would hear your cry. Ask Jesus to send someone your way.
Jesus knows he can make these lepers whole, because the power of God flows through him. We, who are united with Christ and filled with his life, have been promised that same power flows through us. So we 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.
Why were they keeping their distance? Because leprosy – in the Bible a catch-all term for skin diseases of various sorts – was considered very contagious. 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 keep away from 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 out, “Have mercy on us!”
Who lives on the outskirts of our communities, exiled by their own diseases, choices – or what they fear we think of them? Is anyone calling out to us, people who bear the name and ministry of Christ, crying, “Have mercy?” Someone of a different nationality or ethnicity? A stranger, or someone we find strange? Maybe someone who is poor or unhoused? 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 outside a community, wishing someone would hear your cry. Ask Jesus to send someone your way.
Jesus knows he can make these lepers whole, because the power of God flows through him. We, who are united with Christ and filled with his life, have been promised that same power flows through us. So we 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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