At The Borders
A reading for Wednesday, March 29, 2017: Luke 17:11-19.
Jesus was traveling between Galilee and Samaria, which means he was at the border. The border was a wild place of danger and mystery. People disappeared at the border, where nobody could find you if you didn't want to be found. The border is where society had banished the lepers to live. Out there on the border where nobody much cares what happens to you was the perfect place for lepers to live. Inside the boundaries of our comfort and our security is where we want to stay, but out there on the border is where nobody much wants to go...
Yet, notice that Jesus is there at the border healing and transforming lives. It's another example of how Jesus goes where nobody else wants to go, to the forgotten places and the forgotten people. Jesus does what nobody else much wants to do. He doesn't do it to earn praise and acclaim. Notice only one of the lepers even returns to give thanks. Jesus goes there and heals there because nobody else will and God mission is everywhere, even at the borders.
Most of us will not be on a physical border today. Maybe some of you will? Yet, consider the emotional or spiritual borders of our society and culture. What are the economic borders? How about the political borders? Where is God in the midst of those places, still healing and transforming I bet. From those borders our prayer today might be the same, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
Jesus was traveling between Galilee and Samaria, which means he was at the border. The border was a wild place of danger and mystery. People disappeared at the border, where nobody could find you if you didn't want to be found. The border is where society had banished the lepers to live. Out there on the border where nobody much cares what happens to you was the perfect place for lepers to live. Inside the boundaries of our comfort and our security is where we want to stay, but out there on the border is where nobody much wants to go...
Yet, notice that Jesus is there at the border healing and transforming lives. It's another example of how Jesus goes where nobody else wants to go, to the forgotten places and the forgotten people. Jesus does what nobody else much wants to do. He doesn't do it to earn praise and acclaim. Notice only one of the lepers even returns to give thanks. Jesus goes there and heals there because nobody else will and God mission is everywhere, even at the borders.
Most of us will not be on a physical border today. Maybe some of you will? Yet, consider the emotional or spiritual borders of our society and culture. What are the economic borders? How about the political borders? Where is God in the midst of those places, still healing and transforming I bet. From those borders our prayer today might be the same, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
As the tamed horse
still hears the call of her wild brothers
and as the farmed goose flaps hopeful wings
as his sisters fly overhead,
so too, perhaps,
the wild ones amongst us
are our only hope in calling us back
to our true nature.
Wild ones
who have not been turned to stone
by the far-reaching grasp of the empire
and its programme of consumer sedation,
the killing of imagination.
Where, my friends,
have the wild ones gone?
-Written by Joel McKerrow
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