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| Ten lepers are healed, one gives thanks |
October 13, 2013, Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
Read the texts online at the Vanderbilt Divinity Library:
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7: In a letter to the exiles in Babylon, Jeremiah sends a message from God that they are to make their homes in that foreign land. They are to seek the welfare of Babylon. In doing so they will advance their own welfare. This advice counters the traditional view that only in Jerusalem's temple in their own homeland could the exiles worship and serve God. It conveys a message for our time as we struggle with the implications of a global threat to peace and reconciliation among people of many religious and cultural traditions.
Psalm 66:1-12 (UMH 790): This passage may have been a psalm woven together with another (vss.13-20) to celebrate God's omnipotence and grace, and to provide a suitable liturgy for a person of wealth and status making a public offering in the temple. It later became a hymn of thanksgiving for use in public worship.
2 Timothy 2:8-15: Suffering hardship while imprisoned for their faith had become a source of encouragement and even joy for Paul and other New Testament authors. Nothing could stop the Good News from being proclaimed. It was the resurrection of Christ which really gave Paul such a distinctive attitude to his suffering. This ultimately redemptive act of God would bring about the salvation of all who believed. This was the bedrock of their faith and their one great hope for salvation in a hostile world.
Luke 17:11-19: This is one of those fascinating stories showing Jesus' attitudes in direct conflict with the majority of his fellow Jews and especially the religious and political leadership. He attributes faith only to the Samaritan whereas the other nine who were cured, presumably all Jews, simply followed the traditional custom of seeking a priest's authentication of their healing. This story points out that faith in the gospel not obedience to the law was the hope of the future.
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