TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Today's Gospel Reading

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

COMMENT What's always struck me about this reading is the Samaritan who returned to give thanks, who was - as Jesus says - a foreigner (and considered an outcast in that society).

Today in his sermon the Dean of St Paul's in Burlington talked about a flyer posted on the stairwell of his daughter's apartment house in Montpellier, France. He and his wife had been to visit her last week...she's an American - a foreigner in that land - doing an international grad student internship. The flyer read:

"Support each other"
"Be kind to one another"

And I think of the debates in this country surrounding the marginalised and those considered foreign in our city, state, country, and on the planet. (How can one be a foreigner on the planet?)

I would also add to that flyer the phrase, "Only connect..."

Here are the readings (Proper 23, Year C, RCL) appointed for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost.