A beautiful lectionary essay by Debie Thomas about this week's Gospel
Gabrielle Dean
On its face, our Gospel story this week is about thankfulness. As he journeys to Jerusalem, Jesus heals ten lepers and sends them on their way. One returns to Jesus to express his gratitude, and he alone, of the ten, experiences the full joy of salvation. Clearly, there is something about the practice of thankfulness that enlarges, blesses, and restores us. The leper’s lavish display of gratitude, and the commendation he receives from Jesus in return, demonstrate that we are created to recognize life as a divine gift, and to find our salvation at the feet of the Giver.
But this Gospel story is about more than gratitude. It is about the gratitude of a foreigner who receives welcome. It is about identity —about exclusion and inclusion, exile and return. It’s a story about the kingdom of God — about who is invited, who belongs, and who thrives in the realm where God dwells. What does it mean that in Christ, we are all one? What is our ongoing responsibility to the stranger, the alien, the Other? What happens to difference at the foot of the Cross?
As a daughter of immigrants, I feel these questions in my bones. They’re not intellectual or abstract; they’re emotional and urgent. These days, as brown-skinned children languish in cages, racist politicians weaponize borders, and racial and religious minorities fear mistreatment in their own neighborhoods, schools, and worship spaces, what does the Gospel have to say about belonging? Where should the children of God find their identities, their homes, their spiritual families?
But these two figures at the train station were different. Their faces were distorted, their fingers were half-missing, and their feet were scary, mottled stumps. Though I had coins ready in my fists, I was too afraid to approach them.
…
We asked our father a second time what exactly we were looking at. “They’re sick,” my father answered after a quick, pitying glance in the direction of the two figures. “They have leprosy.”
The train station was very crowded that day. I remember it swarming with travelers, vendors, squatters, and beggars. But those two individuals huddled in the shadows were alone in a way I’d never seen before. Their aloneness was otherworldly. It was as if some invisible barrier, solid as granite, separated them from the rest of humanity, rendering them wholly untouchable. Yes, their wasted limbs and marred faces frightened me. But what frightened me much more was their isolation, their utter and complete non-belonging.