Have we ever though about the need to crossing of boundaries, cultures, and religious cloisters as part of following Christ? The readings today point us to do so.   

Our Old Testament reading is a letter prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders, priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. These people wept for home languishing on the shores of Babylon’s rivers. They wondered how they could sing God’s songs in a strange land. God’s words through Jeremiah called them to cross. That would have definitely startled them.

God instructed the people in Babylon to bloom where they were planted. They were asked to seek the welfare of the city that is their new home. They must pray for the city because, in its welfare they will find their welfare. From Jerusalem to Babylon, cross boundaries and live in new lands. Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 

Marry and bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. The instruction is to cross the cultural and religious boundaries to form a new community that reflects God’s inclusiveness. 

It is a call to a new theology over against the pipe dreams of false prophets who prophesy against God’s inclusive nature, to build their own silos. 

It may be hard for anyone to understand what it means to do theology in exile. However, it is a persistent theme in the Bible and in the history of Christianity. While in exile people experience God differently. Martin Luther was condemned for heresy and was imprisoned by the Catholic Church. While imprisoned in the Wittenberg Castle Martin Luther began translating the New Testament from Greek to German. That became the foundational work for the Protestant Reformation. 

Deitrich Bonhoeffer wrote the “The Cost of Discipleship” while in prison with impending death. Five of Paul’s epistles in the New Testament were written while Paul was imprisoned. 

While in captivity, while in prison, people experience God differently and their theology changes and develops not from a position of power and control, but from a position of pressure and stress. Many of the deepest theological insights of our traditions have been developed under pressure. In faith testing circumstances new theology grows.   

If the people in captivity in Babylon had followed God’s instructions, Iran and Israel would be different from what they are today. 

God’s call to God’s people is to promote welfare of the city where God sent them to live. We may all resonate with that calling, mostly being immigrants in Aotearoa. We have crossed oceans and continents to come here. Have we crossed boundaries, cultures and come out of our religious cloisters? 

We note another crossing of boundaries, culture, and religious cloisters in our gospel as well. Leprosy cuts a person off from their community. The lepers were in an exile, not allowed to live a normal life. 

The Levitical law states lepers had to ring bells and shout “Unclean, unclean!” (Leviticus 13.45-46). That is how they alerted people to stay away. According to the law, they were responsible for keeping themselves separate. They had to protect others from themselves. Imagine what that does to one’s identity and sense of self. Leviticus make clear that separation and isolation were their fate. 

They come out of those crossing boundaries to Jesus. All of them had a degree of faith asking Jesus to have mercy. Jesus initiates the miracle by telling them to go and show themselves to the priest. They obeyed and did what Jesus said. They were healed, the miracle is worked, while they acted on their faith. 

Out of the ten, nine went back into their community and their religious cloister. There is one [at the back of the pack] who crossed the boundary, culture, and religious law. He is the other in the group. 

This former leper began wondering, “Who is this man who has healed us? This healed leper crosses another set of boundaries, culture, and religious cloister. He turns back to Jesus and shouted praises to God. 

The nine headed to the priest to say, “Look at me! I am clean.” Whereas the Samaritan, returned to Jesus praising God.

There appears another difference between the Samaritan and the other lepers. The “foreigner” kept separate and looked down upon decides to start his new life with gratitude. 

It is yet another reminder of the ways human categories excludes when God includes. Jesus asks a rhetorical question, wondering where the other nine were, emphasising the outsider status in comparison to the nine. 

The Samaritan, an outsider by his faith crossed boundary, culture, religious restrictions and of uncleanness onto God’s side, to a new life. Probably the other nine, in spite of their being healed remained within their cloister rather than crossing to God’s side. 

Where are we in crossing boundaries, cultures, and religious cloisters?

It is a crossing from all of the human boundaries, cultures, religious restrictions to God’s side of love and of God’s inclusiveness. We must ponder whether we have crossed to God’s side.