Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 17:11-19

Now it happened that on the way to Jerusalem Jesus was traveling in the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten men suffering from a virulent skin disease came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, “Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.” When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself prostrate at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This led Jesus to say, “Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.” And he said to the man, “Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.”

Prayer

“Don’t be surprised,” you say to me this morning. “Don’t be surprised when you find hearts that believe and souls open to my great giving. You will find gracious hearts in unexpected places where I have been working long before you arrived. Open your eyes; look. Don’t imagine you are alone. Many love me more than you can though they know and have far less than you.”

Your words are not harsh in my ears, Jesus. They humble me, and that is grace. You keep me from imagining that my faith, my way of thinking, believing and serving is somehow privileged above others. Your words remind me that I stand among millions, billions who bear your call, your mark of wounded love on their hearts.

And many of them are people I consider beneath me in experience or intelligence, in insight or sophistication. Many I might find uncouth or simple, holding the wrong opinions or politics, bearing such flaws of character and neuroses that make it easy to dismiss them, imagining I am superior.

But I am not. I am one more needy soul who cries to you in the morning for mercy, weary of my perennial sins, sick to death of the cracks in my character through which vitality and joy seep away.

I stand among the immense throng who need and call upon you. There are no foreigners in this crowd, no aliens, just people who, at their best, know the great truth: your grace crosses every boundary we establish. Try as we might, we can’t keep you from going where love pleases. Thank you for such gracious disrespect.

Pr. David L. Miller