Moses says that once they are in the Land, the worship of
the people is to have a central location that the Lord Himself will show
them. The issue of where that is located
is the central issue that divided Jews and Samaritans in the time of
Jesus. The house of God, Beth-el, was
originally at Shiloh during the time of the Judges and then the temple was
built in Jerusalem but the Samaritans traced the worship center to the end of
Deuteronomy when blessings and curses were shouted from two mountains, they
believed that the mountain from which blessings were pronounced was God's
chosen place. No matter where the Jews
are scattered in the world, the place of worship for the nation, the only place
where sacrifice can be offered, is Jerusalem at the temple mount which is now a
Muslim worship place, the Dome of the Rock.
The entire Land was the Lord's but in this place they expressed their
unity as the people of God by worshipping Him together. As Christians what can we do to recover that
sense of unity in a post-Reformation world?
Jesus cleanses ten lepers and instructs them to show
themselves to the priests in keeping with Jewish law. If a person's leprosy was gone, if they were
clean, they were to show themselves to the priests who would examine the skin
and pronounced whether they were indeed clean and therefore could now worship
the Lord with the rest of the community and be a part of community life
again. As they go, they are cleansed and
one turns back and comes to Jesus and praises God. That one was a Samaritan. We don't know the nationality(ies) of the
other lepers, but we do know that only this one returned. It could be that the others were Jews and
when they were lepers they had a common bond even with a Samaritan that was now
broken by their healing, they could rejoin their own people, he was no longer
good enough for them so he was again an outcast among these men. They missed the reality that Jesus had healed
them, they knew it and yet they went to those who had previously rejected
them. Why not come to the one who
accepted them when no one else would do so?
Paul says that every circumstance of life commends his
ministry, both the good and the bad. It
is not only in times of prosperity that the Lord is to be praised, in all
things He is God. We hear sometimes a
Gospel that sounds like those going through difficulties are doing so because
God is angry at them and prosperity is God's way of showing favor when both
these things happen in the lives of all humanity without respect to a person's
relationship with God. Paul counsels
that believers not be yoked with unbelievers (in the Prayer Book lectionary
this section from 6.14- 7.1 is, for some reason an optional passage). We tend to apply this to marriage but there
are certainly other relationships where we should take this to heart, business
partnerships and civic organizations for example. When we do not share a common commitment to
ethics and morals it is always a dangerous relationship. Why join with unbelievers when we share these
in common with believers? Unity matters.
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