The first thing they were to do in the land was to destroy
and desecrate all the places of worship and the idols of those gods that the
former inhabitants had used. There was
to be no trace of idolatry in the land and the destruction of these places and
the idols there was a sign that these were rejected by Israel. They were also to wait for God to choose the
place for worship, not set up on those same places, but wait for Him to show
them where they were to worship Him.
Where in your life have you had or do you have idols? If you have not utterly destroyed those,
rejected them entirely, go back and pray through those and confess that they
were/are sinful and ask the Lord to show you what you need to see about them
and do what is necessary to walk away from them as things that keep or kept you
from fully worshipping the one, true, living God.
Misery loves company.
These ten men had one thing in common, leprosy. They were outcasts from the temple worship
and from community in general so they formed a company of lepers, their own
little community. One, however, at
least, was a Samaritan. Ordinarily these
men wouldn’t have accepted him into their community. Samaritans and Jews, we
are told in John 4, had no dealings with one another, not even to share eating
and drinking vessels or implements, each thought the other unclean. These men are all unclean, there is no longer
any distinction between Jew and Samaritan until, on their way to the temple to
have the priests certify the cure in keeping with the law, they are
cleansed. All went in faith believing
they would be healed and one, the Samaritan, came back to thank Jesus. He wouldn’t be welcome at the temple anyway, but
before going home to Samaria, he made the trip back to give glory to God for
healing him. Why did the others continue
to the place where they had been outcast?
(Have we decided Paul was wrong in what he wrote in 2
Corinthians 6.14-18? These verses are
optional readings in this lectionary.)
Paul says that he and his team commended themselves in every
way and this is his list of those ways: by great endurance, in afflictions,
hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights,
hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine
love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of
righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor,
through slander and praise. We won’t
likely be beaten or imprisoned, so if we toss those out, how much of the rest
of these would be ways in which we commend ourselves? How many of those are ways of
difficulty? When I read passages like
this I realize that I am far too much like one of the nine lepers who failed to
return, I just float along in life, neither hot nor cold. Lord revive us.
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