Who you will become

I just had a conversation with a man for whom our current political climate was heavy on his mind. When he spoke of racism in our country, I told him I'd been thinking about that very subject earlier this morning as I considered (again) the story of the ten lepers. That story is about more than gratitude, the subject of Monday’s post. It is also about religious bigotry and racism.

You see, one of the ten men of the story was a foreigner, a Samaritan.  While distant cousins to the Jews of the Bible, they were shunned as half-breeds and heretics for their different views of the Torah.  Jesus himself was slandered by the religious leaders when they claimed Jesus was the bastard son of a Samaritan.  (Jesus had grown up just north of the Samarian region in Galilee.)  Samaritans would not normally go to the Jewish priests to be pronounced "clean".  So it is another measure of this man's faith in Jesus that he willingly obeyed Jesus's instruction to "go show yourselves to the priests." 

That instruction was given to send an important message to the Jews and Samaritans alike.  Along with two other stories in the Gospels about Samaritans, the woman at the well and the Good Samaritan, that story tells us something essential about Jesus:  He cares about all people, not just certain people groups or religions.  It is one of the most prominent messages of Jesus's ministry.  He wanted people to understand that it is not who you are that matters. What matters is who you will become - if you follow Him. 

There probably aren't many racists reading this blog; but most of us have biases of one sort or another.  Often those biases are against fellow Christians with different understandings of non-essential doctrines or different practices of our faith.  (Hymns vs worship music, for example.)  Sometimes the bias is against those who are struggling with emotional weaknesses, excess weight, failed relationships or other painful and difficult circumstances.  We would do well to heed Paul's instruction in both I Corinthians 8 and Romans 14, summed up aptly in the aphorism:  "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."  

The goal is to become like Jesus, before whom we all someday stand.

(There is a fun update to this post above at "More on Samaritans.")
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