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Not Looking Hard Enough

  • Jesus finds himself in the borderlands
    • Jesus did not need to go the way he did - there were ways he could have stayed out of the area between Samaria and Galillee, and indeed, Jews who were intending to avoid ritual uncleanliness would have done so.
    • But here he is, in a kind of thin space.
    • Gloria Anzaldúa: “a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us.” She writes that while borders “are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them … ” a “borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary … the prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.”
      • If you doubt this, consider the story of the Ohio State/Michigan rivalry
      • The Toledo war of 1835-36 (Ohio took the strip of land around Toledo, and Michigan got the UP).
      • All of this animosity for a made up border set nearly 200 years ago!
      • Of course this reality of borderlands is far more serious that sports rivalries, and people can be defined and redefined by how borders transgress them - current war in Ukraine being a prime example.
    • We recognize there are a lot of frontiers we contend with, and because they're in the "in between," they can cause us discomfort.
      • Every time we define ourselves, we too start setting borders.
      • And those borders give us some comfort. Over time, we may start to harden those borders as well.
      • We start to set ourselves to motion with those borderlands as well - we expect that things will stay the same.
  • Jesus is dealing with issues of expectation
    • On first glance, we start to wonder what's wrong with these 9 folks.
    • But there is no reason for those nine truly to expect anything else than what happened.
    • We can be reminded of a similar story earlier in Luke where Jesus heals a leper and commands the same - go to the priest and be made clean.
    • But this is new for the Samaritan!
    • And so we can understand that just as we can take for granted events that fall within our expectations, those who don't have those same expectations can respond with joy and celebration.
    • This came more clear for me yesterday waiting on the San Marco Train (when I stopped thinking I had to get somewhere and just was, I actually found a lot more satisfaction)
  • Jesus' lament is not for himself, but for the other nine
    • But an interesting question arises when we consider these borderlands, and consider another: how was a Samaritan amongst a group of Jews?
    • It's because at this point in their lives, what defined them was their leprosy, not their nationality. What had been a border had dissolved.
    • And I can imagine these new compatriots had some awkward moments, but they found something bound them together...
    • Until it wasn't needed and welcome anymore. And now the nine are back to who they've been, borders redefined and no longer transgressed.
    • Luke's writing gives us this as well - they're lepers until they're healed, and then it's Jews and Samaritans - a foreigner amidst locals.
    • But where does that leave the Samaritan? Well, it leaves them with Jesus, and with salvation. A moment worth celebrating. The rest of the Samaritan's former community lost the chance to see that, and largely left Jesus in the dust.
  • Which should cause us to wonder about our own limiting expectations and our need to bring that to the borders
    • With Natalie, Oscar and Angie here we have three languages being spoken
    • There's not a week that typically goes by that there aren't at least a few countries represented in person or online at our worship
    • There's also rarely a week that goes by where we don't have folks from different backgrounds, sexual orientations, histories, political affiliations, and other identities here.
    • We become an amalgam of borderlands on a Sunday, which really is saying something.
    • The choice is whether or not we want to harden our own borders, or explore the liminal space.
      • I'm mindful that some churches even today are making a choice to harden borders.
        • I don't pass judgement on that, but I wonder if Jesus would ask the same question of those churches and congregations as he does the 9 - have you limited yourself because you just expected it this way?
        • There's comfort, sure - but is comfortable stagnation really living? Is it truly salvation?
      • The question should be if we really believe that the trade for not seeking the foreigner is worth a monochomic faith where salvation is not readily visible any longer.
      • Better - to live within the borderlands, the liminal spaces, the frontera, and witness the Christ providing salvation to those who thought it was not possible.
      • And if these days are any indication, we're on our way to living within borderlands. TBTG