Borderland Grace

In this week’s message, Pastor Marshall reminds us that Jesus still meets people in the in-between places—the borderlands of doubt, distance, and need. Faith moves forward on His word, and even from a distance, the Healer draws near.

Transcript

Turn with me to the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 17. You should know that we're in Luke if you've been with us for any amount of time. Of course, year C, which is what we're in as far as the lectionary calendar goes. The church calendar of readings has us in Luke. So year A, Matthew, B, Mark, and then see Luke.

So we've been parked in Luke for a while. And if you remember, we're actually on a journey with Jesus. He has started his journey to Jerusalem. If you know about his life, he moves north and then he'll move south again toward Jerusalem. And that's where that last week, holy week and the resurrection, the crucifixion, resurrection, all that takes place.

So we're actually journeying with Jesus. Kind of. Kind of almost like road tripping is the way I like to think of it being. Being kind of the end of the summer here. We're still road tripping with Jesus and hearing some of the things that happens to him along the way.

All right? And so I want you to join into what he's doing and what he's saying here in Luke 17 and verse 11, when you found that, go ahead and stand for the reading of God's word.

Notice these words in Luke 17 and verse 11. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, 10 lepers approached him. Keeping their distance. They called out, saying jesus, master, have mercy on us.

When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God. With a loud voice, he prostrated himself at Jesus feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus asked, were not ten made clean, but the other nine? Where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner. Then he said to him, get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well.

So, Jesus, thank you for this text of scripture that you have given to us today to consider and to hear. Lord, may we hear it in such a way that it's given from you and not from man. We need your Holy Spirit for that. So give us your Holy Spirit. We pray in your name.

Amen. And you can be seated.

Well, again, I hate to just keep being redundant here with this, but again, we're met with a text that has. That's quite complicated, to be honest with you. And you're thinking, what kind of story is this, you know, especially as a kid. Some kids misunderstand lepers to be leopards, right? You know, we've heard it, we've heard a story like this before.

And this is not that kind of leopard. 10 animal. Leopards did not come to Jesus. Rather, this is 10 lepers, which is not really. Again, you know, this is one of the exegetical or interpretive pieces here is like, we come to a text like this and we're like, what does that word leper mean?

You know, and of course it has to do with leprosy. And even that is a little confusing because quite frankly, leprosy was a bit complicated in the Old Testament, alright? And even here in the New Testament, they're using the same kind of term to describe what it is. And ultimately it is a skin disease of some sort. If you actually read Leviticus, you'll see there's a whole chapter actually given to just leprosy, which is some sort of skin disease.

It wasn't the one always that led to sort of the bubonic plague always, Although it very much could have been that type of leprosy, which is why in the ancient world, they really didn't take chances. Okay, so if you had something going on on the skin, you know, open sores and this sort of thing, they just sort of. And unfortunately, I actually have one of those on my hand right now that's like an open wound. And I've been trying to like protect it because it's on my hand though, it keeps getting bumped and keeps. You know how it is, right?

And you're like, okay, I'll be sure to stay away from you. Pastor, I may put a band aid on. I think my wife has a band aid for me. Okay, I asked for one. So hopefully we've got a first aid kit, I'm sure, before we shake hands after the service.

But nevertheless, in the ancient world, if you had open sores, then you were just simply told, hey, stay away from people, please. All right? Like announce that you. Because we don't know what you got. And actually they would oftentimes group together, which may or may not have resulted in something good, but it was what it was, okay?

And. And then. So we've got these 10 lepers that come Jesus. Now, this is not the first time he's healed someone of leprosy, by the way. He does this all the way back at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke.

In fact, it's one person now he's got 10. And then we come to the idea that all of a sudden this guy comes back and prostrates himself again. Another term that we often perhaps misunderstood. It just means to fall on your feet, okay, is actually to fall on your face in worship. So think about falling at the feet of Jesus.

So here's the other cool thing today, is that our Second Kings reading, as has been happening, compliments or perhaps echoes through the ages all the way to this story. Did you catch that in the Naaman reading? It was actually that Second Kings, a little lengthier reading today, but. But it was Naaman, who also is a foreigner. Right.

And who also has some sort of skin disease and is also cured at a distance. Lots of similarities here. And also reaches faith in the one true God. So without further ado, let's just jump into this and see what the Lord has for us this morning. The first point I think I want to make is this.

And it's right here at the beginning. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. Now, the Bible doesn't waste words. So these are not just places that he's randomly mentioning. Instead, we're meant to locate ourselves in this story.

And in this story, they're headed to the center of religious life. That's Jerusalem. Remember, that's the very center. But they're not there yet. In fact, Jesus actually starts his journey, as I just mentioned, way up there at Caesarea Philippi.

And that's where Peter is going to make that confession. You are the Christ. He's going to then set his face to Jerusalem. And that's the journey we've been in. That's what I.

That's what I was just mentioning. He's been on that journey, but he's not there yet. Instead, he's at the borderland. He's in the wilderness, actually, between two places. All right, you see where I'm going with this?

Notice, Naaman also crosses from Aram into Israel and is in Samaria. Remember, the prophet was actually in Samaria. So we've got two stories where Samaria is. Is mentioned here because this guy, we're specifically told, was a Samaritan. There's a little line there that's very important.

He was a Samaritan, you say big deal. Kind of was a big deal in the first century. And here's the basic reason why. Not only did it have to do with ethnicity, because the Samaritans, remember, had stayed behind. These are Jews that had stayed behind and were made to intermarry with the Assyrians.

So they intermarried with the Assyrians and were no longer purely of an ethnic Jewish line. Not only that, though, it wasn't just ethnicity, it actually was religious as well. They believed you could worship in Samaria. And you remember, Jesus corrects even the lady at the well, remember the Samaritan lady at the well and says, you worship what you don't know, okay? But one day, you won't have to go to Jerusalem because the Spirit will be given to all people.

All right? But until that day, you actually do have to follow God's way and go to Jerusalem. So even though he's correcting her, he's still reaching across that border, okay? Not only. Not only the border of Jew and Samaritan, but man and woman here for Jesus's time.

And so what we have here is Jesus walking between now Samaria and Galilee. He's in the land where it's contentious, let me just tell you. And it's hard for us. And I don't want to give, like, a modern example per se, but. But certainly their religious understanding was off but close, okay?

Off but close. And then the. Again, ethnic line here was off but close. And they did not like each other. All right?

Let's just put it that way. The Samaritans didn't like the Jews, and the Jews did not like the Samaritans. And there was a serious rift between them. Jesus, of course, we see, oftentimes presses on that rift. Remember, he must go through Samaria.

He specifically goes through when everybody else would have went around. And likewise here, he's obviously going through this area on purpose because he knows who is here, because who's here are those lepers who often live on the fringe of society, outside the camp, we might say. And you know, there's a spiritual principle here for us. God's mercy. God's grace begins at the edges and works its way to the center.

This is the way it happens in our own life, isn't it? We don't just hear about God or his word or what Christ has done or that the Holy Spirit has been given, and that goes straight to the center. Oftentimes we have barriers that God has to break through. And you even have those experiences where all of a sudden there's a breakthrough. We even talk about it like that, don't we?

Because we, unbeknownst to ourselves, sometimes even put up walls and barriers to the things of God. But that doesn't stop God. He'll start working where we have to begin. Where. Where we put up these little false walls.

And these, these fake things up, these artificial art artifices in our life. He will start there if we want, if that's where we want to start with things, he'll start there. He'll meet us where we are, but never leave us there. He's always pushing to the center. He's journeying to the center of our heart.

Do you hear? He's journeying to the center of who we are. It won't stop until he gets there. And so there's a spiritual lesson here, is that he begins oftentimes at the borderland, in the wilderness. Think of how many good things happen in the wilderness.

Good things don't happen in the wilderness, okay? That's the whole point about the wilderness. It's like the desert. You're in a place of lack, a place of stress, a place of not plenty, but of danger. And that is often where God meets us.

So if you find yourself in the wilderness is what I'm saying. If you find yourself on the fringe, if you find yourself in the borderland, in that tension, look for God. His mercy often is there in an abundant way.

Now, there's also a physical lesson here, and that is the Bible commands us to care for strangers. This is all throughout the Old Testament, for sure. And the primary reason the Old Testament, you get it, is because Israel was a stranger. You remember, Abraham journeys and is a stranger. And those who bless him, God blesses them.

You see?

Then God says, okay, now that I've established you in the land, you bless the stranger when they come through.

And remember, this is actually one of those ones that make it into Matthew 25 as well. We kind of make a big deal about Matthew 25 because, well, Jesus kind of makes a big deal about it. In fact, he kind of says it like this. You don't do these things depart from me.

I don't know you.

Translation, go to hell. And I'm not saying that in a colloquial way. I'm saying that in an eternal way of separation. In other words, Jesus in Matthew 25, just go read it, because it is quite shocking. He doesn't base whether you go on to eternal life or go on to eternal death on one's personal faith in Christ, but on what you do, that faith in Christ.

In other words, if you don't welcome strangers, then you didn't welcome Jesus. You don't clothe the naked, then you didn't clothe Jesus. Lord, remember, when did we. If we'd have known it was you. If you do it to the least of these.

You did it to me.

That's challenging, isn't it, when we're busy building our kingdom to have to worry about others.

But here's the thing. We can't love God if we don't love others.

James will tell us this way. You say you love God. You've never even seen him. How can you say you hate your brother, who you have seen, and love God whom you've not seen? Impossible.

That's the point.

So I wonder, in your own life, in our own life, my own life, who's on the border of things? Who's on the French? Who would we consider that's in our life? I'm not talking about the United States government. I'm talking about your government.

You, your world. Who's on the fringes there? We immediately always go to these other, oh, yeah, let somebody else do it. We'll pay to have it done. No, no, no, no, no.

Jesus says, did you serve me by the people I gave you? You don't have to like the people in your life, but you got to love them and give yourself to them because, you know, the fact that you don't like certain people or I don't like certain people is really more of a reflection of me, unfortunately.

And God has given you certain people in your life. He's given you circles, okay? He's giving you circles. What are we doing on those circles? You forget about those on the fringes that need help.

It's not easy. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. But you know what? Here's the spiritual lesson is we were on the fringes and somebody came for us. Somebody came for me.

I distinctly remember. And Emily will know who this is, but Ms. Beverly Porter, she taught, you know, English literature and British literature, and I took these classes with her in college. I was the worst student.

Emily's the only one in here that could say amen right there. And thankfully, she didn't. Okay, I was the worst student. If Ms. Beverly was here, she. Yeah, old Marshall, you know, he really was.

But you know what? And it. And it actually still moves me in a deep way, looking back. She still cared for me, even though I was really difficult. Like, because I would be like, why do we need to know this?

I was that guy, you know? You know, like, because I'm back there just wanting to mess around with my friends and ready to get on back to play video games, you know, in my dorm room. But you know what? She took the time to care for me and to actually work around some. She Just sort of ignored my idiocy and stupidity.

And sometimes I have found in dealing with difficult people like me, that it's good sometimes just to ignore it, ignore it and keep treating them like we know we need to. Just don't even listen. Just let that roll right on off. It's obviously a dumb comment, so let's just move on instead of taking it. Oh, can't believe, you know, she could have been like that to me.

And you know what? She wasn't. And it actually changed me. Like, actually changed the way I think about things, because she chose to just ignore this dumb little cocky dude and push through to what she, I think, saw that God had a calling on my life. And I'm.

I mean, I've thanked her before, but I'll thank her again. And I was on the fringe, you see. It might not look like what you thought, but people have written me off, okay? And somebody came after me. That's why we go for the stranger.

That's why we go for the one on the fringes. The least of these have no concern to anyone else. But if they're in my circle, it's just like these dogs I have. You know, like, we unfortunately have these two dogs, and we have them because of my daughter. And it's a long story, but the point is we have them.

And Jessica often says, My wife says, you know, you love them, don't you, honey? And I said, I have to love whatever comes into my life, okay? Except for evil, of course. And the dogs aren't evil most of the time. And I have to love what's in there, right?

And that's the way I look at things in my life. Like God. Listen, think about it. God has given you the life he's given you. Think about this.

He's given you the people he's given you. And we're gonna be judged on how we love what he's given us and how we've stewarded it. We don't look over across wish I had what they had. Be a lot easier. That's not what he's called you you to do.

He called me to certain things, Emily. Everybody else in this room. He is calling you and leading you on a journey. And he said, come on. I promise you this is going to be greater than you could have ever mapped out yourself.

I don't even worry about it anymore. You know, like, what good is it in worrying about. Let's just stay close to him. Love who he puts in our life. All right, I think we got this right.

The border is not a barrier to God. He comes all the way down to rescue us. Instead, it becomes the meeting place for grace. So just think about that when you find yourself in the wilderness, when you find yourself in tension. Now, secondly, I find it fascinating that Jesus heals from a distance here, okay?

Now, this is not the only miracle, okay, that happens at a distance. You remember that one military fellow comes to him and says, listen, I know you can direct things however you want. You can heal. You don't even have to go to my house. And he was right.

He was right. But other times, Jesus touches, right, or he makes mud, or he spits and does all these different unique things right here, he heals from it. Just think, put yourself in this situation. You've got leprosy, right? And you probably have heard of the other time that Jesus healed somebody of leprosy, where he maybe touched them.

You're thinking, man, I haven't been touching a while because I've been quarantined and all that. I bet he's going to do that, you know, kind of like Naaman, right? You remember, Naaman's like Maimon's like, he gets so mad. What, just dip seven times that nasty Jordan River. We got better rivers than that.

If it has to do with. Sir, could I. If he'd have given you something hard, you'd have done it. Well, I just thought that the prophet would come out and greet me because, I mean, kind of a big deal. And I think I thought he would call on his God and wave his hand.

I love that whole waving the. You know, it's like waving the wand. Voila, you're healed. He had in his mind his healing was going to come in a certain way. You hear me?

Some of us think, okay, God, Now, I know you promised this. So it's going to happen like that. Let me just tell you. Probably not going to happen. Like, you can guess.

Probably not going to happen. Like, you can guess. He likes to surprise us. Anybody like surprises? Some of you like.

Not really. Some of you like. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Right.

Well, God is a God of surprises. But every surprise he has is good. But we can't always see that it's good in the moment. We just can't. It's just.

It's our limitation, not his. But. But looking back, we can say, so thankful that girl broke up with me. And I am actually, you say that sounds personal, Pastor. It is.

Okay. But I'm online now. I can't say a whole lot. You know what I mean, it's just one of those things mutually good for everybody. And then all of a sudden, Jessica comes in my life, and I can look back even in that heartbreak, and I thought my life was over.

And all this. A little dramatic sometimes like that.

And God gave me a gift. I'm talking about a good gift, man. A good gift. Had I been in control, I would have just tripped trying to grab at what I thought I lost. Let's move on to what he has.

He's got something. Here's the principle in Christianity that we can always say in any moment, in anywhere, is the best is yet to come. He ain't done yet. Remember the construction site thing? The whole thing about the construction site is you might not be able to piece together what this is and how that's going to work and what this is going to.

I can't see it. That's okay. He is not done yet. He's not done. He's not done.

Which means the best is yet to come.

So he ends up. He ends up healing Naaman from a distance, right? You know, the prophet's just like, yeah, just send my servant out there, you know? He didn't even come out, you know? No, he didn't.

He didn't do it the way we wanted to do it. And here in this story, in Luke, it's the same sort of thing. Just imagine you're this leper, right? You got this thing, you know, that Jesus can do it. You know, he can heal.

And all Jesus says is, hey, go to the priest and show yourself. He doesn't even say that you're healed. Think about that. Like, he doesn't say to them, you're healed. So now go and do what the law requires, which is go to priest and you show him your little wound, and he's okay.

All right, you're good to go now to go back in the public sphere. No, he just says, go show yourself to the priest. Or the priest, actually. Well, I love this. As they went, they were made clean.

That's how faith works. Faith does not work if you're in park.

It does not work that way. No, no, no. Faith means you're on the go, even if you don't know exactly where. You remember Abraham, right? He was looking for a city, right?

We're all looking for that city. City. We're all looking for the Garden City that we find in Revelation.

You know, I made up a new version of a song.

That song about going back to Eden. I hate to break it to you, but we ain't going back to Eden. We're actually not. I mean, I know, I know it messes you up. And now you're.

Every time you hear that song, you go, oh, man, he messed me up, you know? But I promise you, we're not going back to Eden. No. No. We're going to a garden city.

In other words, Eden on steroids. Eden as a city of God. Eden as the kingdom of God. That's not the same Eden. We ain't going back.

We're going forward. Dear brothers and sisters, the best is yet to come again. And so even when we can't see it, even when we think about this. I love this. This hit me this morning.

I was about to jump.

Think about this. 2000 years were removed from Jesus. And some of us say, man, wish I could have been closer to, like, when he was, you know, like, I wish I just could have known a disciple that knew a disciple that knew a disciple that knew Jesus. That'd be awesome. But what if we just think about it in perspective real quick.

Yeah. Were 2,000 years removed from his crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. But what if we're just two years removed from his second Advent? Let's go. Right?

I mean, what if he was coming back in two years? How would that change your plans?

The point is, we're supposed to live every single day as if he's coming back tomorrow.

And I know it gets tiresome and, like, we don't always live with that sort of tension. But here's the thing. We're. I think we're closer to the second Advent than the first. Now we may have tipped the scale.

Who knows? I don't know. The point is, we don't have to know. Maybe it's 10,000 years from now, maybe it's 20,000 years from now. The point is, we walk as if he's ready to bow, bust open that eastern sky in two minutes.

You see, distance is no thing for God. Distance is no matter for God at all, because he's not bound as we are in time and space. Oh, no, he's outside of that and not limited by past, present, and future. And so he meets us where we are, even if we feel like there's a separation. And ultimately, here's the thing, there's this unique dynamic here in Both these texts, Second Kings and Luke 17, where you have physical healing that points to spiritual healing.

You see, notice both in the name and story, what's the end result? That he was praising God. You remember what he says? Even he says he and by the way, notice this. He actually gets healed, right?

And then he returns to the man of God. That's the same word here. He knew he was healed and he returned to Jesus, didn't he? Same word. I love this.

So return. And then now I know that there is no God in all the earth. And except in Israel, he converted. In other words, he wasn't. Think about this.

He was not just healed of his leprosy, but of idolatry.

He was worshiping another God before he came to Israel, into Samaria region. After he left, he was worshiping the one and true and only God.

And you know what's crazy too? The only reason he knew to go to Samaria, I don't want to unpack this too much, but is because of a little girl. You read that story in Second King. There was a slave girl who had been taken captive, abducted, became a slave to Naaman's wife, a young girl. Now, she could have gotten embittered.

We would have been like, absolutely. You got every right to be mad and punish your master by withholding the God of Israel from him. She did not. She told her, actually tells us, we read it a little. She actually said, if only my Lord were the were with the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.

This little. This little girl's faith led to the conversion of a mighty man in a pagan nation that wasn't a Jew. Think about that. All because she didn't get embittered when the Lord told her, go serve that family over there.

We get embittered and then we, oh, I want the worst for those people.

Can I tell you that that comes from Satan? Lord Jesus cleanse us from that kind of stuff, from that kind of attitude.

No, he may be calling us into the storm in order to calm it, in order to be the calming mediation. Because you see, it's not the prophet who's in Israel that cures. It's the God of Israel who cures. A God of Elisha who cures. Just like here.

This man returns to Jesus. Why you say man? He disobeyed the law because he didn't even go to the priest. Jesus is the high priest. Let's go, huh?

Jesus is the high priest. He's the highest priest there could be. You see this fella? While the others were physically cured, he kept pushing to spiritual healing. And that's always greater than physical healing.

I know we pray for this and for that, for physical healing, but we ought to equally pray for spiritual healing and when there's a miracle, that term miracle in the New Testament is just sign. It's literally sign. And here's the thing about a sign. Just like where it says restroom this way, or sanctuary this way, the sign is not the thing itself. It puts points to a reality.

It's better to be in the sanctuary than looking at the sun. The signs of Jesus. And that's actually what John calls him in his Gospel, right? Miracles, the signs of Jesus point us to Jesus himself. And so if we get the benefit but never get to the benefactor who is Christ, we've lost.

If we receive the gift but never meet the giver, we've lost this guy. Once he receives the gift, I know who gave that. And he returns to worship. This is one of those rare moments in the New Testament, by the way, where Jesus explicitly proves he's God. He doesn't just go around saying, hi, by the way, I'm God, so if you would just bow down, thank you.

He doesn't do that. I would do that if I was God walking around. But he does not do that. But here we get a rare glimpse of a man that comes. And by the way, there's a lot of running.

And there's also a lot of yelling in this story, by the way. There's a lot of movement. You know, it's like. And a lot of yelling. They called out to him, and now he comes back with a loud voice.

He said, pastor, why you get loud every once in a while? I think it's biblical, right? Especially here, when you're giving praise to God, he falls down and worships him. Now, anytime that an angel is there and somebody tries to worship, the angels say, well, no, don't. Do not worship me.

That happens a couple times in Scripture. But here, Jesus receives the worship of a man which tells us he's God. Not only that, notice what he says. Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner who is Jesus talking about himself. Did they not return to God?

This is one of those explicit moments.

Beautiful. And then finally he says, get up and go on your way. Here we go again in movement, right? No, no, no. No rest for the weary in this way, because faith moves us to action.

Get up. Go on your way. Your faith has made you well. Now think about that. He's already been cleansed of leprosy.

What kind of well are we talking about? His soul was healed. He converted to Jesus.

He was made a new person because of this moment as he worshiped Christ. You see, here's the good thing about Jesus word to us is that his word right here never expires. Everything in our life has the expiration date, doesn't it? You know, like the reason this thing is not healing well on my hand is because I'm getting old. Let's just be real.

I even went to the dermatologist. I'm like, hey, what is this thing on my head? And it was a nicer young lady and she said, you're just getting old.

Not many people have told me that in my life, but that lady did.

I guess she has to tell the truth as a medical professional. And you know, I got an expiration date. I'm not going to live on this earth forever like I am right now. Yeah, exactly. For us Christians, like, yes, Lord, the older I get, the more ready I am.

You know, maybe that's life's way of getting us ready. In fact, everything has an expiration date that we can see.

But not God's word. Not God's word. And it says fresh today for you, as it was for this fellow. And if we'll return to him and worship the Giver. Let's not just keep asking for things from God, but ask for God from God.

And when we do, he'll draw near to us. Because the scripture says if you draw near to God, he will draw near to you. So even with the distance that we see and think there is no distance with God. His Word is as fresh today as ever. His promises are as true today as they were in Second Kings or in Luke 17.

The question for us remains, do we hear his voice? Do we know who to go to? Are we calling out for him or do we just call out and act as if he is not there to help? The scripture says he is an ever present help in our time of need. Anybody in need, I mean not just physically, we immediately go to the physical.

But what about our soul? What about, what about our kids soul? What about our neighbors?

What about our family? What about our co workers?

We need spiritual healing above all else. The physical things that happen that are good, they point us up, up, up, up, up to the giver himself. So wherever you are today, whether you're on the border, whether you feel like you're far off from God or whether you're on your way back. Okay, let's hear his voice. To rise up as his church and to go.

Because faith in the one and only true and living God is alone. What saves us? And when we have that faith in God, the distance closes and he comes near the healer is here.

The Great Physician. He's here. Show yourself to him. Be honest with where you are and get up. And let's keep going on the journey.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, amen.