I don’t know if you’ve heard of the growing racial unrest in Switzerland lately but it has resulted recently in a violent attack by two men wielding chainsaws against an Angolan man who has been in the country for 11 years. The unrest centers around an idea that foreigners who have moved into Switzerland are the cause of much of the crime in that country. And now there is a very strong anti-immigration movement that is gaining ground in that country.
These events of today in Switzerland give us some idea of the extreme dislike that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans in Jesus day. In the gospel lesson today Jesus heals 10 lepers and only one, a Samaritan, returns to Jesus to give glory to God for what the Son of God has done for him. In the last verse of the gospel Jesus said to this foreigner, rise and go; your faith has made you well.
It was faith in what Jesus had told these 10 men to do that cleansed them. Jesus’ words were the object of the faith that made these 10 well. Faith must always have an object. To trust, which is at the root of the word faith used here, to trust is to have confidence in something. Unlike the song that says, I have confidence in confidence alone, we have confidence, like this foreigner in the words of Jesus to deliver what they promise.
Jesus delivers to us, through His word, through His holy scripture; hope and life and healing and freedom. In His word and His sacraments Jesus meets us and delivers to us all that we need and more. He gives these things to all who believe, there’s no one that He leaves out of the promise and hope which He offers. There is no foreigner that Jesus refuses. Foreigners, those who are different from the Jews, play a big role in the life of Jesus. They’re even in His genealogy.
In the Old Testament lesson today we hear of Ruth, from the land of Moab where they worshipped many gods. Ruth, after ten years of living with her Jewish husband and mother-in-law has become a believer in the promises of Yahweh, the one true God. Ruth says to Naomi, "17Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." Ruth, the foreigner, the different one, has come to trust in the Lord God and takes an oath that nothing but death will prevent her from returning with Naomi to the land of promise, the land of Judah.
Now if you look in the genealogy of Jesus in the 1st chapter of Matthew, you see among all those male names the name of Ruth, this foreigner. She is part of the heritage of Jesus. God is about bringing the foreigner in to Himself. And that is what He has called us to be about. In the beginning of Matthew we have this genealogy with a list that includes more than one foreigner, one different one, and then at the end of Matthew Jesus says that His followers are to go into the world with His good news of the kingdom of God for all who will believe and be baptized.
Jesus’ followers are to take the love of God into all the world, to all the foreigners, to all those who are different.
Now that all sounds noble and big and way beyond us. But that’s ok, we don’t have to leave Folsom to reach those who are different from us with the message of the love of God. They have come to us. In fact they have grown up among us. I’m going to play a video for you but before I do I want to prepare you to hear this. This young woman is speaking at a church in the Chicago area and she is telling of the foreignness that she and her generation feel.
I have heard it said over and over again in the 4 years that I’ve been here that we need to reach out to young people. They are our ‘foreigners’ as you will hear. And if you are serious about reaching them with the love of God, then listen to what she says is needed in order for them to hear us.
At this point, the congregation listens to the "Ladonna Witmer" video, where a young woman tells of her search to connect.
She said an awful lot that we should discuss. And in the days ahead of Strategic Ministry Planning we need to bear in mind what Ladonna has said. But before I close I want to point out something she said early on; that her generation is homesick for a place they’ve never had. Homesick for a place they’ve never had. They are seeking, as we all do, for a home.
You see, we’re all foreigners as we walk through this life. The thing that Ruth reminds us of from the Old Testament is that we are welcome home in Judah, in God's land. Christians are not of this world. We are the different ones and we are walking through this foreign land together. We’re called to tell others of the land that they are invited to, just as we have been. We’ve been given faith to trust in Jesus invitation to heaven just as the leper was given faith to be healed. We, of faith, trust in the land that is our home that we’ve not yet seen.
And we who know that are responsible to tell others who long for it, like Ladonna. In our Strategic Ministry Planning we need to see that as a central part of who we are. We need to prepare ourselves to go to the Ladonna’s around us and build true relationships with them. They need to know that we’re genuine in our concern for them as individuals and not just as people to come and fill our pews. They need to know that we care for them, just as we know that Jesus cares for us.
Remember that Jesus showed His care for us by His sacrifice. He’s told us to take up our cross and follow Him. That’s more than just a metaphor. If we’re serious about reaching out with the gospel we must be prepared to make true sacrifices. We’re called to make sacrifices that are costly to us and not simply give from what we have leftover of our time and of who we are.
Ladonna said that her generation needs what we have, but they need to see that the hope we have is real to us. We know that we have been given faith by God's grace through His word and sacraments. We are called by Christ to live so that others can see the truth of our confidence in Him in our daily lives. And we’re called so that other foreigners too can have the hope that is ours by faith.
In Jesus' name, Amen.