Lectionary Commentaries for October 12, 2025
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

“Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?”

If Jesus’ words never strike me as strange, if Jesus’ words never cause me some sense of unrest, if Jesus’ words never trouble me, then I can be sure of one thing: I can be sure that I am missing something important.

Luke here narrates one of Jesus’ miracles of abundance. Instead of the healing of an individual, Jesus here makes 10 people suffering from a skin disease well. The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition correctly opts for “skin disease” rather than “leprosy” as it has become clear to scholars that the modern form of skin disease we call “leprosy” is not identical to the condition Luke and other Gospel writers refer to as lepros.

As Matthew Theissen has argued, leprosy did not exist in the ancient Mediterranean context in which Jesus healed and Luke wrote.¹ Instead, he argues, the sloughing off of the skin that resembles a decomposing corpse pointed to the origins of impurity: death. Here, Jesus resists this deadly force, the very source of the impurity, not just healing a disease but battling the encroachment of death upon human life. In short, this is a healing that points to Jesus’ extraordinary power to defeat death and its minions even before he faces a Roman cross and a tomb.

Jesus’ abundant healing, however, remains unreciprocated by the bulk of its recipients. Only one of those healed returns to give him thanks. The one who returns is a Samaritan, a foreigner (in Greek, an allogẽnēs). Earlier, in Luke 10, Jesus highlights a Samaritan for the mercy he shows a stranger left for dead by bandits, a clearly surprising conclusion to a story we now know all too well. That it would be a familiar enemy who might deliver us from danger is an alarming confrontation of our most cherished values.

Just one chapter earlier, right after Jesus begins his sojourn to Jerusalem (9:51), a Samaritan village chooses not to welcome him. Incensed disciples, having just been granted by Jesus “power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases” (9:1–2), feel emboldened to strike back. They offer to destroy the village and its inhabitants, only to be confronted by Jesus’ rebuke. In short, the wider Lukan context prepares us to see in the Samaritan who returns a surprising end to this miraculous healing.

And yet, it seems that Jesus’ statement is more than a mere observation of fact, a neutral note. Jesus’ words also seem to have an edge of condemnation and dismissal. As I once heard Anna Carter Florence note in a sermon, Jesus does not even speak to this healed leper but over him. “This foreigner” is barely present in this scene, though of the 10 who were healed, only he has acted faithfully. Why does Jesus seem to dismiss this act of thanksgiving? Why does he seem surprised that an outsider would comprehend the enormity of his healing but nine insiders would misunderstand?

It may be that recognizing the experience of the foreigner is essential in proclaiming this text. After all, the experience of the foreigner is unenviable. Familiarity is fleeting for the foreigner. On the one hand, the foreigner’s new home is never quite home. Many will dream of returning to the land of their birth, but this first home is a place that no longer really exists. Once the foreigner has left home, the home itself changes, but so also does the one who migrates to a new land. For most, returning home is a dream; it is pure nostalgia that can easily rot into resentment, decline into despair. Their new home is their true home, though it may never feel that way.

The Hebrew Scriptures are all too familiar with the experiences of the foreigner. Among this week’s lectionary texts, Jeremiah 29:1, 4–7 exhorts the prophet’s fellow Israelites to embrace lives as foreigners in Babylon. He tells them to seek the welfare of the city and contribute to its thriving. Build homes, for the homes to which you hope to return are no longer. Create new family links, for your kin are with you and are not to be found back in the land you once called home. Seek the welfare of the city of your exile, for it is now your city. And yet, at the very same time, Jeremiah invokes God’s promises to God’s people, declaring that their return to Israel was assured by God.

These are the incredible tensions of living as a foreigner in another’s land. We might also recall Leviticus 13:34 exhorting its readers and hearers to recall their former state as enslaved people in a foreign land as they consider the treatment of others. The experience of living as a foreigner is a hermeneutical and ethical key of sorts for these passages and these experiences. To experience or even remember exile and displacement is to draw near to a tangible experience of God’s mercy and judgment. Though they are no longer foreigners, the memory of being foreigners is no less acute.

These reminders of the tangible realities accompanying the life of the foreigner strike me as particularly pressing these days. In our politics and wider culture, we tend to hear “foreigner” deployed as an epithet all too often. And yet, we can only decry the presence and powerful stories of foreigners in our midst by neglecting our own exilic ancestry, both personal and biblical.

Moreover, decrying the presence of foreigners in our midst leads us to miss a critical  theological insight. The foreigner can approach the grace of God in a particularly insightful way, a path of insight that may now be lost to many of us. After all, the foreigner understands the sting of oppression. She understands the usually unavailing nostalgia that accompanies exile. She understands the rootlessness that characterizes the foreigner’s life. These are all experiences that shaped the story of Israel and its Messiah. Without them, the narrative of God’s action in this world is incomplete.

The foreigner is a vital presence among us. The foreigner is a reminder of the pain of displacement many of us have felt. The foreigner is a reminder that God’s promises know no boundaries or borders, that God’s grace will not abide by the arbitrary lines we draw between ourselves and others, that God consistently finds the most unlikely proclaimers of the good news as the best choice of all to announce God’s will.

Notes

1. Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism (Baker Academic, 2020), 43–68.

This week’s lectionary reading offers a poignant account of illness and the extreme measures people will go to in order to be healed. The story starts with Naaman, the imposing, valiant military official in the king of Aram’s army, who, despite his military exploits, suffers from a debilitating skin disease that carries with it connotations of shame, disgust, and isolation. In a culture where purity is greatly valued, the stigma associated with this disease causes the honorable Naaman to be ostracized from the community and shut out of the cult.

Actually, the lectionary text leaves out a critical part of the story that underscores Naaman’s desperate search for healing: In verses 4–6, Naaman first goes to the local king of Aram, who sends him to the king of Israel with an introductory letter as well as the advice to take a lot of money and clothes to encourage the Israelite king to help him. Naaman is well connected and well endowed. He knows people and taps into his connections to help him in this time of need. But all the money in the world, all the influence and power Naaman yields cannot cure his ailment.

In verse 7, we read the king of Israel’s lament when he is approached by a hopeful Naaman, in which he bemoans the limits of his power, contending that he is not God, who wields power over life and death. He acknowledges that to heal this man of his skin disease is not within his range of powers.

Help, though, comes from an unlikely source. In stark contrast to the renowned military leader, a lowly slave girl, a victim of one of the military exploits presided over by Namaan, offers unsolicited advice to Naaman’s wife as to where this suffering man in whose house she ended up might find healing. Remarkably, not only does the wife of Namaan listen to and believe her slave girl, but Naaman also hears and believes his wife, who, in terms of the social standing of the day, would typically have been overlooked and disregarded.

If one reads between the lines, one finds that Elisha, the man of God referenced in the little slave girl’s counsel, is also overlooked and disregarded. It is telling that Naaman does not go straight to the man of God. Also, the king does not think of directing Namaan to Elisha; perhaps this reflects the king’s inability to recognize the prophet’s power in Israel. Nevertheless, Elisha, who finds himself on the fringe or periphery of society, inserts himself into the narrative, telling the despairing king to send Naaman to him so that he might learn what the little girl said all along, that there is a prophet of God in Israel who might heal him from his skin disease.

Naaman and his entire entourage rush over, expecting first-class treatment. He is a man of great stature, after all. However, Elisha does not even come out. He sends a message through his servants, advising Naaman to wash himself seven times in the Jordan. Naaman does not appreciate this advice at all! Where he comes from, there are plenty of rivers where he could have gone bathing instead. Once again, it is the servants who talk sense into him. And remarkably, once again, Naaman listens to his servants. Elisha was right, as were the servant girl and his wife and servants. In the end, Naaman is healed. However, as evident below, there is more at stake than merely physical healing in this week’s lectionary reading.

There are several angles one could explore in terms of this story. First, it is noteworthy that this fascinating tale of illness and recovery dramatically breaks the well-established link between sin and suffering in the Hebrew Bible Prophets and much of the Deuteronomistic history. Nowhere is it said that Namaan did anything to deserve the disease that has attacked his body and affected his mind and psyche. Instead, the narrative emphasizes that Naaman is successful in all aspects of his life, and yet he suffers from a debilitating ailment. What’s more, all the characters in this narrative are deeply invested in doing whatever they can to reintegrate Naaman into the community.

Second, the story wants to make it clear that healing is not in human hands. The narrative offers a candid look at a sick man’s increasingly desperate actions for a cure: Naaman will do anything—travel long distances, use his political networks, pay a lot of money to be healthy again. And yet, neither the king nor the prophet can heal Naaman. Elisha’s instruction to Naaman to bathe in the Jordan River symbolizes no human involvement in Naaman’s rebirth as he emerges from the water, a new man with skin like that of a little boy. Moreover, from Naaman’s final response, “Now I know there is a God in Israel,” instead of “Now I know there is a prophet in Israel,” it is evident that healing is attributed to God.

Third, as noted earlier, healing in this story is much broader than merely on a physical level. True transformation occurs when this important military leader listens to those not seen, heard, or respected, whose wisdom, insight, and know-how prove central to healing and transforming the individual and society. Naaman, as a result, is a changed man on more than just the physical level as a result of it, as evident in the reference to Naaman having skin like a little boy’s—perhaps signaling that he is now viewing the world like a little girl, like his wife, like his servants.

Finally, we need to be cognizant that we are preaching this text and many healing stories in the New Testament in congregations where not everyone is healed. For many individuals and families, healing implies having to learn to live with disability, rooted in the understanding that all human beings are, as Thomas Reynolds has argued, “only partially and temporarily able-bodied.”¹ We are born vulnerable, and as we age, we increasingly become vulnerable and susceptible to disease that may lead to stigma and social isolation just as much as what Naaman experienced. The story of illness and healing in 2 Kings 5 thus shows us what the world should be: a place where there is a place for the Naamans of the world, even if they are not to be healed.

Notes

1. Thomas Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality (Brazos, 2008). 29.

As one who speaks the word of the Lord to a contemporary situation, a biblical prophet often must announce what people need to hear, rather than what they might want and prefer to hear. It is quite understandable to want to hear that all is well, that God is “on our side.” However, as early as chapter 6, Jeremiah points to the ultimate harm done by declarations of “peace, peace” when there is, in fact, no real peace (verse 14). Rather than declaring an easy word of such a false peace, Jeremiah announced the profound transgression of God’s people, a stubborn waywardness that, if unaltered, would facilitate the invasion of a hostile foreign power against which resistance would prove futile.

The unpopular word spoken by Jeremiah would earn him ridicule, imprisonment, and even threats to his life. However, the events of 597 BCE would testify to the accuracy of the prophet’s unwelcome warnings as the Babylonian army lay siege to Jerusalem, looted the temple, and carried part of the political and religious aristocracy, including King Jehoiachin (also known as Jeconiah), into exile. Still, some of the same voices of prosperity that had been at odds with Jeremiah all along continued. In Jeremiah 28, the prophet Hananiah declared that the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, would break the yoke of the king of Babylon and, within two years, return all items taken from the temple and all those taken in exile, including King Jeconiah (verses 1–4).¹

Jeremiah’s response to Hananiah’s forecast of imminent restoration shows that he takes no delight in delivering an unpopular word, saying to Hananiah in 28:6, “Amen, may the LORD do so.” Who wouldn’t want to rally and cheer and believe what Hananiah is saying? One could imagine there being a part of Jeremiah that wanted to affirm Hananiah’s proclamation. However, Jeremiah, compelled by the word of the Lord, still cannot affirm a declaration of peace when there is no peace. Should imminent peace materialize, says Jeremiah, then he would be proved wrong. He reiterates, however, that such will not be the case, even prophesying the death of Hananiah because of his deceptive words—a prophecy that, contrary to Hananiah’s, actually does swiftly come to pass.

Chapter 29 begins with the sharing of a letter that Jeremiah sends to the exiles in Babylon. Apparently, there are some among the exiles proclaiming a swift reversal of the looting of the temple and the exile, similar to that espoused by Hananiah. Jeremiah must share with them an unpopular word, similar to that delivered in Jerusalem: Not so fast. Jeremiah delivers the jarring word that the same Lord of hosts, God of Israel, whom Hananiah had invoked to proclaim a swift deliverance from Babylon was actually the God who had sent the exiles to Babylon.²

As Jeremiah’s letter continues, the pleasantness of the news doesn’t improve very much. Still speaking the word of the Lord, Jeremiah lays out a series of imperatives to the exiles, running through the remainder of the pericope: Build houses, live in them, plant gardens, eat of their produce, take wives (for yourselves and your sons), have sons, give daughters in marriage, multiply, seek the welfare of the city and pray for it. Jeremiah even reminds the people with another first-person reference in verse 7 that God sent them into the exile where they now find themselves.

It would seem that no one should aspire to go anywhere anytime soon. In fact, Jeremiah goes on in verse 10 to announce from God a period of 70 years before there will be any remarkable change for the exiles, quite unlike Hananiah’s prediction of two years. The imperatives of verse 7 suggest just such an extended existence in Babylon. The exiles should live lives there in every sense. Not only should they settle in and establish lives for themselves; they should also seek the welfare of Babylon—even pray for it!

Although this is almost certainly not what any among the exiles in Babylon wanted to hear, it was what they needed to hear. False prophecies by self-interested pseudo-prophets who had told the people over and over that all was well, when in fact very little was well, were a major factor in landing the people in exile in the first place. Additional smooth but empty words would not be helpful. By announcing a word from God that may sound harsh and hopeless, Jeremiah is actually planting seeds for a hope that is reliable and a restoration that is real.

In verse 11, immediately after the announcement of the 70-year duration of the exile, come some of the most memorable and hope-filled words in the entire book: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”³

Several lessons for the exiles here are lessons for us moderns as well, especially when we find ourselves in the midst of some—often self-imposed—experience of exile. To begin, quick fixes are rarely fixes at all; they’re almost never deep and enduring. A friend of mine recently told me, only half-jokingly, that microwaves had contributed to the ruination of the world. They condition us, he suggested, to expect that everything in life comes with the ease of the push of a button and within a very short time. TV dinners may be that way, but most things are not.

Herein lies good news because for us, as for the Babylonian exiles, God is with God’s people for the long haul, even when the extended length is largely due to how far we have veered off the path. Thank God this is the case, especially when what is needed may be a full engine overhaul rather than just an oil change!

We also should not assume that God has forsaken us or bears ultimate ill will for us when circumstances are not to our liking. It took a while for God’s promise of seed to Abram and Sarai to come to fruition, but it did. The Hebrews spent more than a few days in slavery in Egypt, but God freed them. Some of those same Hebrews ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, but their descendants made it to the Promised Land. The Babylonians took many into exile and ultimately destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, but a return would happen and the temple would be rebuilt.⁴ When it seems all is lost, or far-distant at best, it may be a time in which God is most powerfully at work and a remarkable new thing lies in store.⁵

Among the most jarring of imperatives to the exiles in the assigned pericope may be those to seek the welfare of Babylon and pray to the Lord on its behalf. That had to be a hard one to swallow. Yet, again, while it was not what the people wanted to hear, it was what they needed to hear. Particularly since the exiles were going to be there for a while, if Babylon prospered, so too could they in the lives they were called to establish. Additionally, these imperatives are an indication of good news, which Jeremiah spells out in verse 11.

If God did not have plans for the people, plans for their welfare and for a future with hope, it would not have mattered what they did in their time in Babylon. But since God did have those plans, what the people did in Babylon mattered, and mattered greatly.⁶

Furthermore, recent and current events in our modern world testify loudly to the destructive results that follow when we work for the harm of and verbally malign other persons, groups, or places, rather than seeking their welfare and praying to the Lord on their behalf. To this day, the words we want to hear may not be the words God speaks to us—those sometimes difficult but promise-filled words that we desperately need to hear.

Notes

1. Particularly by invoking God as “the Lord of hosts,” Hananiah presumes that God would obviously act powerfully and decisively against Babylon just as God did against Egypt. Ironically, it is actually God who has brought the Babylonian military might against God’s people, and the temple to which Hananiah said articles would be swiftly returned would not be standing by 587 BCE.
2. “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon…” (verse 4, emphasis added).
3. Then, of course, come chapters 30 and 31, known as the Book of Consolation, where words of future hope and renewal continue to develop.
4. Incidentally, in large part due to another non-Israelite power whose ruler (Cyrus) is referred to as God’s anointed (that is, messiah). See Isaiah 45:1.
5. As in the death and resurrection of Christ.
6. In fact, a Jewish community would become firmly established in Babylon, arguably contributing to the city’s welfare. The Jewish community in Babylon would become one of the great centers of Jewish thought and learning, as indicated, for instance, by the production of the Babylonian Talmud.

Psalm 111 is a classic psalm of praise extolling the virtues of God presented as the praise of a single individual.¹

It is a Hallel, one of the psalms that begins with hallelu Yah, “Hallelujah” (Psalms 104–106; 111–118; 120–136; and 146–150). Other psalms from this group are part of the festival lectionary of the Jewish people for the major observances of Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles.

This psalm roots praise of and for God in God’s “works” and “deeds,” using a variety of terms that are translated in similar ways. In verse 2 God’s works are not further described, but the expression evokes creation, exodus, deliverance from enemies, and entering into a covenant with Israel (see Exodus 34:10, where the same expression is used).

Verse 3 uses what is regarded as a more poetic word for “work,” which, when combined with the adjective “majestic,” suggests the expanse of creation. Verse 3 also lauds an essential attribute of God, inexhaustible righteousness.

Verse 4 introduces a third term for God’s works, one that means “wonders” or “marvels.” If the unit on God’s works and deeds in verses 2-4 builds to a point, that point is the fundamental nature of God as gracious and loving at the end of verse 4.

The description of God as “merciful” in verse 4 does not do justice to the underlying Hebrew. The root of the word rachum is the word for “womb,” rechem. It is both the organ and the feeling that emanates from it in the same way that “headache” signals a body part and a feeling.

I translate rachum as “mother-love,” while others, like Phyllis Trible, translate it as “womb-love.” In the famous story about Solomon and the two sex-workers, it was the birth mother’s “mother-love” that motivated her to surrender her child to the other woman, though it is often poorly translated as “mercy” or “compassion” (1 Kings 3:26). This type of love is one of the two primary forms of love that God expresses for humanity (see Exodus 33:19; Deuteronomy 30:3; 2 Kings 13:23; Isaiah 14:1; 30:18; 49:15; Jeremiah 31:20).

The next few verses detail the ways in which God mother-loves. In verse 5 God feeds humanity, but not with just anything. The psalmist chooses a word that indicates that God hunts meat (literally, “prey”) for God’s carnivorous offspring. Taking prey is often the work of lions (Genesis 49:9; Ezekiel 19:3; Nahum 2:12), but also the work of the warrior-hearted woman in Proverbs 31:15. God’s care and concern are shown to be holistic in that God provides physical and communal support, the latter in maintaining God’s covenant with God’s people.

The psalm circles back to the works of God, framing them as evidence of God’s graciousness and mother-love in verses 6-9. Now the language become more specific to Israel, celebrating the dispossession of Canaan in verse 6 and “redemption” in verse 9, which is a likely reference to the exodus, along with a second reference to God’s covenant and people in verse 9. Verse 9 ends by proclaiming the holiness and fearsomeness of God’s unutterable Name (provoking awe or fear rather than being “awesome”).

God’s name is never spelled out in Hebrew with vowels; only the consonants YHWH appear. Instead, Hebrew readers pronounce the word for “lord,” adonai, which is where the title “Lord” comes from in the text. It replaces the name that cannot be uttered. While some contemporary scholarship supplies what they believe to be the missing vowels, the practice is considered greatly disrespectful in Judaism and is likewise avoided by many non-Jewish scholars. The description of God’s name as “fearsome” or “awesome” in verse 9 points back to the people who “fear” God in verse 5; both words have the same root.

Verse 10 continues to reflect on the proper fear of or reverence toward God, citing a proverb that appears repeatedly throughout the scriptures, that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That saying occurs in Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; 15:23; Job 28:28; Micah 6:9; and repeatedly in Sirach: Sirach 1:14, 16, 18, 20, 27; 15:1; 19:20; 21:11; 25:10. The psalm ends with the observation that God’s praise will outlast all things, including the psalmist’s own praises.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for October 9, 2016.

Commentary for this text is forthcoming.