Sermon: Foreigners

Sermon: Foreigners
October 12, 2025
Scripture: Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. In the hierarchy of places for an ancient Jew, you couldn’t beat Jerusalem. It was the holy city, the city for pilgrimage and festivals. It was the center of not just society but the universe, for God dwelt in the Holy of Holies within the Temple. 

Jesus, on the other hand, was famously, even notoriously from Nazareth in Galilee, which was the backwoods, the edge, the place where people rose up and rebelled and while still Jewish, were on the margins of their own people – and were a problem for the occupying Roman Empire. “What good can come from Nazareth?” is the skeptical question one of Jesus’s disciples before he joins the cause. Yet, for Jesus and his Judean audience, Galilee at least belonged to their people. 

And that brings us to the bottom of the hierarchy: Samaria, home of the Samaritans. It was once the northern Kingdom of Israel, 700 years before, which according to the Old Testament had separated from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, no longer united under the rule and descendants of King David. After successive conquerings by multiple regional empires and resettlements which mixed the ethnicities of the peoples, in Jesus’s time, it was a distinct region, with its own temple at Mount Gerizim. Galilee had once been a part of this northern kingdom but now looked toward Jerusalem. The Samaritans looked a different direction to pray (maybe even a wrong direction according to the Judeans). The Samaritans had a different ethnic mix (perhaps even an unclean or impure blood according to the Judeans).

In other words, they were foreigners.  

I remember the first time I was really, truly a foreigner. I was studying abroad in the summer after my junior year of college, in the Czech Republic, now known as Czechia. We mostly stayed in Prague, the capital city, a metropolis whose charm was both medieval and modern. And as a modern city, many people spoke English. We were fortunate foreigners who did not need to know much Czech language to get around. 

That is, until we visited a village in the backwoods, on the edge, where few people knew more than a couple words in English. Pair that with our few words of Czech and now we were having the full foreigner experience. Which could have simply been an educational experience, but after a turn of events, we found ourselves in a much more awkward situation, in need of some good will. 

One night in the village, some of our classmates made bad decisions with alcohol. Those of us who had not made bad decisions then had to help our struggling classmates get back to our hotel. There was no vehicle transportation, so it was all walking. As we moved slowly and supported our friends, several Czech policeman came upon our ragged crew. Not a great look for us – the rowdy American college students roaming the streets, it would appear to them. The police officers did not speak English and we only had a few words of their language. So we struggled to explain – we were just trying to get our friends back to our hotel safely. We were headed straight there. We weren’t trying to be a nuisance. 

And, fortunately, they got it. They motioned us to continue and moved on. In this case, we were fortunate not because everyone knew our language, but because these two Czech men had some grace with the foreigners in their midst. 

And so Jesus does the same in our reading today. Given that he was traveling between Galilee and Samaria, he can’t have been surprised to find some mix of different peoples in the villages he visited. His ministry was always marked by concern for outsiders, including those some of his people considered foreigners. His culture was like many cultures in history, including those we are a part of – foreigners are often viewed with suspicion or disregard. 

Because Jesus did not share this discrimination, he did not need to ask questions when the ten people with skin disease approached him in this border village. He did not need to know their status as foreigners or not. Their cry for mercy was all he needed to hear. Foreigners in their midst were just as deserving of healing and care. 

This was actually a really important teaching in ancient Judaism, going all the way back to the Law, the Torah, which said in Leviticus, Chapter 19:33-34:

“ ‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” 

This was something that Jesus learned, in his faith tradition. And I wish that it was as easy as saying, this verse, this the Bible’s views and as the old bumper sticker goes: The Bible says it, that settles it. But the Bible says a lot of things. It says a lot of things about foreigners. Some parts of it view foreigners suspiciously or as those to keep out or as targets for violence. 

Jesus could have chosen any of these stories from within his tradition and culture. Surely, there were those around him who did. The purists and the “we only look out for our own“ contingent and the violent enforcers. Yet, in our reading today, as throughout his ministry, Jesus chose to love the foreigner as himself. Far from mistreating, he healed. He decided this was faithfulness to the Lord God. And when the foreigner, the Samaritan, was the one who showed gratitude and gave glory to God, Jesus esteemed his faith. He honored this person. 

Like Jesus, we also have choices to make. Just as there are verses of the Bible that could have led Jesus to treat foreigners differently, there are forms of Christianity which do so. There are forms of Christianity which assert the dominance of one race or one ethnicity or one nationality above others. There are forms of Christianity which want to keep out anyone who is different. There are forms of Christianity which disregard and neglect the foreigners among them. And there are forms which violently attack any who are considered outsiders. 

These forms have a long history in Christianity. They happen around the world anywhere the powerful exploit fears and prejudices. They happen anywhere people fail to speak up with each other and say, we shouldn’t do this. 

And they are happening right now among us. Immigrant communities in our country are being terrorized by our government. This goes far beyond a debate about immigration policy and upholding a legal process. What we are witnessing is brutal and lawless. Agents are pulling parents out of their cars as they wait to pick up their kids at daycare. Citizen and non-citizen alike are being caught in this dragnet. People are being sent to torture prisons in other countries, or piled into scary detention centers in our state. 

And the people in power who are ordering these things to happen largely represent themselves as defenders of Christianity. They say Christianity is under attack and then they do these things. They say that Christians have been tricked into being toxically empathetic. They say they are protecting our Christian nation.

Again, this is not a new form of Christianity. It’s not unique to our time or place. It happened in the Crusades. It happened in the Protestant-Catholic Wars. It happened in Germany in the 1930s. It is happening in other places in the world now. 

And we have choices to make. 

What is clear is that this form of powerful, discriminating, violent Christianity has nothing to do with Christ. It has nothing to do with what Jesus taught and how he lived. It has nothing to do with a faith that says, “Do not mistreat the foreigner. Treat them as citizens. Love them as yourselves.” It has nothing to do with our Lord, who when he hears cries for mercy and for help and for healing, doesn’t ask about status, about where people are from. He always helps. He always heals. We have only one record of Jesus driving people out and it was when he drove exploiters out of the temple, those who are abusing the weak. 

So we have choices to make about who we will follow. And the good news is that Jesus shows us so clearly. He shows us in today’s reading. He goes to help without asking for people to prove their worth. He hears cries for mercy and helps. This is what we can do. We can love the foreigners in our midst. And as Leviticus reminds us, it kind of makes sense, because we were once foreigners as well, as the Jews were foreigners in Egypt. Unless we are Native American, none of our families started here. 100 years, 200, 400 tops and we were the foreigners in this land. 

I think Jesus and Leviticus 19 remind us that really, ultimately there is no native born and foreigner. The gospel says, there is no Jew or Gentile. Nationality and borders are not ultimate truths. The truth is that we are all children of God. And instead of looking suspiciously or even with hostility toward each other, we should see that we are all in this together. We should be gracious and we should honor each other.

I’ll close with a beautiful and funny glimpse of the way we could be with each other, from an essay by the humorist and writer David Sedaris. He recounts his move to France, as a North Carolina native, and his enrollment in a French language class with other foreigners.

The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting, “Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?”

Despite her having grown up in a Muslim country, it seemed she might have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I mean it,” she said. “I have no idea what you people are talking about.”

The teacher then called upon the rest of us to explain.

The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is,” said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and . . . oh, no.”

She faltered, and her fellow countryman came to her aid.

“He call his self Jesus, and then he be die one day on two . . . morsels of . . . lumber.”

…

“It had to do with grammar. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such complicated reflexive phrases as “To give of yourself your only begotten son.” Faced with the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self-respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead.

“Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb,” the Italian nanny explained. “One, too, may eat of the chocolate.”

“And who brings the chocolate?” the teacher asked.

I knew the word, and so I raised my hand, saying, “The Rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.”

My classmates reacted as though I’d attributed the delivery to the Antichrist. They were mortified.

“A rabbit?” The teacher, assuming I’d used the wrong word, positioned her index fingers on top of her head, wiggling them as though they were ears. “You mean one of these? A rabbit rabbit?”

“Well, sure,” I said. “He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a hand he have the basket and foods.”

The teacher sadly shook her head, as if this explained everything that was wrong with my country. “No, no,” she said. “Here in France the chocolate is brought by the big bell that flies in from Rome.”

(From Me Talk Pretty One Day, “Jesus Shaves”)

Sedaris finishes by saying, a Bell brings the candy? That’s just crazy. 

But it’s tongue in cheek. Because what he’s really saying is, we were all foreigners, we were all one, trying to find this language of our common humanity. Status, national origin, ethnicity, borders, none of that is ultimate truth. What matters is grace and mercy and gratitude and honoring one another. That’s the kingdom of heaven. That’s God’s will be done earth as it is heaven. That’s the gospel truth that there is no foreigner or native born. There is no hierarchy. There are only children of God. And our decision is: how we will treat each other? Will we follow Jesus, and answer calls for mercy? Will we follow Jesus and honor one another? If we do, then we’ll recognize the foreigner as our neighbor and love our neighbor as ourselves. Amen.