A little lower than the angels

Mounted on the front of the pulpit of St. Paul's Church is a piece of rock – it looks like marble to me – which according to the inscription was brought from the Areopagus in Athens. The inscription calls our attention to the address the apostle – a Jewish Christian philosopher – delivered to the Athenians who gathered there in the marketplace to discuss ideas. When I was nineteen I sat on a rock on the Areopagus with a small New Testament and read Acts 17:22-34, which records the apostle's words. In that address Paul takes note of the altar inscribed “to an unknown god”, and proceeds to make the startling claim before his Gentile pagan audience that this “unknown god” is the God who is revealed to Jews and in the person of Jesus Christ, the “man appointed” who is now raised from the dead. St. Paul's boldness to proclaim the resurrection has the effect of causing some listeners to scoff and walk away. Their gods are immortal, after all, and the idea of a god subjected to...

Thanksgiving Day 2011 “Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” In today's Gospel story from Luke ten lepers are cleansed in the act of obeying Jesus' directive – rooted in the Mosaic Law - to go show themselves to the priest. Their cure means they suffer no longer physically from the complex of symptoms known as “leprosy”, and their appearance before the priest is their ticket to re-entry into society, from which their malady isolates them. It is a remarkable sign in many ways of the dominion of God active and on the move in Jesus of Nazareth. Ten lepers who approach Jesus in faith for healing receive that for which they ask. Nine go on their way into a new life. One returns to Jesus to give thanks. He returns with great joy and loud rejoicing, giving praise to God. And – as Jesus notes – this man is a foreigner. He is not of the household of Israel, but is a Samaritan. Here is a further sign of the reign of God on the move with Jesu...