I’d like to talk about foreigners. But first, I suppose I should tell you what I mean by "foreigner." I suppose that technically, to be a foreigner, you have to be from a foreign land. When I say "foreigner," I mean that, but I mean more than that as well. I also mean anyone who is different, so they are viewed, rightly or wrongly, as an outsider. I suspect that most of us have had the experience at some time or another of feeling like a foreigner.

When I was growing up, I was taught a very provincial Southern view that anyone who was not from the South was a foreigner (we called them "Yankees," no matter where they were from). And when I was growing up, if someone said, "You’re not from here, are you?" it was not a compliment.

There’s some ugly stuff going on in our country right now concerning foreigners. I saw a news piece this week about two men who are Sikhs, a variation of Hinduism. They’re from India, and they’ve been in the U.S. for over twenty years. But they have dark skin, and they wear turbans. A secret camera followed them to a professional football game. They were abused by perfect strangers. People yelled insults. One man pretended to be firing a gun at them. They were "foreigners" simply because they looked different, and our country is angry, so they were not welcome.

I hope it doesn’t surprise you to learn that God doesn’t see it that way. This morning, we have two remarkable stories of foreigners. The first is from one of my favorite books in the Bible: the Book of Ruth. It reads like a novel, and it’s all about women. Maybe I like it so much because I grew up with a whole mess of women — four older sisters — and I had great aunts named after the characters the story, Aunt Ruth and Aunt Naomi.

Of course, in Old Testament times, even to tell a story all about women was to tell a story about foreigners. Women were usually foreigners to the power structures of society. Women were totally dependent on men. If a woman lost her support from men, she faced starvation.

And that’s just what’s happening in the Book of Ruth. Naomi is an Israelite, but she and her husband moved to Moab to avoid a drought in Israel. (Moab was a foreign country just east of the Dead Sea). Naomi had two sons, and since they lived in Moab, they married a couple of local girls, Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth.

At that point, tragedy and sorrow visit. Naomi’s husband dies. Then, one by one, each of her two sons die. Naomi is in a foreign land, with no male support whatsoever. All she has is her daughters-in-law, both of whom are young widows who have to be concerned with their own futures. So Naomi decides to go back to her people, back to Israel. It’s a remarkable testimony to her character that at first, both her daughters-in-law want to leave their homeland, become foreigners, and go with her.

We get a glimpse of that character when Naomi, destitute, alone, and facing starvation, says, "Go home to your people and begin new lives." She’s concerned about them.

And Orpah listens to reason and, tearfully I’m sure, kisses Naomi good-bye and goes home. But not Ruth. Ruth is something. In words that have echoed down the centuries, she says, "Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die; there I will be buried. May the Lord curse me if even death parts me from you!"

And so she goes to Bethlehem with Naomi, choosing to be a foreigner.

That’s the first story about a foreigner. The second one involves Jesus. He’s on his way to Jerusalem, on the border between Jewish country and Samaritan country. We’ve talked before about how, for good Jews like Jesus, Samaritans weren’t just "foreigners;" they were hated foreigners. Despised foreigners. Corrupters of the faith. Mixed blood mongrels. Heretics.

Jesus encounters a group of ten which has one of these hated foreigners in it. But they are all lepers, so they don’t care. Interesting, isn’t it, that in a leper colony, no one cared whether you were a Samaritan or Israelite? It reminds me of an AA meeting. Or of the sense of community a friend told me he found when he visited Ground Zero last week. There’s nothing like something really important to make us shed our labels and reach toward one another’s humanity.

That’s what happened inside this group of lepers, but outside of it, everyone was afraid, and the lepers were labeled and ostracized. The law said of a leper that he must "wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ . . . He shall dwell . . . in a habitation outside the camp." (Lev. 13:45-46.) It doesn’t matter where these people are from, they are all foreigners, outsiders, outcasts in their own land.

So the lepers keep their required distance from Jesus, but they yell for help: "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" And he just says, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." (The priests were the only ones who could declare a leper cured and reinstate them into the community.) Isn’t it interesting that Jesus doesn’t draw a distinction between the Samaritan and the Jews? He just says, "Go and show yourselves to the priests."

And they go. And because they asked for help and then obeyed, they are healed as they go. Can you imagine their elation? Can you imagine how astounded they must have been to look at their wrecked fingers and toes and noses and see plump, healthy flesh? Cured. Reinstated into the world.

And one of them comes back to express his profound gratitude, to throw himself at Jesus’ feet and "praise God with a loud voice." Only one. And he the Samaritan. So Jesus says, "Weren’t there ten? Where are the other nine? No one came back except this foreigner? Well," he says, looking at the man bursting with gratitude, "get up and go on your way; you faith has made you well."

That’s interesting. The man was already healed before he came back. How does his faith, expressed in gratitude after the healing, make him well? The Greek verb translated "made well" also means "to be saved." That’s interesting, isn’t it? To be "made well" and to "be saved" mean the same thing? Anyway, since this man has already been made well, the better translation would be that Jesus says to this man bowing at his feet singing God’s praises, "your faith has brought you salvation." What we have, then, is the story of ten being healed, and one being saved, and that one a despised foreigner.

There’s a lot to learn from that story. Lots about gratitude and the need to show it if our souls are to be well, to be saved. But in a time in history when some of our fellow Americans are tempted to view all foreigners with distrust and hatred, I’d like to focus on Jesus healing and saving this leprous Samaritan foreigner.

We’ve heard about Jesus so much that we tend to take him for granted, but it’s really quite odd that Judaism, which often had little use for non-Jews and lumped them all together as "the nations" (meaning, "the heathens"), would produce this remarkable Messiah who so often reaches out to outcasts and foreigners. You might wonder where that influence came from. Well, I think maybe I know. You see, Jesus is a direct descendant of King David, and King David’s great grandmother was a Moabite woman who was really something, a foreigner named — Ruth.

So maybe the idea that God’s love extends beyond a single country, or even beyond a single religion, maybe that was a tradition in Jesus’ family, a tradition he remembered and that we need to remember now. I hope so. Because while today that tradition will benefit Sikhs and peace loving Muslims and others who look or act "different," tomorrow I may be a foreigner in my own land. And I’m glad to know that my cry for help would go to my Lord who remembers that he’s descended from a remarkable foreigner named Ruth.