Living Words

A Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity St. Luke 17:11-19 & Galatians 5:16-24 by William Klock Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, St. Luke tells us.  Making his way there from Galilee for the last time.  And along the way, he passed through the borderlands between Samaria and Galilee.  Galilee was up in the north.  And as much as everyone talked about going “up to Jerusalem”, that was because it was up in the mountains.  Jerusalem, in the territory of Judah, was way down south.  In between was Samaria.  No self-respecting Jew cut through Samaria.  They went around.  Because the Samaritans were filth.  As I said last week, they were the Jews who went wrong to begin with way back when they broke from Judah and established their own illicit temple at Shechem, on Mount Gerizim.  But they’d gone from bad to worse when they intermarried with the pagans then compromised torah with various pagan influences.  The Jews despised the Samaritans (and the Samaritans didn’t feel very kindly towards the Jews i