Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 19, Sunday 8 March 2026,Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III)

The Samaritan woman at the well … an icon in Arkadi Monastery in the mountains above Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began over two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2025), and today is the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III). After two weeks away it will be good to be at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford once again.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Water from a water jar at a well at Myli restaurant in Platanias, near Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 4: 5-42 (NRSVA):

5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ 11 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13 Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ 15 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17 The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25 The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26 Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ 28 Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ 32 But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ 33 So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ 34 Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

‘Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city’ (John 4: 28) … water jars by a well in Argiroupoli in the mountains in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The Sunday Gospel readings in Lent this year introduce us to some interesting but outside characters:

We began (21 February 2026) with the Devil, who tempted Christ during his 40 days in the Wilderness (Matthew 4: 1-11).

Last Sunday (1 March 2026), we met Nicodemus who visits Jesus at night (John 3: 1-17) and eventually comes to full faith in Christ.

This morning (8 March 2026), Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar (John 4: 5-42).

Next week (15 March 2026), we have a choice about meeting a blind man who is healed by Jesus at Siloam (John 9: 1-41) or, for Mothering Sunday, meeting the women at the foot of the Cross (John 19: 25-27).

Then, the week after (22 March 2026), Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead in Bethany (John 11: 1-45).

All these are marginalised figures in the eyes of the Gospel reader, from the devil to death, from being in the dark to being blind.

In this morning’s Gospel reading, the Samaritan woman is an outsider because of her gender, ethnicity, religion and lifestyle. Yet she becomes one of the great pre-Resurrection missionaries, for ‘many … believed in Jesus because of this woman’s testimony’

I heard many years ago about a wedding that was about to take place, but the bride’s brother could not travel back to Ireland because of fears about something.

It was in the days long before the fear of the Covid-19 pandemic. But it was also the time before texts and ’phone messages. He thought about sending a telegram, but did not know how to say something that was appropriate yet different. He asked his local vicar for a perfect, but short, Bible quote that could be sent in a quick telegram.

The vicar thought for a while before he suggested, ‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.’

So, he wrote down every word – and the reference, I John 4: 18 – and headed to the post office to send the telegram. But he was a bit of a skinflint and was taken aback when he was told he would be charged not just for each word but for each character.

Cost overcame filial affection, and he decided to just send the Bible reference and one extra word: ‘Read I John 4: 18.’

When it reached the Best Man, something had gone amiss, the number I was missing and the message said simply: ‘Read John 4: 18.’

At the wedding , the best man read out words we heard in this morning’s Gospel reading: ‘You have had had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.’

I wonder how we would react or respond to the Samaritan woman in today’s Gospel reading this morning?

She is an outsider in very sense: she is a Samaritan, she works in the mid-day heat, she is unaccompanied, she has a very questionable lifestyle. As if to underline how marginalised she is, she is left without a name, without a name that identifies her as human, as a child of God.

In the Bible to be known by name is to be a child of God (see Exodus 33: 17; Isaiah 43: 1). So, let’s look at some details about this anonymous woman and her lifestyle.

She is a Samaritan, yet Christ constantly points to Samaritans as examples of how to live out a faith-filled life: the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37); or the healed Samaritan who is the only one among ten to go back and say thanks (Luke 17: 11-19).

She is a Samaritan, which means she is a monotheist, but people refused to accept Samaritans worshipped the same God – perhaps the parallel today is the way many Muslims face Islamophobia.

The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is a model for all our encounters with people we see as different, or as strangers, or as having a lifestyle we do not understand.

This woman is theologically informed, to the point that she is able to argue with Jesus: where should we worship God?

She may be well versed in Scripture: it has been suggested that Samaritans were Biblical fundamentalists who would only accept the first five books of the Bible as authoritative Scripture – is she wedded to those five books and not open to God’s continuing revelation?

She is confident in a way that she might be described in that English way as ‘gobby’ – not afraid to engage with men in conversation as an equal.

But let us also look at this woman’s lifestyle. We might try to calculate the number of men in her life. Verse 18 says she has had five. Then Jesus says, ‘the one you have now is not your husband.’ This brings the total to six.

Jesus at the well, Jacob’s Well, now becomes the seventh man in her life. Seven is the perfect number in the Old Testament. It is the number of completeness, wholeness, and healing.

The story also illustrates the status of women in that time, among both Jews and Samaritans. Without doubt, there was an imbalance of power when it came to marriage. Divorce was relatively easy for men, but practically impossible for women.

Even then, as I so often point out, the translation here is often very slipshod. The original text says: ‘For you have had five men [not husbands] (πέντε γὰρ ἄνδρας), and now the one you have is not your man.’

So, we cannot presume any marital status, or lack of marital status here.

We meet women with similar dilemmas throughout the Gospels.

In Saint Luke’s Gospel, we meet Mary Magdalene ‘from whom seven demons had gone out’ (Luke 8: 2). And Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 20: 27-38) also has the story of the Sadducees who posed the dilemma of a woman who is widowed in quick succession so she is married off to one brother after another, and when she dies she has been the wife and widow of seven men.

Once again, the priority of Jesus in that story is not morality or family property rights, but the right of the woman to her own integrity, her own inherit value, her own right to eternal life with equality in the eyes of God.

The woman who was married off to seven brothers never made herself the victim, never chose her own misfortune. She too is to be seen as a child of God.

Just as it was never a woman’s choice to be a widow, so it was generally true that it was never a woman’s choice to be divorced. At the time, women could often only acquiesce to what their husbands wanted to do.

In those days too, a woman who was divorced often ended up as being what was once spoken of as ‘damaged goods’. To this day, a divorced Jewish woman still cannot remarry without her former husband’s written permission, a controversial document known as the get (גט‎), which men may withhold as a means of controlling women.

Without that permission in first century Judaea, the prospects for a spurned and rejected women were dismal, financially and socially. For a divorced woman without a private source of income there were only two choices: remarriage or the streets.

This woman has been through the mill. Now she is living with a sixth man, even though they do not seem to be married.

Jesus offers no comment about her status. Instead, he treats her with dignity and respect. On that day, indeed, he is outrageous in transgressing the taboos of the day: a Jewish, single man, speaking to a multi-married, Samaritan woman in public; a rabbi discussing fine points of theology with a woman.

He could have condemned her lifestyle. Instead, he meets her deepest needs in her heart.

He is the seventh man in her life. He is perfect. Jesus is the man she has been looking for her whole life. Jesus is her living water. Jesus heals her heart. Jesus completes her creation. Jesus is her sabbath rest.

When the woman says she is waiting for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus tells her: ‘I am he.’

Just then, the Disciples return from their search for food in Sychar, although they may have come back with nothing. They are taken aback by the conversation they come upon. They are so shocked by what they see and hear that remain silent. Their silence reflects their inability to reach out to the stranger.

These men made no contact with the people in Sychar, but this woman rushes back to tell them about Jesus. No one in the city was brought to Jesus by the disciples, but many Samaritans listened to what the woman had to say.

Because of this woman’s testimony, many of the people in Sychar believe, she brings them (literally) to Christ, and they come to believe for themselves that Christ is ‘truly the Saviour of the world’ (verse 42).

‘Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well’ … a working well gives its name to To Pigadi, a restaurant in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (8 March 2026, Lent III):

The theme this week (8-14 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Biblical Sisterhood’ (pp 36-37). This theme is introduced today with Reflections by Dr Sanjana Das, PhD feminist theologian, advocate for the dignity and rights of trafficked and migrant working women:

‘Forced labour remains a profound global injustice. In 2021, over US$236 billion was generated through the exploitation of 27.6 million people. Women in the informal sector – agriculture, construction, domestic work, and sex work – often face low wages, hazardous working conditions, debt, and abuse, with little social protection. As Church and faith communities, we must ask: how did we get here, who suffers most, and what can we do about in response to our call “to act justly and to love mercy” (Micah 6: 8).

‘My work focuses on trafficked and migrant working women in the global south. In my doctoral research, I used feminist methodologies and Contextual Bible Study to listen to women’s stories and lived experiences and to learn from them. Together, we read the biblical narrative of Ruth and explored the experiences of biblical and contemporary Ruths as migrant working women claiming spaces in the host cities, utilising their agency to empower themselves and one another, to support their families and to live and work with dignity. This process helps women on the margins reflect on their experiences alongside the struggles and resilience of biblical figures, recognising their own agency, dignity, and God’s restoring power.

‘Through the lens of scripture, women are able to articulate the injustices they face and envision paths forward. This practice also inspires action by advocating for decent work, supporting survivors, promoting ethical practices, and challenging exploitative systems.

‘Are we ready to respond? Those who weave our clothes, harvest our food, or build our homes deserve dignity and justice. Isaiah’s vision of “a new heaven and a new earth” (Isaiah 65: 17) challenges us to pray for and build a more equal world.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 8 March 2026, Lent III, International Women’s Day) invites us to pray:

God of all, we give thanks for the strength, courage and creativity of women around the world. May we, inspired by Amos’s call to ‘let justice roll on like a river’ (Amos 5: 24), work to break cycles of oppression and build a world where every woman is valued, safe, and free.

A hidden well and pitcher in a colourful side alleyway near the Institute for Mediterranean Studies in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Merciful Lord,
grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil,
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Samaritan woman at the well … an icon in the parish church in Aghios Georgios in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 12, Wednesday 12 November 2025

As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him … they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ (Luke 17: 12-13)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. This week began with the Third Sunday before Advent, which was also Remembrance Sunday.

I hope to attend a meeting of local clergy in the Milton Keynes area at lunchtimes, and later this evening I hope to be part of the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘The Healing of Ten Lepers’ (‘Guérison de dix lépreux’), 1886-1896, Brooklyn Museum

Luke 17: 11-19 (NRSVA):

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ 14 When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ 19 Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

‘Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ (Luke 17: 18) … thank you in Greek in a restaurant in Aghios Georgios in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Sunday and daily lectionary readings these weeks, we are reading from Saint Luke’s Gospel, and in recent weeks, we have had a number of readings that refer to the Samaritans, including:

• the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37, Sunday 13 July 2025 and again on Monday 6 October 2025);

• the disciples’ suggestion of bringing down fire to consume a Samaritan village (Luke 9: 51-56, Tuesday 30 September 2025);

• the Samaritan among the ten people with leprosy who are healed (Luke 17: 11-19, Sunday 12 October 2025, and again today).

There are other Gospel stories about Samaritans, most noticeably the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar (see John 4: 5-42), and there is one moment when Jesus is asked whether he is, in fact a Samaritan (see John 8: 48).

We celebrated Saint Luke in the church calendar a few week ago (18 October 2025), and it could be said that as a Gospel writer Saint Luke has a distinctive interest in Jewish-Samaritan relationships.

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 17: 11-19) once again provides opportunities to reflect on faith and healing, inclusion and exclusion, how Christ meets our every need, how we need conversion, on the connection between healing of the body and healing of the soul, perhaps even on the value of good manners and learning to say thank you.

Many people may be drawn to the one Samaritan who returns and says thank you. Others may think the about nine others who did exactly as they are told, go and show themselves to the priests, received a clean bill of health and are restored to their rightful place in the community of faith and within their families.

But which is the greatest miracle for you: the healing of these 10 people?

Or their restoration to their rightful places in the community of faith?

Perhaps it is worth noting that it is the 10 men, not Christ, who keep their distance on the outskirts of the village, because they are forced to behave this way, to be marginalised and to live on the margins.

Christ keeps his distance, as might be expected. Yet, from that distance, he sees. Many Bibles have verse 14 to say that ‘he saw them.’ But the Greek says simply, καὶ ἰδὼν (kai idon), ‘and having seen,’ without any object, there is no ‘them.’

For Christ, we are not mere objects; and for Christ there is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ He sees the future without the limits of the present.

This is a story about trusting in God’s plans for the future, rather than living in the past, living with the fears of the present, living without hope for the future … precisely the context for the urgings and exhortations to the exiles by the Prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament reading (Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7), precisely the hope the Apostle Paul has for Saint Timothy in the epistle reading (II Timothy 2: 8-15).

But we foil those plans, we quench those hopes, we continue to live in the past, when we continue to limit Christ’s saving powers with our own limitations, continue to look at him with our own limited vision.

Christ sees … sees it as it is in the present, and as it could be in the future.

Perhaps this is why Saint Luke has placed this story in a location that is an in-between place, the region between Galilee and Samaria. The place between Galilee and Samaria is neither one nor the other, neither this earthly existence nor what the future holds, but still on the way to Jerusalem.

Even the village here is not named.

We should not forget that not one but 10 were healed. Christ does good – even to those who will not be thankful.

And even then, we do not know why the other nine did not return to say thanks. It took an eight-day waiting process for a person with leprosy to be declared clean by the priests.

After those eight days, did they then go and give thanks to God in their local synagogues?

Did they first breathe sighs of relief and return to the families they loved but had been isolated from for so long?

Did they return to that unnamed village, and find that 10 days later Jesus had moved on … the next named place we find him in is Jericho (see Luke 19: 1-10, the Fourth Sunday before Advent, 3 November 2025)?

Christ is not passively aggressive in this story. He is not seeking to control. He sends the 10 on their way … and they go. If he had expected them to return, he would not have been surprised that one returned; he would have waited around in that unnamed village until the other nine had time to make their humble ways back there to thank him.

Instead, it is more important what Christ frees them for, and where he frees them.

He frees them to regain their place in the community, in the social, economic and religious community that is their rightful place.

For the Samaritan, his ‘faith has made him well’: ἡπίστις σου σέσωκέν σε, or, more accurately, your faith has saved you, rescued you, restored you. The word σῴζω is all about being saved, rescued, restored, ransomed, and not just about regaining health and physical well-being.

That land between Samaria and Galilee is where we find Christ today. The in-between place, the nowhere land, the place where people need to be saved, ransomed, rescued, restored.

We all find ourselves in the in-between place, the nowhere land … to borrow a phrase from TS Eliot, wandering in the ‘Waste Land.’

Perhaps, just for one moment, it is possible to imagine that Christ has arrived in that particular in-between place for a reason. For the land between Samaria and Galilee is neither one place nor the other.

And that in-between place is a place where I might find myself unsure of who belongs and who does not, where I might be uncertain, untrusting, even frightened and afraid. It is a place where the usual rules may not apply, where I do not know my place, where I do not fit in, where I appear not as the person God see as the true me, but as others want to see me.

This is the place where Christ is travelling through in this Gospel story this morning. It seems to me that I am often travelling in that place every day, today.

It is difficult travelling in this in-between land. When we realise we are there, then it may be easier to identify with the 10 Lepers, cast out into the in-between land, not knowing where to go, rather than with those who appear certain about where they are going.

When we get to where you are going, we should remember how we feel about the present unknown, whether it is fear – ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’ – whether it is trepidation, anticipation, or joy that is tinged with all of these, in this in-between time, this nowhere place.

When we move from an in-between place and a nowhere land, we should not hold back from the call to join the task of cleansing, healing, restoration. We do it not for ‘Thank Yous’ and plaudits. It is not about you, it is not all about me.

Indeed, it is not this one man’s thanks that is important, but that his thanks is expressed in turning around, conversion, and praising God, bowing down before Christ as his Master and as the Lord God.

Some ideas shared in a sermon on this reading in Saint Mary and Saint Giles last month (12 October) caused me to think again this passage.

In the Gospels and in the New Testament, the Greek words for foreigner often include:

• ξένος (xenos), stranger, guest. This term is used when there is an emphasis on hospitality and the welcoming of outsiders. It is the words that gives us the modern words philoxenia and xenophobia.

• πάροικος (paroikos), sojourner, alien resident, resident foreigner. This term refers to a temporary resident who is not a native-born citizen. br />
Both words highlight the New Testament's expanded concept of community to include all believers, regardless of origin, moving beyond a strictly national or ethnic identity (see Ephesians 2: 19).

The New Testament emphasises that in Christ, ethnic and national barriers are broken down. Believers become fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, they are no longer strangers and foreigners to one another (Ephesians 2:19).

The only word connected with the ‘foreigner’ category of the Old Testament that the New Testament uses with any regularity is ‘foreigner’ (ξένος, xenos). Even though it appears only nine times in the Greek Old Testament, it becomes a more common word for outsiders in the Second Temple period and is the main word for them in the New Testament, although it is still used only 14 times.

The New Testament chooses the word foreigner (ξένος, xenos) to recall the Old Testament command to love the immigrant, even though the Greek Old Testament only uses the word ξένος to translate גֵּר one time.

The most direct reference to loving the immigrant (גֵּר) in the New Testament is in the parable of the sheep and the goats, when Christ designates the person helped as a foreigner (ξένος, Matthew 25: 35, 38, 43, 44). Since the foreigners are also described as ‘brothers’ (Matthew 25: 40), it seems most likely that they are fellow Christians.

The Hebrew Scriptures talk about non-Israelites with two different word groups: foreigners who remain different (the Hebrew words נָכְרִי and נֵכָר) and immigrants who assimilate into Israelite culture and are generally poorer (גֵּר).

However, the line between the two words is often blurred, even undefined, and people may appear on a spectrum in terms of their relation to Israel, from those who remain opposed to God and worship other gods, to those immigrants who assimilate into Israel. To complicate matters even further, the category of foreign-worker (תושב) does not exactly overlap with either category, landing somewhere between the two.

The New Testament continues the theme of loving the immigrant, but due to linguistic changes speaks of the command using the broader word foreigner (ξένος).

Interestingly, the story of the Good Samaritan does not use any of the words for foreigner or immigrant, and instead it focuses on the word ‘neighbour’, and Jesus expands the category of neighbour to include even a Samaritan. Here he follows the similar expansion in Leviticus 19 from love your neighbour as yourself (Leviticus 19: 18) to love the immigrant as yourself (Leviticus 19: 34).

In the New Testament, the Greek word ἔθνος (ethnos) is used to mean ‘gentile,’ which refers to people who are not Jewish. The term denotes nations or ethnic groups in general, and its meaning evolved to specifically identify non-Jews.

The English word gentile derives from the Latin word gentilis, meaning of or belonging to the same people or nation, and in turn from the Latin gēns, a clan, tribe, people or family.

Two other Greek words for foreigner also appear in the Bible: ἀλλότριος (allotrios) and ἀλλόφυλος, allophilos, but they appear rarely in the New Testament.

Yet the word used in today’s reading (Luke 17: 11-19) to refer to the healed Samaritan as a ‘foreigner’ (verse 18) is the very rare word ἀλλογενής, (allogenes): ‘Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’

The word ἀλλογενής (allogenes) identifies someone who does not belong to the covenant people of Israel – an outsider by birth and by nation. This word does not appear anywhere in classical Greek writings, and the only other known contemporary use of it is in the inscription on the Temple barrier in Jerusalem warning:

Μηθένα ἀλλογενῆ εἰσπορεύεσθαι ἐντὸς τοῦ περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν τρυφάκτου καὶ περιβόλου
Ὃς δ᾽ἂν ληφθῇ, ἑαυτῶι αἴτιος ἔσαι διὰ τὸ ἐξακολουθεῖν θάνατον

Let no foreigner enter within the screen and enclosure surrounding the sanctuary.
Anyone who is caught will be held accountable for his ensuing death.

The tablet with this inscription was discovered in 1871 outside the al-Atim Gate to the Temple Mount, and was published by CS Clermont-Ganneauthe of the Palestine Exploration Fund. It was taken by the Ottoman authorities, and it is now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums.

The Samaritan among the ten healed from leprosy may have well known that taking the advice from Jesus to go and show himself to the priests in the Temple would have resulted in a sure and certain death for daring to seek to enter the Temple.

Instead, he turns back, praises God, prostrates himself at the feet of Jesus and thanks him. It is an act of acknowledging that he is in the presence of God, that the discovery of new life has replaced the threat of death, and he gives thanks with an expression of gratitude (εὐχαριστέω, eucharisteō) that speaks too of being included in the community and communion of the Eucharist.

This is the sole and only use of the word ἀλλογενής (allogenes) in the New Testament, yet its theological weight is profound. The appearance of this word in this context is a deliberate theological signal, illuminating how God’s gracious kingdom reaches beyond ethnic borders, and challenges us to continually push out the boundaries, so that instead of excluding we include the foreigner, the disabled, the marginalised, the outcast, the different, those who are threatened that should they challenge the grounds on which they are excluded they face punishment and even death.

Have we got words for foreigners in our vocabulary today that are part some type of insider language, understood by only the few, yet used to keep them on the margins of social life and economic activity, that tell them that no what they do or believe they are going to be kept on the margins, on the outside, that imply they may as well be dead, that threaten.

The inscription on the Temple barrier in Jerusalem warned the intruding foreigner (αλλογενῆ) of impending death (Istanbul Archaeology Museums)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 12 November 2025):

The theme this week (9 to 15 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Hope for the Future’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Laura D’Henin-Ivers, Chief Executive Officer at Hope for the Future, to mark COP30 in Brazil this week.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 12 November 2025) invites us to pray:

Merciful God, we remember our brothers and sisters suffering the consequences of environmental destruction. Comfort the displaced, sustain those who have lost their livelihoods, and move our hearts to stand in solidarity.

The Collect:

Almighty Father,
whose will is to restore all things
in your beloved Son, the King of all:
govern the hearts and minds of those in authority,
and bring the families of the nations,
divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin,
to be subject to his just and gentle rule;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

God of peace,
whose Son Jesus Christ proclaimed the kingdom
and restored the broken to wholeness of life:
look with compassion on the anguish of the world,
and by your healing power
make whole both people and nations;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Additional Collect:

God, our refuge and strength,
bring near the day when wars shall cease
and poverty and pain shall end,
that earth may know the peace of heaven
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The ‘Leper’s Squint’ and the Arthur Memorial behind the organ in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The single and sole use of of a rare Greek word for a Samaritan challenges prejudice against foreigners

The inscription on the Temple barrier in Jerusalem warned the intruding foreigner (αλλογενῆ) of impending death (Istanbul Archaeology Museums)

Patrick Comerford

In the Sunday and daily lectionary readings these weeks, we are reading from Saint Luke’s Gospel, and in recent weeks, we have had a number of readings that refer to the Samaritans, including:

• the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37, Sunday 13 July 2025 and again on Monday 6 October 2025);

• the disciples’ suggestion of bringing down fire to consume a Samaritan village (Luke 9: 51-56, Tuesday 30 September 2025);

• the Samaritan among the ten people with leprosy who are healed (Luke 17: 11-19, Sunday 12 October 2025).

There are other Gospel stories about Samaritans, most noticeably the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar (see John 4: 5-42), and there is one moment when Jesus is asked whether he is, in fact a Samaritan (see John 8: 48). But it could be said that as a Gospel writer Saint Luke has a distinctive interest in Jewish-Samaritan relationships.

We are about to celebrate Saint Luke in the church calendar on Saturday next (18 October 2025), and some ideas shared in the sermon in Saint Mary and Saint Giles on Sunday (12 October) caused me to return in the days since to the Gospel reading about the Samaritan who was in the group of ten who are healed of leprosy.

In the Gospels and in the New Testament, the Greek words for foreigner often include:

• ξένος (xenos), stranger, guest. This term is used when there is an emphasis on hospitality and the welcoming of outsiders. It is the words that gives us the modern words philoxenia and xenophobia.

• πάροικος (paroikos), sojourner, alien resident, resident foreigner. This term refers to a temporary resident who is not a native-born citizen. br />
Both words highlight the New Testament's expanded concept of community to include all believers, regardless of origin, moving beyond a strictly national or ethnic identity (see Ephesians 2: 19).

The New Testament emphasises that in Christ, ethnic and national barriers are broken down. Believers become fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, they are no longer strangers and foreigners to one another (Ephesians 2:19).

The only word connected with the ‘foreigner’ category of the Old Testament that the New Testament uses with any regularity is ‘foreigner’ (ξένος, xenos). Even though it appears only nine times in the Greek Old Testament, it becomes a more common word for outsiders in the Second Temple period and is the main word for them in the New Testament, although it is still used only 14 times.

The New Testament chooses the word foreigner (ξένος) to recall the Old Testament’s command to love the immigrant, even though the Greek Old Testament only uses the word ξένος to translate גֵּר one time.

The most direct reference to loving the immigrant (גֵּר) in the New Testament is in the parable of the sheep and the goats, when Christ designates the person helped as a foreigner (ξένος, Matthew 25: 35, 38, 43, 44). Since the foreigners are also described as ‘brothers’ (Matthew 25: 40), it seems most likely that they are fellow Christians.

The Hebrew Scriptures talk about non-Israelites with two different word groups: foreigners who remain different (the Hebrew words נָכְרִי and נֵכָר) and immigrants who assimilate into Israelite culture and are generally poorer (גֵּר).

However, the line between the two words is often blurred, even undefined, and people may appear on a spectrum in terms of their relation to Israel, from those who remain opposed to God and worship other gods, to those immigrants who assimilate into Israel. To complicate matters even further, the category of foreign-worker (תושב) does not exactly overlap with either category, landing somewhere between the two.

The New Testament continues the theme of loving the immigrant, but due to linguistic changes speaks of the command using the broader word foreigner (ξένος).

Interestingly, the story of the Good Samaritan does not use any of the words for foreigner or immigrant, and instead it focuses on the word ‘neighbour’, and Jesus expands the category of neighbour to include even a Samaritan. Here he follows the similar expansion in Leviticus 19 from love your neighbour as yourself (Leviticus 19: 18) to love the immigrant as yourself (Leviticus 19: 34).

In the New Testament, the Greek word ἔθνος (ethnos) is used to mean ‘gentile,’ which refers to people who are not Jewish. The term denotes nations or ethnic groups in general, and its meaning evolved to specifically identify non-Jews.

The English word gentile derives from the Latin word gentilis, meaning of or belonging to the same people or nation, and in turn from the Latin gēns, a clan, tribe, people or family.

Two other Greek words for foreigner also appear in the Bible: ἀλλότριος (allotrios) and ἀλλόφυλος, allophilos, but they appear rarely in the New Testament.

‘Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ … thank you in Greek in a restaurant in Aghios Georgios in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yet the word used in Sunday’s reading (Luke 17: 11-19) to refer to the healed Samaritan as a ‘foreigner’ (verse 18) is the very rare word ἀλλογενής, (allogenes): ‘Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’

The word ἀλλογενής (allogenes) identifies someone who does not belong to the covenant people of Israel – an outsider by birth and by nation. This word does not appear anywhere in classical Greek writings, and the only other known contemporary use of it is in the inscription on the Temple barrier in Jerusalem warning:

Μηθένα ἀλλογενῆ εἰσπορεύεσθαι ἐντὸς τοῦ περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν τρυφάκτου καὶ περιβόλου
Ὃς δ᾽ἂν ληφθῇ, ἑαυτῶι αἴτιος ἔσαι διὰ τὸ ἐξακολουθεῖν θάνατον

Let no foreigner enter within the screen and enclosure surrounding the sanctuary.
Anyone who is caught will be held accountable for his ensuing death.

The tablet with this inscription was discovered in 1871 outside the al-Atim Gate to the Temple Mount, and published by CS Clermont-Ganneauthe of the Palestine Exploration Fund. It was taken by the Ottoman authorities, and it is now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums.

The Samaritan among the ten healed from leprosy may have well known that taking the advice from Jesus to go and show himself to the priests in the Temple would have resulted in a sure and certain death for daring to seek to enter the Temple.

Instead, he turns back, praises God, prostrates himself at the feet of Jesus and thanks him. It is an act of acknowledging that he is in the presence of God, that the discovery of new life has replaced the threat of death, and he gives thanks with an expression of gratitude (εὐχαριστέω, eucharisteō) that speaks too of being included in the community and communion of the Eucharist.

This is the sole and only use of the word ἀλλογενής (allogenes) in the New Testament, yet its theological weight is profound. The appearance of this word in this context is a deliberate theological signal, illuminating how God’s gracious kingdom reaches beyond ethnic borders, and challenges us to continually push out the boundaries, so that instead of excluding we include the foreigner, the disabled, the marginalised, the outcast, the different, those who are threatened that should they challenge the grounds on which they are excluded they face punishment and even death.

Have we got words for foreigners in our vocabulary today that are part some type of insider language, understood by only the few, yet used to keep them on the margins of social life and economic activity, that tell them that no what they do or believe they are going to be kept on the margins, on the outside, that imply they may as well be dead, that threaten their very life, and that suggest all this has religious and divine sanction?

The healed Samaritan’s thankfulness implies inclusion in the Eucharistic community (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 153, Sunday 12 October 2025, Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII)

As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him … they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ (Luke 17: 12-13)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and today is the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 12 October 2025). Later this morning, I hope to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, reading one of the lessons.

The calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church, as I was reminded at Vespers last night, today commemorates the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (nicaea II), the 365 bishops and priests at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 who condemned the iconoclast heresy and restored the veneration of icons in the Church. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

James Tissot (1836-1902), ‘The Healing of Ten Lepers’ (‘Guérison de dix lépreux’), 1886-1896, Brooklyn Museum

Luke 17: 11-19 (NRSVA):

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ 14 When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ 19 Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

The ‘Leper’s Squint’ and the Arthur Memorial behind the organ in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 17: 11-19) provides many opportunities for many sermons on faith and healing, inclusion and exclusion, how Christ meets our every need, how we need conversion, on the connection between healing of the body and healing of the soul, perhaps even on the value of good manners and learning to say thank you.

Some parishes are going to hear about one Samaritan who returns and says thank you. Others may hear about nine other lepers who did exactly as they were told, went and showed themselves to the priests, received a clean bill of health and were restored to their rightful place in the community of faith.

But which is the greatest miracle for you: the healing of these 10 people?

Or their restoration to their rightful places in the community of faith?

Perhaps it is worth noting that it is the 10 men, not Christ, who keep their distance on the outskirts of the village, because they are forced to behave this way, to be marginalised and to live on the margins.

Christ keeps his distance, as might be expected. Yet, from that distance, he sees. Many Bibles have verse 14 to say that ‘he saw them.’ But the Greek says simply, καὶ ἰδὼν (kai idon), ‘and having seen,’ without any object, there is no ‘them.’

For Christ, we are not mere objects; and for Christ there is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ He sees the future without the limits of the present.

This is a story about trusting in God’s plans for the future, rather than living in the past, living with the fears of the present, living without hope for the future … precisely the context for the urgings and exhortations to the exiles by the Prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament reading (Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7), precisely the hope the Apostle Paul has for Saint Timothy in the epistle reading (II Timothy 2: 8-15).

But we foil those plans, we quench those hopes, we continue to live in the past, when we continue to limit Christ’s saving powers with our own limitations, continue to look at him with our own limited vision.

Christ sees … sees it as it is in the present, and as it could be in the future.

Perhaps this is why Saint Luke has placed this story in a location that is an in-between place, the region between Galilee and Samaria. The place between Galilee and Samaria is neither one nor the other, neither this earthly existence nor what the future holds, but still on the way to Jerusalem.

Even the village here is not named.

We should not forget that not one but 10 were healed. Christ does good – even to those who will not be thankful.

And even then, we do not know why the other nine did not return to say thanks. It took an eight-day waiting process for a person with leprosy to be declared clean by the priests.

After those eight days, did they then go and give thanks to God in their local synagogues?

Did they first breathe sighs of relief and return to the families they loved but had been isolated from for so long?

Did they return to that unnamed village, and find that 10 days later Jesus had moved on … the next named place we find him in is Jericho (see Luke 19: 1-10, the Fourth Sunday before Advent, 3 November 2025)?

Surely Christ does good without expecting a thanks that comes straight from some Victorian book on good manners.

How often when we give a gift to someone do we want to control how they use it?

I give a Christmas present or a birthday gift, and then I am upset when they do not like it, when they trade it in for something else, or rewrap it and pass it on to someone else, or simply just never say thank you or acknowledge what I have done for them.

But who was the gift supposed to benefit: me as the giver, or you as the receiver? What was it a token of: my love for you, or my need for you to acknowledge how important I am to you?

A begrudging attitude to how others receive and use the gifts I give, or taking offence when I feel they have not thanked me enough, amount to a passive aggressive attitude on my part, a desire to control. If we give gifts only to be thanked, are we truly generous?

And if I only say thank you so I remain in someone else’s esteem, perhaps even to be rewarded again, to be kept on their invitation list, am I truly grateful?

Christ is not passively aggressive in this story. He is not seeking to control. He sends the 10 on their way … and they go. If he had expected them to return, he would not have been surprised that one returned; he would have waited around in that unnamed village until the other nine had time to make their humble ways back there to thank him.

Instead, it is more important what Christ frees them for, and where he frees them.

He frees them to regain their place in the community, in the social, economic and religious community that is their rightful place.

For the Samaritan, his ‘faith has made him well’: ἡπίστις σου σέσωκέν σε, or, more accurately, your faith has saved you, rescued you, restored you. The word σῴζω is all about being saved, rescued, restored, ransomed, and not just about regaining health and physical well-being.

That land between Samaria and Galilee is where we find Christ today. The in-between place, the nowhere land, the place where people need to be saved, ransomed, rescued, restored.

We all find ourselves in the in-between place, the nowhere land … to borrow a phrase from TS Eliot, wandering in the ‘Waste Land.’

Perhaps, just for one moment, it is possible to imagine that Christ has arrived in that particular in-between place for a reason. For the land between Samaria and Galilee is neither one place nor the other.

And that in-between place is a place where I might find myself unsure of who belongs and who does not, where I might be uncertain, untrusting, even frightened and afraid. It is a place where the usual rules may not apply, where I do not know my place, where I do not fit in, where I appear not as the person God see as the true me, but as others want to see me.

This is the place where Christ is travelling through in this Gospel story this morning. It seems to me that I am often travelling in that place every day, today.

It is difficult travelling in this in-between land. When we realise we are there, then it may be easier to identify with the 10 Lepers, cast out into the in-between land, not knowing where to go, rather than with those who appear certain about where they are going.

When we get to where you are going, we should remember how we feel about the present unknown, whether it is fear – ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’ – whether it is trepidation, anticipation, or joy that is tinged with all of these, in this in-between time, this nowhere place.

Shakespeare reminds us, in the words of Portia in The Merchant of Venice,

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven … (The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1)

These 10 lepers were cut off from all they knew and loved, all the certainties they once enjoyed or took for granted.

And when we move from an in-between place and nowhere land, we should not hold back from the call to join the task of cleansing, healing, restoration. We do it not for ‘Thank Yous’ and plaudits. It is not about you, it is not all about me.

Indeed, it is not this one man’s thanks that is important, but that his thanks is expressed in turning around, conversion, and praising God, bowing down before Christ as his Master and as the Lord God.

Martin Luther was once asked to describe the nature of true worship. His answer was the tenth leper turning back.

Christ invites us into that region between Samaria and Galilee, that space between wrong-doing and right-doing, between them and us – and bids us find our healing and salvation – and theirs. And in doing that we find ourselves engaged, quite naturally, in true worship. And in Christ we realise that there is no us and them – there is only us.

‘Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my gospel’ (II Timothy 2: 8) … the icon cross in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 12 October 2025, Trinity XVII):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme is introduced today with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh:

Sister Gillian Rose, now in her mid-80s, moved from England to Bangladesh in 1964 when the country was still known as East Pakistan. She has since devoted her life to serving at Bollobhpur Mission Hospital in Kushtia, western Bangladesh, and regularly writes letters to USPG to share updates.

In a recent letter, Sister Gillian describes the hospital as ‘a little oasis of peace,’ where staff live and work harmoniously together, regardless of religious or political background. In a country marked by political unrest, she finds joy in the sight of a diverse group of student nurses – Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists – living and working side by side.

Beyond providing medical care, the hospital offers spiritual support. Staff visit nearby villages three times a week, offering healthcare, prayers, and sacraments to those who wish to receive them. Sister Gillian concludes, ‘My faith is the basis of all I do, and faith is the foundation of the hospital’s work too. We are a Christian hospital, and we serve as a Christian witness in the community.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 12 October 2025, Trinity XVII) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Luke 17: 11-19.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Be joyful in God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; sing the glory of his praise’ (Psalm 66: 1) … at the mouth of the river in Messonghi in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 147, Monday 6 October 2025

An Orthodox icon of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, interpreting the parable according to Patristic and Orthodox traditions (Click on image for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVI, 5 October). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers William Tyndale (1494-1536), Translator of the Scriptures and Reformation Martyr.

In the Jewish calendar, Sukkot begins at sunset this evening (6 October) and conrtinues until nightfall next Monday (13 October). Sukkot is also known as the ‘Festival of Tabernacles’ or the ‘Feast of Booths,’ and it is one of the three central pilgrimage festivals in Judaism, alongside Passover and Shavuot. It is traditional in Jewish families and homes to mark this festival by building a sukkah or a temporary hut to stay over in during the holiday.

I hope to join other clergy in the Milton Keynes area for breakfast later this morning. Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The Good Samaritan … a stained glass window by Charles Eamer Kempe in Saint Andrew’s Church, Great Linford, Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 10: 25-37 (NRSVA):

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 26 He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ 27 He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ 28 And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ 30 Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

The Good Samaritan … a modern icon

Today’s Reflection:

We are all very familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan, so familiar and so used to it that we are probably comfortable with the explanations and sermons we have heard over the years about this episode in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 10: 25-37), leaving very little to our own imaginations.

But the Early Fathers offered another interpretation of this parable.

The man who goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam, or humanity, or each and every one of us.

What does it mean that he goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho?

Jerusalem is the holy city of God, the place where God is served in worship and in public prayer. It is an impregnable stronghold, but it is located in a hill country, where the soil is stony and barren.

On the other hand, Jericho lies below the sea level in the Jordan Valley, in an area that is very fertile and rich in vegetation.

Jerusalem signifies the Divine Commandments. These commandments, like the walls of a city, limit us and our desires, but also create a safe living space where we can live unharmed by sin.

A man being seduced by earthly pleasures, represented by Jericho, goes out from Jerusalem, the stronghold of Divine Commandments. Here, we might think of Adam and Eve, leaving the Garden and going out into the world.

But the robbers control this way. Who are the robbers?

When people abandon God and seek pleasures in other places, the way of bodily desires first appears to be full of joy. But as time passes, indulging in passions becomes a heavy burden on the soul; in place of pleasure it becomes endless slavery. A man realises that he has lost his freedom and has become a captive of his passions. A soul blinded by passions and wounded by sin becomes incapable of any spiritual activity.

Before God, such a man is half-dead. On the way, the man has been stripped of his raiment, deprived of the raiment of virtues and of the cover of God’s grace and protection.

In this patristic approach to reading the parable, the robbers are demons who act through our own passions. The man wounded by robbers represents fallen humanity before the coming of Christ.

Who then were the Priest and Levite who saw the wounded man and passed by without providing him any help?

The Priest and the Levite are ministers of God. They represent the saints and prophets sent by God from the beginning of time.

Why then is it said that they passed by without helping that man?

Did they not fulfil the ministry of preaching?

Yes, they did. They came to that place, they stopped, they saw the man and they passed by. But wounded humanity remained lying on the road. Moses came and passed away, Elijah came and passed away, other prophets came and passed away, but the illness of humanity remained without being healed.

Only God who has created us can recreate us.

This is how Isaiah speaks on the incurable disease of the humanity:

Why do you seek further beatings?
Why do you continue to rebel?
The whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores
and bleeding wounds;
they have not been drained, or bound up,
or softened with oil. (Isaiah 1: 5-6)

Who then is the Samaritan who goes down on the same road?

The Samaritans were the descendants of Israelites and the nations who migrated to Palestine under Assyrian rule after the destruction of Jerusalem. They lived to the south of Judea, between Judea and Galilee. Samaritans believed in the One God of Israel and kept the Law of Moses, but they developed their own traditions. For the Jews, they were heretics, and so Jews kept their distance from Samaritans.

Why then does Christ represent himself as a Samaritan?

The Pharisees mockingly labelled Christ a Samaritan, saying, ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ (John 8: 48).

Christ humbly attributes to himself the name given to him by his detractors.

In addition, Greek Orthodox hymns note a similarity between the phrases ‘from Samaria’ and ‘from Mary,’ for in Greek these phrases sound similar. (For example, the Samarian Gorge in Crete takes its name not from Samaria but from the abandoned village and church of Óssia María or Saint Mary).

The Samaritan, moved with compassion, approaches the wounded man. He binds his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. The oil symbolises mercy and the wine the true teaching of God. Then he brings the man to an inn where he can be taken care of.

This Gospel readings says that the Good Samaritan ‘put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.’ However, in traditional icons, Christ carries the man on his back. Christ in the incarnation takes on our human nature, our soul and body. That is why in the parable he ‘set him on his own beast,’ interpreted by the Early Fathers that Christ makes us members of his own body.

There is a similar image in the parable of the Lost Sheep (see Luke 15). The Good Shepherd left 99 sheep in the desert and went after the lost sheep, representing humanity. When he found the lost sheep, he put it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

The inn in this parable represents the Church. The innkeeper represents bishops and priests. Christ establishes his Church which, like an inn, accepts and provides shelter for all. The wounded man should stay here to be taken care of. The Samaritan has to leave, however. He takes out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying: ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

Christ indicates his second coming when he will come not to heal our infirmities, but to judge the living and the dead, and to reward each one according to his works.

The silver the Samaritan gives to the innkeeper is the divine grace Christ gives to the Church; it heals and saves souls through the sacraments. Bishops and priests, the ministers of the sacraments of the Church, are the distributors of God’s gifts. They offer to others what they have received: the sacraments and the teaching of Christ. Are they able to spend more? What can they add from themselves to the gift of the Divine Grace? Their labour, their cares, their zeal, which Christ shall recompense them on the day of the Last Judgment.

In this interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ offers himself as the prime example of mercy and compassion. Through his compassion, he takes on our sufferings and becomes the true neighbour of all fallen humanity.

This is a reading of this parable that connects with the assertion in the New Testament reading that God through Christ ‘has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom.

The Good Samaritan window in Saint George’s Church, Belfast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 6 October 2025):

The theme this week (5 to 11 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Disability inclusion in Zimbabwe’ (pp 44-45). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections from Makomborero Bowa, Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy Religion and Ethics in the University of Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 6 October 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, forgive us for when we have mistreated others. Help us to rejoice that you have made all people in your image.

The Collect:

Lord, give to your people grace to hear and keep your word
that, after the example of your servant William Tyndale,
we may not only profess your gospel
but also be ready to suffer and die for it,
to the honour of your name;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr William Tyndale:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Good Samaritan … a stained glass window in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 141, Tuesday 30 September 2025

‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ (Luke 9: 54) … lighting the Paschal Fire at Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XV, 28 September 2025) and today the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Saint Jerome (420), translator of the Scriptures and teacher of the faith (30 September).

This morning, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The Samaritan Woman at the Well … an icon above a well in Arkadi Monastery in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 9: 51-56 (NRSVA):

51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53 but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. 54 When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went on to another village.

Father Andrew Louth speaking at a conference in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge … love is an all-pervading theme in the theologians he portrays in ‘Modern Orthodox Thinkers’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

I was walking through Cambridge late one summer afternoon, after taking part in a conference on mission. I had visited some colleges, and had spent some time – a lot of time – browsing and rummaging in some of my favourite bookshops.

In the warm afternoon sunshine, I was feeling relaxed, and easy-going. And there, in front of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, a large crowd had gathered in a circle in the open space on the corner of Market Street and Sidney Street.

Some people in the crowd were visibly amused, some were angry, some were heckling. They were watching and listening to a group of street preachers of the old-fashioned sort, the sort I thought had gone out of fashion many years ago, many decades ago.

And I can quote some of their posters and placards:

‘Cursed is the nation whose God is not the Lord’ … ‘Woe to them who call evil good and good evil’ … ‘Hate crime: to let sinners go to hell with no warning’ …

When people in the crowd asked questions, they were belittled and derided. Within a short time, I had lost count of the number of times people were told they were being disrespectful of God and God’s word, the number of times people were told they and their souls were going to burn in Hell for eternity.

Not once did I see the speakers smile, not once did I hear them speak words of compassion, let alone speak of love.

Is it any wonder that people turn away when they hear people like this claiming to represent Christ, Christianity, the Christian message and the Church?

There was a much more inviting message in the vision or slogan of the church behind them: ‘Come to Christ, Learn to Love and Love to Learn, in Cambridge and beyond.’

When people respond to preachers like this by saying ‘I don’t believe in God,’ I want to respond by saying, ‘I don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in either.’ Think about what the disciples want to do when they get a whiff of difference, an inkling of rejection.

A whiff of difference creates a whiff of sulphur. They want to burn the Samaritan village to the ground.

What have they been learning from Jesus so far about basic, fundamental Christian beliefs and values being expressed in how we love God and love one another?

What had the disciples learned from Jesus about compassion, tolerance and forbearance in the immediate weeks and months before they arrived in this Samaritan village?

How embarrassed they must have been if this was the same Samaritan village that Christ visits in Saint John’s Gospel (see John 3: 4-42), where it is a Samaritan woman, and not the disciples, who realise who Jesus really is. She is a Samaritan woman of questionable sexual moral values. But it is she, and not the disciples, who brings a whole village to faith in Christ; it is she who asks for the water of life; it is she who first suggests that indeed he may be, that he is, the Messiah.

How embarrassed they must be a little later when Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan (see Luke 10: 29-37). The one person I want to meet on the road, on the pilgrimage in life, is not a priest or a Temple official, but the sort of man who lives in the very sort of village I have suggested, because of my religious bigotry and narrow-mindedness, should be consumed with fire, burned to the ground, all its people gobbled up.to follow on their own terms.

In the Orthodox Liturgy, the priest introduces the Creed with the words: ‘Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess.’ In other words, our statement of belief, in ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity consubstantial and undivided,’ is confirmed, realised and lived out in our love for one another.

To love our neighbour as ourselves means to love them as we are ourselves, as being of the same substance – created in the image and likeness of God. The Church Fathers teach that we find our true self in loving our neighbour, and that love is not a feeling but an action.

Two books I once had on an easy-to-reach shelf are I love therefore I am, by Father Nicholas V Sakharov (Crestwood NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), and Father Andrew Louth’s Modern Orthodox Thinkers (London: SPCK, 2015).

Father Nicholas is a monk in Tolleshunt Knights, and his great uncle, Father Sophrony, was the saintly founder of the monastery. Father Sophrony talks in La Félicité (p 21) about ‘the absolute perfection of love in the bosom of the Trinity’ and he says: ‘Embracing the whole world in prayerful love, the persona achieves ad intra all that exists.’

In Father Andrew’s book, love is an all-pervading theme in the writings of each of the 20th century theologians he portrays. For example, he summarises Mother Maria of Paris as saying that it is all too easy to sidestep the demands of love, to seem to be loving, when really love itself has been set aside, or turned into a means to an end.

Mother Maria says there are two ways of loving to be avoided: one which subordinates love of our fellow humans to love of God, so that humans become means whereby we ascend to God, and the other of which forgets love of God, and so loves our fellow humans in a merely human way, not discerning in them the image of God, or the ways in which it has been damaged or distorted.

Yet, despite all this, I find a more difficult commandment is the third and great neglected commandment: to love our enemies (Matthew 5: 44). We all have a good idea of who our neighbour is; but when do we ask: ‘Who is my enemy?’

Do I define who my enemy is?

Or does the other person define me or himself, or herself, as the enemy?

‘We pray for all those dedicated to the work of Bible translation’ (USPG Prayer Diary, 30 September) … a Chinese translation of the Bible (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 30 September 2025):

The theme this week (28 September to 4 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘One Faith: Many Voices’ (pp 42-43). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 30 September 2025, International Translation Day) invites us to pray:

On this day, we pray for all those dedicated to the work of Bible translation and the preservation of Indigenous languages. Lord, bless their efforts so that more people may hear and understand the good news of Jesus Christ in their own language.

The Collect of the Day:

God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy;
and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall,
keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful,
and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
defend your Church from all false teaching
and give to your people knowledge of your truth,
that we may enjoy eternal life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Jerome depicted on the pulpit in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org