Nine to One Odds

In his Pentecost 20 sermon explores through Luke's story of curing the ten lepers issues surrounding the challenge of how to respond to being a stranger in a strange land. Do we attack or adapt, separate or embrace? Our response may not be clear or always the same. "Back in 1961 a book entitled Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein became a cult classic overnight. It was controversial because of its challenge to the standard mores of the day particularly regarding sexuality and gender. Today it hardly raises an eyebrow. But that wasn’t why it took hold of my generation and has never been out of publication since. Its popularity is due primarily to identification with being a stranger in a strange land. It wasn’t until much later when studying the Bible I learned that Heinlein had nicked the title from Abraham, although at the time I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t the other way around. Kiwis with their fondness for having an Overseas Experience are quite familiar with the feeling, but even those who have not had an OE know the experience of feeling out of place in their own land. I felt it in the US after 9/11 when most of my fellow Americans seemed to think Osama attacked our country when in truth he attacked all of humanity. It is often forgotten that people from around the world died that day and the world grieved with us. When Bush ignored this to justify a pre-emptive, immoral war and then was re-elected, I never felt more alone in an alien land." Full text at http://www.stmatthews.org.nz/nav.php?sid=327&id=768.