Numbers 5:1-4

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command the Israelites to put out of the camp everyone who is leprous, or has a discharge, and everyone who is unclean through contact with a corpse; you shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp; they must not defile their camp, where I dwell among them. The Israelites did so, putting them outside the camp; as the Lord had spoken to Moses, so the Israelites did.

It is a good thing I think that yesterday's daily text was about sound teaching being centered in the faith and love through Christ.

Because honestly, without that, how do we read texts like this?

I know of many texts from the Hebrew scriptures (the Old Testament) that are used as "teaching" moments. 

Could this text be used as a teaching moment for our times?

I suppose. There are certainly rationales we can make - even valid ones - to explain why the Israelites were instructed to keep lepers outside of their communities.

And if we tried really hard we could find a way to use that to keep certain people outside of our communities today.

But yesterday we have a letter to Timothy telling us to ground sound teaching in faith and love.

So something is different.

Whatever the reason that the Hebrew people were told to keep lepers out of their communities at their time and in their place may very well have been sound and right and guided by God.

But that doesn't make it sound teaching for us any longer.

So when we see outsiders being kept outside by scripture, we ask ourselves: how is faith and the love of Christ present here?

And I'm pretty sure we'll discover that in our time and in our place, love and faith no longer mean keeping people on the outside.

Lord, help me to reach outside of myself to those who are kept at arms length by the world. Amen.