Imagine being ostracized and isolated, forced to cry, “Unclean! Unclean!” wherever you went, commanded to make visible through your clothing and hair your already physically evident and painful condition. The writer of Luke said they should keep their distance. Those ten with leprosy didn’t dare get close to Jesus, they called out for mercy from a distance. And Jesus, traveling to Jerusalem, between Samaria, that place with those people who refused to welcome him and Galilee, the region where so much of his ministry takes place, heard them, even from a distance. Even in this liminal space, with those still far off, headed to fulfill his divinely ordained purpose, Jesus heard those on the fringes of this world. He heard them and he responded with compassion.

Jesus would not let his ultimate,…