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Fleeing Mosul,
Painted by Diane Hanna,
Watercolour on paper,
Executed in Iraq 2018
© Diane Hanna, Doctors Without Borders , read more here |
| On the way to Jerusalem Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten lepers came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, ‘Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.’ When he saw them he said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This made Jesus say, ‘Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.’ And he said to the man, ‘Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.’ |
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| | Reflection on the Watercolour on Paper
We had a close look at this reading a few weeks ago (see here). What struck me re-reading today’s Gospel reading is the very first sentence where the border is mentioned between Samaria and Galilee. Yes, even in Jesus’ time there were borders. Ten lepers are mentioned as part of the group and we know that one of them was a Samaritan. The assumption then is, the other nine were Jews. It was the Samaritan, mentioned in our Gospel of today as the ‘foreigner’ who went back to thank Jesus. Ok, so now we know who the ten are and aware of the hostility there was between the Jews and Samaritans, we witness in our reading how having leprosy broke down the racial, geographical and religious barriers. Yes, desperation and adversity break down barriers that often divide people. Leprosy at the time was a death sentence, a slow death sentence. Because the disease was highly contagious, lepers could not live a normal life and were driven out of town to live amongst fellow lepers, no matter what their backgrounds were. Their adversity and suffering united them.
In times of trouble, members of a family, communities and nations come together to overcome the obstacles set by adversity. Adversity has the power to unify and bring people together. But why on earth does it take adversity to bring people together? It is in times when we don’t have any major obstacles in our lives that we also need to be uniting; actually it is especially in those times that we need to unite, across borders, across cultures, to bring compassion and God’s love to the world.
Our watercolour is by Diane Hanna, an Australian psychologist for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontiéres), who turned to art to tell her story about witnessing conflict and suffering on her travels for the charity organisation. It depicts a determined mother and faceless child fleeing burning Mosul, shone upon by a crying sun.
As human beings we are maybe not innately grateful. So we have to nurture having a grateful spirit and learn to express gratitude to God and others; gratitude for where we live is at peace, but aware we have responsibilities towards those less well off and crossing borders seeking a better life.
by Patrick van der Vorst |  | |
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