Rev. Dr. Jonathan Blanke, Senior Pastor
Pastor’s Corner for October 12-18, 2025
Jesus “Along the Border”
(Luke 17:11-19)
This past week Juli and I had the privilege of attending our LCMS Southeastern District yearly conference for church workers and their families. The keynote speaker was the Rev. Dr. Peter Nafzger, from Concordia Seminary. Dr. Nafzger encouraged us to bring Jesus to a world in need of authentic community. So often our takeaway from the Scriptures is based on a “me-and-Jesus” mindset. While not necessarily wrong, an exclusive focus on a personalized Jesus can neglect the power of a text to speak to — and through — communities of people. It can ignore the calling of the Church, the Body of Christ, through which the crucified and resurrected Christ is at work to comfort and befriend those who would otherwise feel isolated and alone.
What would happen if we read the Scriptures not so much through a “me-and-Jesus” lens but with a “Jesus-and-us” perspective? Take a moment and read Luke 17:11-17 if you aren’t familiar with the “ten lepers healed” story. Here are two things I noticed about this story in Luke’s Gospel — one of our appointed readings this weekend.
(1) Ever heard the phrase “Misery loves company”? In Jesus’ day, people from Samaria and Galilee would not have gotten along well at all. But two distinct and divided groups of people in this text occupy the same intimate space once it becomes clear they both share similar pain. Both shared the same emotional hurt of being outcast. Both shared the same physical distress from which they so desperately desired healing. Shared misery always brings people together, no matter what side of the political aisle folks are on. The death of a son or daughter; an unanticipated divorce; the loss of a beloved job due to a RIF… at times like these, red/blue state differences don’t matter. Shared misery means we are just people… people together in need!
(2) I remember hearing this story as a young person and feeling like the guys who ran off to see the priests get a little bit of a bum rap in the story’s retelling. Granted, they aren’t depicted as praising God — at least, not the way the individual Samaritan unexpectedly did. But weren’t they just doing what Jesus told them to do? And wasn’t going to the Jerusalem Temple to report their newly healed status to the priest there a sign they WERE going to give thanks to God in the Lord’s house? No matter their failings as spontaneous worshippers, they did, together with the Samaritan leper, seek Jesus out and find rescue in Him. We might even go so far as to say there might never have been a rejoicing Samaritan that day had there not been sprinting Galileans with whom that Samaritan first found community!
At the end of the day, Jesus is a Healer and Savior who walks “along the border” (17:11, NIV) of our lives, too. Not only between Samaria and Galilee, but between Democrats and Republicans, between male and female, between the aged and the youthful… bringing heart healing and forgiveness to all. Authentic community is something individual congregations are challenged to put into practice. Jesus’ perfect gift of sins forgiven… His tireless welcome to the marginalized and lonely… continue to heal and continue to be the reason for our thanksgiving.
How will the Lord of the border not only draw us again to Himself this week… but use us to welcome others who seem far away from — yet desperately in need of — the healing mercy of God through Jesus?
Praise be to the God whose welcome in Christ Jesus will always be greater than our own!
Love in Christ,
Pastor Jonathan
Pastor Jonathan Blanke grew up in Richmond, Virginia. He received his Bachelor's degree from College of William and Mary in Virginia and attended Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, where he earned a Masters of Divinity degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Biblical Studies, Book of John. He served as a Vicar at Messiah Lutheran Church in Richardson, Texas.
The Blanke family lived in Japan while he served as pastor and missionary to Okinawa Lutheran Church and taught Biblical Studies at Japan Lutheran College in Tokyo.
Pastor Jonathan lived in southern Maryland from January 2014 to November 2019 and was thankful to have served as the Sole Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lexington Park, Maryland.
He and his wife, Juli, have two grown children. In his free time, Jonathan likes to travel, "play around" on the piano, and enjoy the outdoors.
Click HERE to view a brief video from Pastor Jonathan.