Ramble for Townsville Central City Mission Connections Newsletter 12 October 2025

Clocks went forward in southern states last weekend. “Spring forward, Fall back” in case, like me, you get confused. When we lived in Brisbane, Telstra would regularly change our mobile phone time to NSW although Queensland doesn’t observe summer time. Twice a year, I was going to say regular as clockwork, but clockwork clocks weren’t affected. Telstra’s explanation each half-year was that Brisbane was near the border between Queensland and NSW, and some phone signals came from NSW masts. Whatever, I got used to folk (and me) being early or late for church.

This Sunday’s gospel (Luke 17) has Jesus travelling along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As ever, metaphorically or geographically, he’s to be found in the margins. In those margins is where needy people are who don’t fit anywhere else. Like a Samaritan leper who couldn’t present himself to a Temple priest because he wasn’t allowed in the Temple. So he comes back to where he is accepted and welcomed, to Jesus who declares him to be healed and clean.

All of us are sometimes like those mixed up mobiles. Healthy one moment, seriously ill the next, employed one moment, out of work the next, in the bosom of a family or friendship circle one moment, estranged the next. It’s in marginal moments that we encounter Jesus. As for people whom we deem “weird” inhabiting those same margins, if travelling between them is good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us.

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