When we least expect it…God shows up. We make assumptions about where God is, and where God is not. Our behaviors embrace the Holy, or they gleefully turn to the Other Side. Is it true that God is everywhere, doing godly things to everyone? Scriptures to be heard this weekend emphasize that healing is often where least expected; and that an intersection with God is with Jew and Gentile alike, even with those–gasp!–awful Samaritans. Or their descendants in the ‘hood.
Naaman, was a powerful Syrian general–but he had a troublesome skin condition known in those days as Leprosy (II KINGS 5:1-14). But he had also a Hebrew slave-girl (the least of the least) who told him about the prophet Elisha and his many miracles. He was told through Elisha to dip in the Jordan River (“What? That muddy brook? I’ve got better rivers at home!”) You remember that he WAS healed, to God’s glory. Both the King of Israel and Naaman himself were surprised that God showed up, just as later faith-heroes are surprised at the mighty works shown to the marginalized. As Carrie N. Mitchell reminds us, “God employs ordinary people to act in extraordinary ways”. (FEEDING on the WORD, C 3:198)
St. Paul concludes his letter to the GALATIANS, 6:7-16, with an exhortation to not be as the rest of the world expects, but to “work for the good of all”. The Galatians were not Jews, remember. but were from central Asia Minor, perhaps the ancestors of the Celts. As they had experienced Godly compassion, Paul expected them to show the same to all persons, regardless of theological rules.
LUKE’s Gospel, 10:1-20, is the story of Jesus sending seventy missionaries (to all the world? 70?) to proclaim that the Kingdom of God was near. Jesus himself planned to visit these places soon. They were to go without provisions, vulnerable to the hospitality of strangers. Jesus knew that God had plotted the maturity of “the harvest”, and would accept these persons wherever they were or had been. Some folks concentrate on the SCARCITY of the receptive ones (the Church today?), whereas God knew that there would always be those who lived as if the Kingdom were near…
Long ago when I was in Seminary, a preaching course sent those who would go out by twos into Greenwich Village. One evening during these times, my friend Ed and I stepped into a bar to say that the Kingdom of God was near. A woman customer, seeing our clerical collars, exclaimed to her consort, “Look! They’re EVERYwhere, aren’t they?” Thank Goodness, we WERE!
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
We explore the lessons to be read on the upcoming weekend, according to the Revised Common Lectionary, every Tuesday. Come join us at horacebrownking.com
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