Humbled by grace
Commentary
In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, "It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God." Today, we meet a little maid who understood well the first part of this statement and we meet 70 who understood well the second part. In the middle we meet Paul, who expands the implications of life together in Christian community. It is a humbling experience to be gripped by grace. We discover we are not our own, but strangely find ourselves, when we live outside ourselves, for the Kingdom of Heaven.
2 Kings 5:1-14
The real hero of this story is neither Naaman, "a mighty man of valor," nor the king of Syria with his "ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten festal garments," nor the king of Israel who "rent his clothes," nor Elisha on whose lips was "the name of the Lord." Rather, "a little maid," who waited on Naaman's wife, is the real hero of this story. She demurely informed her mistress of the Lord's prophet, Elisha. She saw the problem of Naaman's leprosy, acknowledged the resources that could deal with it and made the necessary connections. It was as simple as raising her voice in witness to what she knew. If it were not for her, there would be no story to tell. So, the little maid, from her lowly station, looked up and with a quiet candor offered her earthly master a hope for new life, setting aside any desire for revenge upon her captor, and rather seeking only his well-being.
Naaman was called upon to humble himself before a might greater than his own, travel to the source of healing outside his own country and submit to a faceless word that called on him to go into the muddy Jordan. His own king had to humble himself and ask for help from a vanquished enemy. The king of Israel was humbled once again, when in the fear of his own imagination he assumed that his opponent was looking for a good reason to fight once again, like the class bully returning to a former victim just to torture him some more. Elisha was humbled by not being able to stand in the limelight to deliver the healing directions, but only speak the words, as if he had no real part of the healing experience. In fact, he didn't; it solely rested on the promise and the power of God.
The healing is but the incidental action of the story. The real drama is that the Lord's favor (manifested in the healing) rested upon a Gentile leper who was the sworn enemy of Israel. Not only this, the king of Syria and Naaman demonstrated more faith in God's power than did the king of Israel, who could only rend his clothes and say, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive ...?" (5:7). These two foreigners responded in obedience to God's promise -- the king by sending Naaman, and the general by immersing in the Jordan's less-than-desirable water.
Jesus recognized the importance of this story and used it to accentuate the lack of faith in the house of Israel (Luke 4:27) in relationship to his own ministry in Nazareth. Paul reminds us that faith comes by what is heard (Romans 10:17); what one hears is influenced by the openness of one's heart to listen, regardless of ethnic pedigree or religious heritage. There is testimony in the Bible of "pagans" responding to God's word better than God's own people did -- for example, the king of Nineveh (Jonah 3:6-9) and the centurion (Luke 7:1-10, especially v. 9). When there is obedience to the Word of the Lord, there is healing of body, mind and soul for individuals and for communities.
Galatians 6:(1-6) 7-16
Typical of the concluding paragraphs of Paul's letters, Galatians 6 includes words of exhortation on practical aspects of Christian living. There are some gems in the verses considered optional for the pericope to be read in worship. Two that deserve attention are the spirit of gentleness with which to restore one who has fallen and the bearing of another's burdens. Christians today need to hear these words.
There is a responsibility of those who are more mature in Christ to tend to those whose Christian life is not as strong (see Romans 15:1). This is not to elevate some over others; it is to recognize that there is growth in the Way, just as there is growth in one's human development. Those who have "been there" are in a position to guide and counsel those who are struggling on difficult terrain. Paul suggests a gentle spirit is more appropriate than a harsh one for encouraging another believer. This is in keeping with his admonition to "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15) and his advise to parents not to provoke children to anger (Ephesians 6:4).
The image of the servant, prominent in Jesus' self-understanding (Mark 10:45) and also Paul's (Romans 1:1), is expressed in Galatians 6:2 (also Romans 15:1). Paul relates this character of Christian life together to the very "law of Christ" (here the law carries a totally different meaning than his use of this term in reference to "the works of the law" in Galatians 2:16, for example). As Christians imitate Christ, or as Luther expresses it, as Christians become "little Christs," they take on the character of the Master. After washing his disciples' feet, Jesus himself said that they were to do for one another what he had just done for them (John 13:14-15). Obviously, he meant far more than the literal application of his words. Foot washing was symbolic of the servant's role. Disciples of Jesus are to learn how to care for one another by bearing each others' burdens as their own. As the saying goes, "A burden shared is half a burden."
Verses 9 and 10 may very well be reflective of Paul's own self-advise. Surely he wearied from dealing with the Galatian and the Corinthian congregations. They had enough problems between them to keep an entire seminary class of pastors busy for a lifetime. Yet, Paul did not give up trying to pastor them out of the weeds and thistles into the greener pastures of the gospel.
Paul concludes his letter with one last swipe at adding to the efficacious work of Christ Jesus. It is not just that circumcision does not add one ounce of significance to one's standing before God; but also that uncircumcision counts as nothing in this regard. The only thing that matters, which is grasped by faith alone, is the work of Christ on the cross. This is a saving faith, for it redeems one from the law of sin and death (salvation is through forgiveness and the gift of eternal life) and it saves one from the works of the law (the law of Christ guides the Christian life into love). This is indeed a new creation; also 2 Corinthians 5:17).
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
In Luke, the commissioning of the seventy follows hard on the heels of several significant encounters. Jesus had just healed a boy by casting an unclean spirit out of him (Luke 9:37-43a). Then, Jesus revealed again (see Luke 9:21-22) that all this portends -- not his glorification in some Hollywood sense, but his suffering and death (Luke 9:43b-45), and by implication, the suffering and death of those who would follow him. Thus, it is that the servant Messiah, as well as any who would be his disciples, must remain humble (Luke 9:46-48).
What is amazing is that after all of this, plus after expressing stringent requirements for discipleship (Luke 9:57-62), there are still 70 who are willing to go out in his name to prepare his way.
Biblically, 70 is a significant number. Moses was instructed to appoint 70 elders who would help magistrate the needs of the people (Numbers 11:16f). As with Moses, Jesus benefited from this added help to spread the word of the coming kingdom. The Exile lasted 70 years (Jeremiah 25:12), after which God restored the people to their homeland. So too, with the advent of Jesus: God's rule was present in the land. Then, there is the eschatological reference to 70 weeks of years, at the end of which would be the messianic kingdom (Daniel 9:24), which would "put an end to sin ... [and] bring in everlasting righteousness." Is it any wonder that Jesus responded to the reports of the returning seventy by saying, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (10:18)?
The few verses that are excised from the pericope (10:12-15) express judgment against cities in which Jesus had ministered with healing power, but which rejected him. Tyre and Sidon would have done better -- and they were towns filled with Gentiles! There is a good connection between these verses and what comes out of the first and second readings for this day. In these texts, it was the Gentiles who responded to the revelation of God with a faith that the very people of God themselves lacked.
Through the instructions that Jesus gave the seventy, they were to understand their mission as unconditional; namely, they were to preach the coming of the kingdom whether or not the people received them (10:11). Their glory would not be in human terms, since they were in fact like lambs sent out among wolves (10:3); suffering would be their companion, as it was the Master's. Their joy was simply to be that their "names are written in heaven" (10:20; see also Revelation 3:5). The importance of their mission was underscored by Jesus' comments about the connection between themselves, himself and the Father (10:16). In other words, by receiving the messenger, one receives not only the message (the Word made flesh), but also the message-sender, the heavenly Father.
Application
How do we treat our enemies? One only has to look at what happened between the Tutsi and the Hutu tribes of Rwanda, or what continues to occur between Palestinians and Jews in the "holy" land, or what happens with picked-on kids when they get a gun in their hand and seek out the bullies at school. The "little maid" anticipated the words of Jesus, when he said, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you" (Luke 6:27-28). She demonstrated the power of God, which is offered to any who will be obedient in faith and do good even to those who, humanly speaking, deserve only contempt. She gave Naaman the information that would change his life for the good; she connected him to the prophet of God, not for Namaan's judgment, but for his wholeness.
Living in the culture of violence as we do, this is a radical word to be preached and by which to be reached. How ready are we to really love our enemies and wish them good from the hand of the Lord and do what we can to connect them with that good?
God may well surprise us who belong to the household of faith with a testimony from unexpected quarters. Just as Naaman and his king proved more believing than the king of Israel, God could be preparing the future church, not necessarily from within the present church, but possibly from outside the present church. Faith may be more receptive and visible where we least expect it. This is the work of the Lord. It may also be the healing way of God's judging the leprosy of the church, evidenced in clergy failings and lay laxity.
The church is given authority by the power of the Holy Spirit to speak boldly. The church is not to busy itself with lowest-common-denominator theology or consensus ethics. It is to speak a pure word of gospel that glories in the cross of Jesus and which has practical implications for the way we live. Any church today that wants to be a Pentecost church alive in the Spirit needs to have the humility to kneel before the cross of Christ. There is accomplished all that needs to be done to gain our salvation from sin and death and to win us from a fruitless life of works of the law. There is the key to unlock the future. There is the freedom to walk a new way for others, the freedom like that Paul sketches in his closing exhortations.
Exhortations we need to hear today are these:
* You, Christian, are responsible for your brother and sister in Christ, to restore them onto the Way when they wander (Watch yourself in this regard also!).
* You, Christian, are to bear with and suffer with and endure under the burdens of others as a sign of Christ with us, extending the grace of the cross into "the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1).
* You, Christian, are to generously support the vision/mission budget of your congregation, funding the ministers and the ministry for which you are responsible.
* You, Christian, are to be at the ready to do good to all, guarding against weariness in well-doing. This is the only way you will feel satisfied in life (6:16).
Often when recruiting volunteers, we talk about "how good you will feel" and "how benefiting others will benefit you." Enlightened self-interest is the genius behind good advertising these days; not just in the community, but also in the church.
But how different is the appeal from scripture! Service (represented in today's text by healing and the subjugation of demons; 10:9, 17) on behalf of others will usher in the Kingdom of God. The servants' reward may be deferred to heaven and the ultimate satisfaction will be to "enter into the joy of your Master" (Matthew 25:14-30). This is cause to keep us humbled by grace as we witness to the mercies of God wherever we are and whatever our daily endeavor
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
2 Kings 5:1-14
Important people expect to be treated with deference and respect. You do not find a leading star of stage and screen or the wife of a chief executive of a large company lodging in a Motel 6. No. They go to expensive hotels that have saunas and personalized massages and Internet services, where their every wish is immediately granted. Important people have luxurious, private boxes built for them in new sports stadiums. They are given limousines and valet services. And you do not greet them like any other person, as some basketball players rapidly learned when they did not call Bobby Knight "Mr." to his face. Important people have no expectation of serving rather than being served. No washing of someone else's feet. No such humility for the prestigious and beautiful people. The world owes them deference, because they're so great, and they look for the acknowledgement of that from all around.
So it is with our subject Naaman in our Old Testament lesson for this morning. He is a very important person, a VIP. He is commander of the army of Syria, which has won many skirmishes against Israel to the south in the ninth century B.C. As a result, Naaman has many servants who wait on him and his family. And he is highly favored by the king of Syria, to whom he has free access.
But Naaman has contracted leprosy, that highly contagious and disfiguring disease that eats away a person's flesh and bones. The fact that Naaman is a VIP is shown, however, by the fact that Naaman has neither been dismissed from his military post nor banished from the community. Usually lepers were segregated away from all communal life and left to perish in closed and impoverished colonies. But Naaman is important. And he is rich. So when his wife's little captured Israelite slave girl informs her mistress that there is a prophet named Elisha in northern Israel who could cure Naaman, Naaman has no less a person than the Syrian king write a letter to the king of Israel, sending a huge gift and asking that Naaman be cured. The king of Israel thinks it's all a plot, of course, to win a military victory, but Elisha hears of it and asks that Naaman come to him.
Naaman arrives amidst a cloud of dust with his horses and chariots and servants and a great flourish at Elisha's door, expecting the prophet to show him proper deference and respect for the important man that he is. Instead Elisha sends out a servant with the message to Naaman to wash himself seven times in the Jordan River and he will be cleansed of his disease. Naaman is humiliated and furious. Could he not have washed in the rivers of Syria? Doesn't Elisha know who he is dealing with -- a very important person?
But servants often have more insight than their masters, because they are not blinded by false pride. And so they ask Naaman, would he not have obeyed if the prophet had commanded some great thing? How much easier then simply to dip seven times in the Jordan? Having lost his pride, Naaman dips, and he is cured -- because "there is a prophet in Israel" (cf. v. 8), through whom the power of Almighty God speaks and works.
The Lord God of the Bible and of our church is not interested in our scramble for status, for wealth, for approval in the eyes of the world, all of which so feed our foolish pride in ourselves. Indeed, our God cannot do very much with human pride, because it concentrates everything on us and nothing on God. Our pride refuses to acknowledge that there is One beyond us who created us, who sustains us, and upon whose mercy and faithfulness we are entirely dependent for our lives and the very structure of our world and all good.
As Jesus tells us, if we look only to ourselves for life and good, we shall lose all, including finally our eternal lives. But if we come to him in humility and faith, relying on his overwhelming love for us, we will find forgiveness and healing, the riches of his goodness, and finally life in its fullness. In a sense, we are all leprous Naamans, good Christians, diseased and dying from our self-pride and sin. And our Lord Jesus asks of us but a simple thing -- trust in his power to make us whole.
Lutheran Option -- Isaiah 66:10-14
What a strange reading for the modern church on this second Sunday in July! It makes no sense to us to hear some divine promises for the ancient city of Jerusalem. And the figures of speech that are used prompt almost no thoughts from our contemporary experience. How on earth can we connect with this passage?
In its original setting, verses 10-13 of our text form an eschatological oracle of salvation that was addressed to the persecuted Levitical party of priests and reformers in Jerusalem by the authors of Third Isaiah, after the return from Babylonian exile, sometime after 538 B.C. Verse 14 is the beginning of the second salvation-judgment oracle of verses 14-17. But what is being announced is God's future salvation of the faithful in post-exilic Israel. In the thought of Third Isaiah, they are those who "love Jerusalem," that is, who love the God of Jerusalem. They form the beginning of a new, elect people of God, to whom God will give abundant life in the future.
In the present, desperate post-exilic time, the faithful are scorned and persecuted by the ruling Zadokite priests and their followers, and sin permeates the city's life. Therefore the faithful "mourn" over Jerusalem. But the time is coming when God will destroy the unfaithful (cf. vv. 15-17) and make for himself a new people.
As in Isaiah 60:1-4, Jerusalem is portrayed with the figure of a mother, from whose future abundance the faithful will be nourished, sucking deeply at her overflowing breasts, carried on her hip, and dandled on her lap. Jerusalem knows poverty, ruins, inflation, crop failures, injustices in her present post-exilic state. But God will comfort her and transform her life, so that all nations will see her salvation by the Lord.
I suppose that this text can only be preached to a modern congregation if we equate the figure of Jerusalem with the church, an equation made throughout the church's history (cf. the hymn, "O Zion haste, thy mission high fulfilling"). Certainly, while the modern church is not in a desperate material position, as was ancient Jerusalem, it shares in the sins, the injustices, the unrighteousness of that biblical city. Power plays and political machinations undermine our polity, ignorance of the biblical faith permeates our congregations, complacent belief characterizes many of our members, many of the faithful are scorned as out of touch with politically correct reality. And those who truly trust do indeed "mourn" over the state of the present church, while yet loving its true gospel and Lord.
But the present state of the church is not the end of God's story. As the Lord announced to post-exilic Jerusalem, God has a better future for his church in his plan. God knows who is faithful to Jesus Christ and who is not. God knows the condition of his covenant community. And beyond our complacency, our sin, our unbelief, our unfaithfulness, God plans a new people, a new church, which knows how to live in mercy and justice, in love and righteousness under his lordship. God looks forward to a time when his church is saved, and all the world acknowledges his reign, when his kingdom has indeed been acknowledged among his people and the gospel of salvation has gone out to all the world. God has a purified and faithful people in mind, and Third Isaiah's words tell us that this vision of them will be realized.
So in the midst of all of our ecclesiastical disputes, all of our waywardness, all of our failure to be those who truly love our Lord, God's word stands, and it is a word that gives us joy and certain, unshakeable hope.
2 Kings 5:1-14
The real hero of this story is neither Naaman, "a mighty man of valor," nor the king of Syria with his "ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten festal garments," nor the king of Israel who "rent his clothes," nor Elisha on whose lips was "the name of the Lord." Rather, "a little maid," who waited on Naaman's wife, is the real hero of this story. She demurely informed her mistress of the Lord's prophet, Elisha. She saw the problem of Naaman's leprosy, acknowledged the resources that could deal with it and made the necessary connections. It was as simple as raising her voice in witness to what she knew. If it were not for her, there would be no story to tell. So, the little maid, from her lowly station, looked up and with a quiet candor offered her earthly master a hope for new life, setting aside any desire for revenge upon her captor, and rather seeking only his well-being.
Naaman was called upon to humble himself before a might greater than his own, travel to the source of healing outside his own country and submit to a faceless word that called on him to go into the muddy Jordan. His own king had to humble himself and ask for help from a vanquished enemy. The king of Israel was humbled once again, when in the fear of his own imagination he assumed that his opponent was looking for a good reason to fight once again, like the class bully returning to a former victim just to torture him some more. Elisha was humbled by not being able to stand in the limelight to deliver the healing directions, but only speak the words, as if he had no real part of the healing experience. In fact, he didn't; it solely rested on the promise and the power of God.
The healing is but the incidental action of the story. The real drama is that the Lord's favor (manifested in the healing) rested upon a Gentile leper who was the sworn enemy of Israel. Not only this, the king of Syria and Naaman demonstrated more faith in God's power than did the king of Israel, who could only rend his clothes and say, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive ...?" (5:7). These two foreigners responded in obedience to God's promise -- the king by sending Naaman, and the general by immersing in the Jordan's less-than-desirable water.
Jesus recognized the importance of this story and used it to accentuate the lack of faith in the house of Israel (Luke 4:27) in relationship to his own ministry in Nazareth. Paul reminds us that faith comes by what is heard (Romans 10:17); what one hears is influenced by the openness of one's heart to listen, regardless of ethnic pedigree or religious heritage. There is testimony in the Bible of "pagans" responding to God's word better than God's own people did -- for example, the king of Nineveh (Jonah 3:6-9) and the centurion (Luke 7:1-10, especially v. 9). When there is obedience to the Word of the Lord, there is healing of body, mind and soul for individuals and for communities.
Galatians 6:(1-6) 7-16
Typical of the concluding paragraphs of Paul's letters, Galatians 6 includes words of exhortation on practical aspects of Christian living. There are some gems in the verses considered optional for the pericope to be read in worship. Two that deserve attention are the spirit of gentleness with which to restore one who has fallen and the bearing of another's burdens. Christians today need to hear these words.
There is a responsibility of those who are more mature in Christ to tend to those whose Christian life is not as strong (see Romans 15:1). This is not to elevate some over others; it is to recognize that there is growth in the Way, just as there is growth in one's human development. Those who have "been there" are in a position to guide and counsel those who are struggling on difficult terrain. Paul suggests a gentle spirit is more appropriate than a harsh one for encouraging another believer. This is in keeping with his admonition to "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15) and his advise to parents not to provoke children to anger (Ephesians 6:4).
The image of the servant, prominent in Jesus' self-understanding (Mark 10:45) and also Paul's (Romans 1:1), is expressed in Galatians 6:2 (also Romans 15:1). Paul relates this character of Christian life together to the very "law of Christ" (here the law carries a totally different meaning than his use of this term in reference to "the works of the law" in Galatians 2:16, for example). As Christians imitate Christ, or as Luther expresses it, as Christians become "little Christs," they take on the character of the Master. After washing his disciples' feet, Jesus himself said that they were to do for one another what he had just done for them (John 13:14-15). Obviously, he meant far more than the literal application of his words. Foot washing was symbolic of the servant's role. Disciples of Jesus are to learn how to care for one another by bearing each others' burdens as their own. As the saying goes, "A burden shared is half a burden."
Verses 9 and 10 may very well be reflective of Paul's own self-advise. Surely he wearied from dealing with the Galatian and the Corinthian congregations. They had enough problems between them to keep an entire seminary class of pastors busy for a lifetime. Yet, Paul did not give up trying to pastor them out of the weeds and thistles into the greener pastures of the gospel.
Paul concludes his letter with one last swipe at adding to the efficacious work of Christ Jesus. It is not just that circumcision does not add one ounce of significance to one's standing before God; but also that uncircumcision counts as nothing in this regard. The only thing that matters, which is grasped by faith alone, is the work of Christ on the cross. This is a saving faith, for it redeems one from the law of sin and death (salvation is through forgiveness and the gift of eternal life) and it saves one from the works of the law (the law of Christ guides the Christian life into love). This is indeed a new creation; also 2 Corinthians 5:17).
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
In Luke, the commissioning of the seventy follows hard on the heels of several significant encounters. Jesus had just healed a boy by casting an unclean spirit out of him (Luke 9:37-43a). Then, Jesus revealed again (see Luke 9:21-22) that all this portends -- not his glorification in some Hollywood sense, but his suffering and death (Luke 9:43b-45), and by implication, the suffering and death of those who would follow him. Thus, it is that the servant Messiah, as well as any who would be his disciples, must remain humble (Luke 9:46-48).
What is amazing is that after all of this, plus after expressing stringent requirements for discipleship (Luke 9:57-62), there are still 70 who are willing to go out in his name to prepare his way.
Biblically, 70 is a significant number. Moses was instructed to appoint 70 elders who would help magistrate the needs of the people (Numbers 11:16f). As with Moses, Jesus benefited from this added help to spread the word of the coming kingdom. The Exile lasted 70 years (Jeremiah 25:12), after which God restored the people to their homeland. So too, with the advent of Jesus: God's rule was present in the land. Then, there is the eschatological reference to 70 weeks of years, at the end of which would be the messianic kingdom (Daniel 9:24), which would "put an end to sin ... [and] bring in everlasting righteousness." Is it any wonder that Jesus responded to the reports of the returning seventy by saying, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (10:18)?
The few verses that are excised from the pericope (10:12-15) express judgment against cities in which Jesus had ministered with healing power, but which rejected him. Tyre and Sidon would have done better -- and they were towns filled with Gentiles! There is a good connection between these verses and what comes out of the first and second readings for this day. In these texts, it was the Gentiles who responded to the revelation of God with a faith that the very people of God themselves lacked.
Through the instructions that Jesus gave the seventy, they were to understand their mission as unconditional; namely, they were to preach the coming of the kingdom whether or not the people received them (10:11). Their glory would not be in human terms, since they were in fact like lambs sent out among wolves (10:3); suffering would be their companion, as it was the Master's. Their joy was simply to be that their "names are written in heaven" (10:20; see also Revelation 3:5). The importance of their mission was underscored by Jesus' comments about the connection between themselves, himself and the Father (10:16). In other words, by receiving the messenger, one receives not only the message (the Word made flesh), but also the message-sender, the heavenly Father.
Application
How do we treat our enemies? One only has to look at what happened between the Tutsi and the Hutu tribes of Rwanda, or what continues to occur between Palestinians and Jews in the "holy" land, or what happens with picked-on kids when they get a gun in their hand and seek out the bullies at school. The "little maid" anticipated the words of Jesus, when he said, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you" (Luke 6:27-28). She demonstrated the power of God, which is offered to any who will be obedient in faith and do good even to those who, humanly speaking, deserve only contempt. She gave Naaman the information that would change his life for the good; she connected him to the prophet of God, not for Namaan's judgment, but for his wholeness.
Living in the culture of violence as we do, this is a radical word to be preached and by which to be reached. How ready are we to really love our enemies and wish them good from the hand of the Lord and do what we can to connect them with that good?
God may well surprise us who belong to the household of faith with a testimony from unexpected quarters. Just as Naaman and his king proved more believing than the king of Israel, God could be preparing the future church, not necessarily from within the present church, but possibly from outside the present church. Faith may be more receptive and visible where we least expect it. This is the work of the Lord. It may also be the healing way of God's judging the leprosy of the church, evidenced in clergy failings and lay laxity.
The church is given authority by the power of the Holy Spirit to speak boldly. The church is not to busy itself with lowest-common-denominator theology or consensus ethics. It is to speak a pure word of gospel that glories in the cross of Jesus and which has practical implications for the way we live. Any church today that wants to be a Pentecost church alive in the Spirit needs to have the humility to kneel before the cross of Christ. There is accomplished all that needs to be done to gain our salvation from sin and death and to win us from a fruitless life of works of the law. There is the key to unlock the future. There is the freedom to walk a new way for others, the freedom like that Paul sketches in his closing exhortations.
Exhortations we need to hear today are these:
* You, Christian, are responsible for your brother and sister in Christ, to restore them onto the Way when they wander (Watch yourself in this regard also!).
* You, Christian, are to bear with and suffer with and endure under the burdens of others as a sign of Christ with us, extending the grace of the cross into "the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1).
* You, Christian, are to generously support the vision/mission budget of your congregation, funding the ministers and the ministry for which you are responsible.
* You, Christian, are to be at the ready to do good to all, guarding against weariness in well-doing. This is the only way you will feel satisfied in life (6:16).
Often when recruiting volunteers, we talk about "how good you will feel" and "how benefiting others will benefit you." Enlightened self-interest is the genius behind good advertising these days; not just in the community, but also in the church.
But how different is the appeal from scripture! Service (represented in today's text by healing and the subjugation of demons; 10:9, 17) on behalf of others will usher in the Kingdom of God. The servants' reward may be deferred to heaven and the ultimate satisfaction will be to "enter into the joy of your Master" (Matthew 25:14-30). This is cause to keep us humbled by grace as we witness to the mercies of God wherever we are and whatever our daily endeavor
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
2 Kings 5:1-14
Important people expect to be treated with deference and respect. You do not find a leading star of stage and screen or the wife of a chief executive of a large company lodging in a Motel 6. No. They go to expensive hotels that have saunas and personalized massages and Internet services, where their every wish is immediately granted. Important people have luxurious, private boxes built for them in new sports stadiums. They are given limousines and valet services. And you do not greet them like any other person, as some basketball players rapidly learned when they did not call Bobby Knight "Mr." to his face. Important people have no expectation of serving rather than being served. No washing of someone else's feet. No such humility for the prestigious and beautiful people. The world owes them deference, because they're so great, and they look for the acknowledgement of that from all around.
So it is with our subject Naaman in our Old Testament lesson for this morning. He is a very important person, a VIP. He is commander of the army of Syria, which has won many skirmishes against Israel to the south in the ninth century B.C. As a result, Naaman has many servants who wait on him and his family. And he is highly favored by the king of Syria, to whom he has free access.
But Naaman has contracted leprosy, that highly contagious and disfiguring disease that eats away a person's flesh and bones. The fact that Naaman is a VIP is shown, however, by the fact that Naaman has neither been dismissed from his military post nor banished from the community. Usually lepers were segregated away from all communal life and left to perish in closed and impoverished colonies. But Naaman is important. And he is rich. So when his wife's little captured Israelite slave girl informs her mistress that there is a prophet named Elisha in northern Israel who could cure Naaman, Naaman has no less a person than the Syrian king write a letter to the king of Israel, sending a huge gift and asking that Naaman be cured. The king of Israel thinks it's all a plot, of course, to win a military victory, but Elisha hears of it and asks that Naaman come to him.
Naaman arrives amidst a cloud of dust with his horses and chariots and servants and a great flourish at Elisha's door, expecting the prophet to show him proper deference and respect for the important man that he is. Instead Elisha sends out a servant with the message to Naaman to wash himself seven times in the Jordan River and he will be cleansed of his disease. Naaman is humiliated and furious. Could he not have washed in the rivers of Syria? Doesn't Elisha know who he is dealing with -- a very important person?
But servants often have more insight than their masters, because they are not blinded by false pride. And so they ask Naaman, would he not have obeyed if the prophet had commanded some great thing? How much easier then simply to dip seven times in the Jordan? Having lost his pride, Naaman dips, and he is cured -- because "there is a prophet in Israel" (cf. v. 8), through whom the power of Almighty God speaks and works.
The Lord God of the Bible and of our church is not interested in our scramble for status, for wealth, for approval in the eyes of the world, all of which so feed our foolish pride in ourselves. Indeed, our God cannot do very much with human pride, because it concentrates everything on us and nothing on God. Our pride refuses to acknowledge that there is One beyond us who created us, who sustains us, and upon whose mercy and faithfulness we are entirely dependent for our lives and the very structure of our world and all good.
As Jesus tells us, if we look only to ourselves for life and good, we shall lose all, including finally our eternal lives. But if we come to him in humility and faith, relying on his overwhelming love for us, we will find forgiveness and healing, the riches of his goodness, and finally life in its fullness. In a sense, we are all leprous Naamans, good Christians, diseased and dying from our self-pride and sin. And our Lord Jesus asks of us but a simple thing -- trust in his power to make us whole.
Lutheran Option -- Isaiah 66:10-14
What a strange reading for the modern church on this second Sunday in July! It makes no sense to us to hear some divine promises for the ancient city of Jerusalem. And the figures of speech that are used prompt almost no thoughts from our contemporary experience. How on earth can we connect with this passage?
In its original setting, verses 10-13 of our text form an eschatological oracle of salvation that was addressed to the persecuted Levitical party of priests and reformers in Jerusalem by the authors of Third Isaiah, after the return from Babylonian exile, sometime after 538 B.C. Verse 14 is the beginning of the second salvation-judgment oracle of verses 14-17. But what is being announced is God's future salvation of the faithful in post-exilic Israel. In the thought of Third Isaiah, they are those who "love Jerusalem," that is, who love the God of Jerusalem. They form the beginning of a new, elect people of God, to whom God will give abundant life in the future.
In the present, desperate post-exilic time, the faithful are scorned and persecuted by the ruling Zadokite priests and their followers, and sin permeates the city's life. Therefore the faithful "mourn" over Jerusalem. But the time is coming when God will destroy the unfaithful (cf. vv. 15-17) and make for himself a new people.
As in Isaiah 60:1-4, Jerusalem is portrayed with the figure of a mother, from whose future abundance the faithful will be nourished, sucking deeply at her overflowing breasts, carried on her hip, and dandled on her lap. Jerusalem knows poverty, ruins, inflation, crop failures, injustices in her present post-exilic state. But God will comfort her and transform her life, so that all nations will see her salvation by the Lord.
I suppose that this text can only be preached to a modern congregation if we equate the figure of Jerusalem with the church, an equation made throughout the church's history (cf. the hymn, "O Zion haste, thy mission high fulfilling"). Certainly, while the modern church is not in a desperate material position, as was ancient Jerusalem, it shares in the sins, the injustices, the unrighteousness of that biblical city. Power plays and political machinations undermine our polity, ignorance of the biblical faith permeates our congregations, complacent belief characterizes many of our members, many of the faithful are scorned as out of touch with politically correct reality. And those who truly trust do indeed "mourn" over the state of the present church, while yet loving its true gospel and Lord.
But the present state of the church is not the end of God's story. As the Lord announced to post-exilic Jerusalem, God has a better future for his church in his plan. God knows who is faithful to Jesus Christ and who is not. God knows the condition of his covenant community. And beyond our complacency, our sin, our unbelief, our unfaithfulness, God plans a new people, a new church, which knows how to live in mercy and justice, in love and righteousness under his lordship. God looks forward to a time when his church is saved, and all the world acknowledges his reign, when his kingdom has indeed been acknowledged among his people and the gospel of salvation has gone out to all the world. God has a purified and faithful people in mind, and Third Isaiah's words tell us that this vision of them will be realized.
So in the midst of all of our ecclesiastical disputes, all of our waywardness, all of our failure to be those who truly love our Lord, God's word stands, and it is a word that gives us joy and certain, unshakeable hope.
