2 Kings 5:1-15c; Luke 17: 11-19
Well, the Scripture we’ve heard this
morning may seem like an odd start to a preaching series for a season of
stewardship. After all, there’s not a
pledge card in sight in any of those readings.
As you’ve heard me say before, stewardship
isn’t just a code word for church fundraising. Over these next six weeks, we’ll be reflecting
on the way giving and receiving let blessings flow. It’s a cycle we know well, if we stop and
think about it. God gives us everything
we have and everything we know – from the food that we eat to the love that
sustains us. And when we see how richly
we’re blessed, we have a choice to make: try to hold onto those gifts, or let
them flow through us to pay blessing forward. In God’s economy, the only choice that makes
sense is not to hoard but to invest.
So, for the first three weeks of this
stewardship season, both in sermons and in the weekly devotional guide coming
to your mailbox, we’ll consider how we give. Then, in the last three weeks, we’ll consider how
we receive – and, I hope, marvel at it.
For today, and in this week’s devotions,
the focus is giving God thanks and praise. It comes first because giving thanks and
praise is where our part in the cycle of blessing starts. We can’t be conduits of blessing without seeing
that those blessings come from the Source of all things – and that sure as heck
isn’t us. Yes, God graciously collaborates
with us, making us instruments in the cycle of blessing. But by giving God thanks and praise, we remind
ourselves who God is and where we stand in the pecking order – that all we have
was God’s first.
But giving God thanks and praise also
reminds us who we are, which is God’s beloved, no matter what. Now, we’re pretty good at putting up
boundaries to say otherwise. Sometimes
we put boundaries around ourselves, insisting we aren’t worthy of that kind of
love. Sometimes we put boundaries around
others, whomever we see as not like me, insisting they aren’t worthy of
that kind of love. It’s brokenness we
show early on. I remember marking out a
boundary with my sister when we were kids and we had to share a room on a trip.
We’d run masking tape down the middle of
the room, insisting you stay over there and I’ll stay over here – exiling each
other from the one most like us in the world. As a nation, we’re in a moment of intensely
marking out my side of the room from your side of the room. Meanwhile, God the parent looks at us, and
shakes God’s head, and says, “You’ll be happier coming together instead. Maybe you could try remembering that you’re
siblings, not strangers.” From God’s
point of view, our relationship with God and with each other is one long story
of moving from exclusion to embrace – and then, shocked when it actually happens,
giving God thanks and praise that both we and “they” truly are beloved
after all.
In our readings this morning, we hear
about people once on the outside being brought in. First is the long and wonderful story of the
healing of Naaman, a military commander for the king of Aram, in present-day
Syria. Naaman has a contagious skin
condition, making him a pariah among his people despite his status. He hears about a healer in Israel, the prophet
Elisha; and Naaman petitions his king to set up a healing through royal
channels, which turns into a royal misunderstanding. When cooler heads prevail, Naaman and his
entourage come to the house of Elisha expecting the honor of pomp and
circumstance. But Elisha, seeing Naaman
like any other pilgrim in need of healing, sends word that Naaman should just
go wash in the Jordan River. Naaman takes
it as a snub; but his servants convince him to give the bath a try. So, Naaman comes out of the water with his
skin made new – and his heart, too. He
realizes he didn’t need status or power to come before the God of Israel. He was simply welcomed in and cared for like
any other beloved child.
And the experience transforms Naaman. As he says at the end of the reading: “Now I
know there is no God in all the earth except in Israel” (2 Kings 5:15). And a few verses after what we heard today,
Namaan takes his thanks and praise one step further. He asks for two loads of earth from Israel to
take home with him, so he can worship Yahweh on the Lord’s home turf, even in a
distant land. Naaman comes for a cure but
finds so much more – the healing that comes when we see ourselves as children
of a common God.
Then, in the Gospel reading, Jesus takes
God’s mission to the outsiders several steps further, moving toward those on a
border. Jesus is in “the region between
Samaria and Galilee” – a religious no-man’s land. Remember, in the eyes of the Jews, the
Samaritans were the worst kind of outsiders: They shared a common history but
then went apostate, mixing Judaism with the religions of their occupiers and
captors. Family feuds are the worst
conflicts of them all; and by this point, the Jews and the Samaritans had been
keeping one up for centuries.
So, Jesus is in this region between his tribe
and “them,” the Samaritans, when he comes across these 10 people with
contagious skin conditions. It’s not as
random as it sounds; if you look at a map of the region in Jesus’ day, there
are very few towns in that area – a perfect place for a leper colony. And the symbolism works, too: Who’s more on the outside than a group of
lepers? And especially the Samaritan
leper among them, the ultimate outsider.
So, the lepers flag down Jesus and cry out
for him to heal them. Jesus obliges and
heals all 10, but then the story moves to its point: the response God expects
when blessing comes to us. One of the
outcasts comes back to Jesus, and he throws himself down at Jesus’ feet,
thanking him and praising God. None of
the other healed lepers comes along, just this one – and this one a Samaritan.
Jesus is scandalized: “The other nine,” he asks, “where are they? Was none of them found to return and give
praise to God except this foreigner? (Luke 17:17-18) Clearly, he’s miffed at the ingratitude of the
other nine. But it’s also an object
lesson for the disciples. Turns out, it
just might be the last person you’d expect who gives God the truest thanks and
praise. It just might be that the
“other” is on the same spiritual page as you.
God is always crossing boundaries and
inviting us to do the same – especially when a boundary separates us,
ironically, from the people most like us in the world – our family members, our
siblings. Now, I don’t diminish at all
the vast political differences we hold. Our
worldviews are diverging to such an extent that, like the Jews and the
Samaritans, we can be tempted to see those differences as insurmountable. But it just so happens that our political
leaders thrive by fanning those flames of discord. How long will Americans buy into a family feud
that serves the interests of those in power? Our “enemies” today are the same people with
whom we grieved a brutal terror attack two decades ago. Now, instead of standing together, we act like
siblings running masking tape down the middle of the room. You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine –
and we’ll all be the smaller for it.
So – you knew this was coming, right? – we
have an opportunity to do some boundary-crossing ourselves. At Trailside Thursdays starting next Thursday,
Oct. 23, we’re taking up this hard topic: Loving our enemies. I think both the content and the process are
equally important. About the content: We’ll
look at what Scripture has to say about loving our enemies, how that cornerstone
of our theology supports the mission of the church, and how Christian ethics
wrestles with real-world examples of dealing with enemies, issues like war and capital
punishment. Alongside the teaching,
we’ll also learn how to share our hearts and minds on these topics and listen
in curiosity and love.
This may sound a little scary, speaking
our truth when we know others won’t agree with it. It’s certainly easier just to be nice – we’re
really good at being nice. But it’s more
loving to take our fellow parishioners seriously enough to share our
perspectives and the experiences that have formed them, to be curious about the
thoughts and lives of others, and to listen with open hearts. We often wonder, in these divided times, what
on earth we can do to foster healing. I
believe we can do that individually by loving the potential enemy across the
room. And I believe we can do that as a
church by claiming our role as a community where civility and truth can walk
hand in hand.
The good news is that we won’t be doing
this on our own because the Holy Spirit will be there, right alongside us. After all, God is the one in charge – the one
who knows truth far better than we do, and loves us even when we miss the mark,
and insists on gathering us all under the shadow of God’s wings, regardless.
That constant, loving presence certainly makes God worthy to receive our thanks and praise. And offering it, we remember who we truly are. We’re not people on this side and on that side. We’re not people who are right and people who are wrong. Fundamentally, we are God’s beloved, and that’s what unites us – united in thanks and praise for the love that sees beyond our boundaries, the love that beckons us all to come and be healed.
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