These readings for Lent today are remarkable in that they relate to us that things usually turn out the way God wants them to happen and not us (sooner or later), in the way God wants them to happen and not us, and for the purpose that God intends and not ours.
The remarkable part of the first reading is that Naaman, the army commander's servant, presented himself to the King of Israel to be cured of leprosy. The King of Israel declared himself unqualified for the job: do I have power over life and death that I can do this thing? So, Elisha, the man of God, communicated with the king of Israel and told him to send Naaman to him. Then Elisha – a prophet of God – told Naaman to do something as simple as plunging in the Jordan River seven times – to obtain a cure. Naaman thought this a silly thing to do – but he did it – and he was cured of his leprosy. And he became a believer in the God who cares for and heals anyone – for he, himself, was not even one of God's special people – an Israelite.
In the gospel passage Jesus is telling the people in the synagogue at Nazareth that they had better listen to what he had to say – for other people, the non-Israelites, the non-Jews were being showed the favor of God in big ways and blessed with miracles, while they were not. Faith, to some degree, was the necessary ingredient. The faith-level of his own people was so slight that Jesus could really do very little for them. In fact their reaction to him was that they wanted to take him and throw him over a cliff!
May we this day – who claim to be God's people – God's people of the New Dispensation, the New Covenant, the New Law – invite Jesus closer to us, rather than try to drive him away, and have faith enough to allow him to bless us, and heal us and transform us anyway that we need to be.
Athirst is my soul for the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God!
Today, if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts!
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