“SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE”
Seventh Sunday of Pentecost
July 7, 2013
II Kings 5:1-14; Luke 10:1-13, 16-20
PRAYER AFTER FIRST HYMN
Gracious God – we thank you for bringing us together to this holy place to worship you and to
pray and sing and to hear your word. Teach us with wisdom, and lift up our hearts by your Spirit so
that we may magnify your name and walk in the way of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord, our brother,
and our hope. We pray for your blessing, for your peace and for your strength that we may be your
instruments and your vessels. Hear our prayer and visit us in this hour. We ask it in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
I titled today’s message “So Much for So Little” because our scriptures tell us about small and
seemingly insignificant things that turn into events that are immensely rewarding .
In the II Kings reading we hear about a miracle of healing that happens in a most unexpected
place, in the river Jordan. Jerry and I visited the Holy Land and one of the stops was the Jordan
River. It was not at all like I expected it to be. It was a very narrow muddy creek-like body of water.
People were being baptized in the Jordan River. Not to be missed up on the bank, though, was what
we would expect at our tourist attractions – the Jordan River Souvenir Shop! As another aside, when
we visited Jerusalem there was a Holy City T Shirt Shop!
Anyway, back to the message. The commander of the armies of Aram, a man named Naaman
was familiar with the river.
In the Gospel reading we hear about the disciples of Christ who are commissioned to go into
the world – into the harvest that God has prepared – like lambs in the midst of wolves: and to carry
with them none of those things that we rely upon as we travel – no purse, no bag, no credit cards, not
even sandals – and to proclaim peace to all who will accept it – peace, and healing, and the nearness
of the Kingdom of God.
In the II Kings scripture, Naaman has a real problem, leprosy, one of the most dreaded
diseases of the ancient world, and he needs a solution, a healing. That is something we can all relate
to – a needed solution to a problem.
Naaman finds his solution by the grace of God. All he has to do is “Do it!”
All he has to do is to humble himself and to recognize that his great problem can be taken care
of, and taken care of in a simple act of obedience within a small and insignificant river.
Notice that at first, Naaman resists this idea. We can probably relate to that. Sometimes we
think that our problems are so great that it will take great, mighty things to result in their solution.
We are very suspicious of simple solutions, especially the “too good to be true” answers.
At first Naaman believes that his healing should come from the prophet Elisha himself. That
Elisha should come out of his house and stand before him and call on the name of God and wave his
hands over his leprous spots and so heal him.
He has a hard time grasping that the small things, the seemingly unimportant things are the
things that God most often uses to accomplish great things.
And he has a hard time grasping that solutions – especially divine solutions – are most often
wrapped up in obedience – obedience in what are seemingly small matters. We have a problem with
obedience, also, don’t we?
We know people who have gone to their cardiologist after having a heart attack and are told
that they must exercise for a few minutes each day to make themselves healthy again. It’s a small
thing, relatively, but many don’t do what they are supposed to do.
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I hate to mention this one – diet. The solution is an obvious one – we know what we have to
do. It’s up to us to obey (that sounds harsh, doesn’t it?). But many of us don’t do it.
In the folks in Naaman’s time, and indeed our own lives, we can hear a bit of Naaman saying, “I
want the cure, but I don’t want to be part of it. Elisha is supposed to take care of things for me. I
should only have to show up and be healed.”
Naaman is told that his healing will be found in washing seven times in a muddy river and he
tramps off in a rage because he wants - and expects – the solution to be something different,
something more dramatic, something more special, something that is more in proportion to his
importance and to the importance of his problem.
How close Naaman came to walking away from the cure!
Fortunately his servants loved him enough to confront him and advise him with loving reason,
“If it had been a great thing that had cost a lot of money, you would have done it.”
“If it had required a long journey, you would have done it.”
“If it had required some heroic effort, you would have done it…”
And Naaman responded to this reasoning; he listened to his servants.
How do you think Naaman felt after the first dunk in the Jordan? And after the second – or
third – or fourth, and nothing happened.
I wonder if Naaman began to doubt.
Fifth. Still no healing.
Sixth. Nothing.
I wonder if he said, with mud dripping off his hair, “Let’s get this over with.” “Yuck!” or “What’s
the use?”
Yet Naaman persevered – he immersed himself one more time – and lo and behold, the
blessing came!
Obedience. And then the blessing! That’s usually the way God works. I repeat the saying that
I shared last week. “The miraculous solution happens when we try to do it ourselves. The easy way is
to let God help us.”
We don’t earn the blessing. But we are granted the blessing when we surrender our will in
obedience to God’s will. When we earnestly seek a solution to our problems, God is faithful and will
supply a solution. If you are uncertain of this last sentence, remember that God does answer our
prayers. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it is not yet, and sometimes the answer is no.
If we choose to be obedient to that solution, our problem will be taken care of. And more.
Because not only is Naaman cured physically, but his soul is healed, also. He knows afterward not
only is there a prophet in Samaria, but that there is a living God in Israel.
When we are obedient to God’s solution, even though God’s solutions appear disguised as small
matters, the results end up to be more than we wanted, more than we expected, even more than we
could have hoped for.
Small matters matter – especially when those matters are God directed and we are obedient to
them.
As for the gospel reading – well, small matters there also. In the gospel reading it is the
disciples themselves who are small. Small in the face of the task that Jesus assigns them – the
mission of being ones who go into the heavily populated fields of God’s land and bring in the harvest.
Like Naaman, the disciples were told to do something that might sound foolish. They were told
to perform their tasks with absolutely none of the support people expect to have when they travel to
make the job easier. No bag of food to sustain them as they labored. No sandals to protect their feet
from the rocks of the roadways or hot sand.
They are told to rely only upon the welcome of those who will receive their greeting of peace,
and to “shake off the dust from their feet against those who will not and go on to the next place”.
Sounds kind of like cold calling for salespersons, doesn’t it?
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Indeed, they are told not even to rejoice in the powers that God will give them as they go forth,
but to rejoice only that their names are written in heaven.
In fact, they are told to rely on nothing familiar to them, but to rely only upon what God will
provide for them through men and women of peace as they proclaim the message concerning the
nearness of the kingdom of God.
Jesus says, “The harvest if plentiful, but the laborers are few.” He says, “Ask the Lord of the
harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.”
And then, he says words that will certainly not comfort them – “Go! I am sending you out like
lambs among wolves.”
In case you think it is different today – consider this. How many times have you said or heard,
“We’ve never done it that way (or we’ve always done it that way”?
How many times have you felt that our church cannot keep up the budget we have, let alone
pay for new things? How many times have we been unsure of things that we have never tried before?
Get new chairs? Rearrange the sanctuary? Surely not!
How can we do anything for God when we are so small, so uncertain, and at times, not clear
about what it is we need to do? After all, what can such a small group of believers do to make a
difference?
But – we have no choice. We are commanded to go. To go with nothing but the word of peace
and the promise that we will be looked after.
Like Naaman, like the disciples, we are confronted with big problems – big tasks, and, as with
them, the solution that has been proposed requires of us at least three things. First, we need to
abandon our ideas of what the solution should look like. We need to get out of our comfort zones.
And we must wash ourselves in the waters (even if they are muddy) and obey.
I don’t know what your individual problems are, but I know that, like Namaan, most of us have
some. I do know what the problem of our world is: I know that every home needs the peace of God to
come upon it, and that every nation needs the kingdom of God to draw close to it. I also am positive
that there is a huge task – a huge harvest – waiting for the servant of God – out there.
And I also know from the story of Naaman, and from the story of the sending out of the 72
disciples, as well as many other Bible scripture stories, that the answer to our problems is most likely
already before us, and that it is most likely in a humble form. And I know most of all that it requires
of us nothing more than a humble submission, a humble obedience.
Can we solve all of the problems in our world by ourselves? Of course not. But if we work
together with God and lay the burdens on God and allow God to shoulder those burdens with us, we
can do it!
What is it you need to do today? What have you put off doing because it seemed too simple,
too small, too silly to do?
What act of humble obedience do you need to perform so that you might claim what God is
offering to you, and through you, to your family, your neighbors, your church, and, indeed, to your
world?
Is it as simple remembering to pray each day? Does it require you to give up your reliance on
the small but necessary matters of life? – your home, your bank account, your knowledge of the ways
of the world? And to trust instead in God to do what God has promised to do even as you dip for the
fourth, or the fifth, or even the sixth time into the muddy waters of a spiritual Jordan?
The solution is not out there somewhere in a place where you have to look for it. The solution
is right here – it is already in your hearts and upon your lips. That is the word of faith that we are
proclaiming, the word God wants you to believe and act upon so that peace may come and healing
may happen.
All in all today – the scriptures speak to us of small matters – with big consequences.
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It is up to us to receive the word – or not. It is my prayer, and the prayer of Christ, and of the
whole church – that you may indeed receive the word of peace, and be ones who live by it in trust and
humble obedience. Amen.
BENEDICTION
Go in peace, and love, and care for one another in Christ’s name.
-And May God give you mercy and peace;
- May Christ Jesus give you power over all that would harm you;
- And may the Holy Spirit produce within you riches of joy and life, both now and forever. Amen and
amen.
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