Support from the natural plan

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to stand in the role of those who reject prompts to reconsider our relationship with God.

Ok, so maybe I can't offer you a cool baptism setting like, say, the Jordan River. But I can at least offer you some awesome baptisms tomorrow at @SACYouBelong ... and even promise cleaner water than the Jordan! pic.twitter.com/219pNSzQVP

— Matt Ewert (@MattEwert77) February 24, 2018

The Second Book of Kings presents the story of the healing of Naaman and raises questions of how we deal with ambiguity.

* [5:12] Wash in them and be cleansed: typical of the ambiguity in ritual healing or cleanliness. The muddy waters of the Jordan are no match hygienically for the mountain spring waters of Damascus; ritually, it is the other way around.

 The Gospel of Luke connects Jesus to the rejection that the Prophets of God have experienced in salvation history.

* [4:25–26] The references to Elijah and Elisha serve several purposes in this episode: they emphasize Luke’s portrait of Jesus as a prophet like Elijah and Elisha; they help to explain why the initial admiration of the people turns to rejection; and they provide the scriptural justification for the future Christian mission to the Gentiles.

Eileen Wirth confirms that following Jesus means taking risks and even facing persecution to proclaim universal love.

This may sound obvious but it’s not. Growing up, I unconsciously assumed that God was a lot like all the male adult authority figures I knew: white, respectable and law-abiding. If Jesus hadn’t been born in Israel 2,000 years ago, he would have been a good Midwestern Republican Catholic, just like us.
But Jesus wasn’t like that. He proclaimed radical ideas about justice, charity and peace without caring how civil and religious authorities reacted. He risked death a number of times before his crucifixion. He wouldn’t have fit in at the chamber of commerce

Don Schwager encourages us to confront the sin of indifference and unbelief.

He then angered them when he complimented Gentiles who had shown more faith in God than the "chosen ones" of Israel. Some who despised the Gentiles (non-Jews) even spoke of them as "fuel for the fires of hell." Jesus' praise for "outsiders" offended the ears of his own people because they were blind-sighted to God's merciful plan of redemption for all the nations. The word of rebuke spoken by Jesus was met with indignation and hostility. The Nazarenes forcibly threw him out of their town and would have done him physical harm had he not stopped them.

Friar Jude Winkler relates the indignation of Naaman when asked to bathe in a muddy creek. The anawim, or poor ones of Yahweh, are identified by Luke as accepting Jesus out of their needs. The rejected have nothing to lose as they approach seeking mercy.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, believes we can’t access our full intelligence and wisdom without some real connection to nature. He takes us back to the Jordan to help to discover our souls.

Without such recognition and mirroring, we are alienated and separated from ourselves and all of nature. Frankly, we will not know how to love or respect our own soul. Instead, we try various means to get God and people to like or accept us because we never experience radical belonging. We’re trying to say to ourselves and others, “I belong here. I matter.” Of course, you do! But contrived and artificial means will never achieve that divine purpose. We are naturally healed in this world when we know things center to center, subject to subject, and soul to soul

Perhaps our difficulty with ambiguity and rejection tempts us to call out for some simple instructions on what God wants us to do. The texts today suggest that our path and plan is more visible in a humble desire for reconnection to each other and to nature.

References


(n.d.). 2 Kings, chapter 5 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 5, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/2kings/5

(n.d.). Luke, chapter 4 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 5, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/4

(n.d.). Online Ministries - Creighton University. Retrieved March 5, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 5, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 5, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/