Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Oct. 9, 2016
“Jesus Healing the Leper,” Jean-Marie Melchior Doze, 1864
Whether our lives are going well or whether things are going badly, trust in God. Trust, and be thankful for God’s blessings. This is the theme that runs through all our readings today. We hear it in Jeremiah, as the prophet turns from anguish over Jerusalem’s destruction to quiet acceptance now that the worst has come. Don’t give up hope, he tells Judah in exile. Confront your new reality and try to flourish; bear children and multiply, and pray for your new home, because its welfare is now your welfare.
First Reading (Track Two): 2 Kings 5:1-14
Whether our lives are going well or whether things are going badly, trust in God. Trust, and be thankful for God’s blessings. This is the theme that runs through all our readings today. Naaman, a proud commander of the Aramean army, risks going to Israel, now an enemy nation, to visit a prophet who might cure his disfiguring disease. The Prophet Elisha wouldn’t even see Naaman. He sent a servant with advice that sounded too simple to be true. But when Naaman’s servants urged him give it a try, Naaman was cured; and through his cure he finds faith in Israel’s God.
This resounding hymn of praise for God’s power and glory recalls God’s mighty deeds: God led the people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and onward to the Promised Land. But then it takes a turn: God tests us, too, just as a jeweler tests silver with fire to prove its purity. As Judah learned through exile, God’s people may be conquered, but God will eventually restore and refresh us.
Psalm (Track Two): Psalm 111
The 150 Psalms, the hymnal of the ancient Temple, consist of many genres, from lament to complaint to petition to thanksgiving and praise. Today we hear a powerful song of praise and thanksgiving, applauding God’s many acts of power and majesty, God’s righteousness and justice, and, at the end, our praise and gratitude for God’s gifts to us.
Second Reading: 2 Timothy 2:8-15
The young, growing Christian movement faced frightening persecution by the Romans at the time of this letter. It was written in the names of Paul and Timothy as a call to faith. Recalling Paul’s suffering in chains in prison and facing death, the writer reminds us that God’s word cannot be held in chains. Remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus, we know that through dying with Jesus, we live in Christ.
Gospel: Luke 17:5-10
The Gospels give us a sense that Samaritans are bad, yet Jesus keeps showing us good Samaritans: In addition to the memorable parable of the Samaritan who stops to help the injured stranger, we have Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well; and today we read about the single leper out of ten – a Samaritan, again – who returns to thank Jesus for his healing, and whose faith saved him not only from his affliction but opened for him the doors to the kingdom. There are fascinating parallels with the story of Namaan here: Jesus cures the lepers at a distance, without touching them, and his actions bring a despised foreigner to faith in God.