Word to the Wise
Monday, March 16, 2020 - 3rd Week of Lent - Mon
[2 Kgs 5:1-15a and Luke 4:24-30]"My father," they said, "if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, would you not have done it? All the more now, since he said to you, 'Wash and be clear,' should you do as he said." So Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times at the word of the man of God. His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." [2 Kings]
Naaman the Syrian general is one of my favorite characters in the whole Bible. He was not a Jew, but a general and used to getting results from his commands. He was also used to dealing with other folks on the same high level. So, when he was sent to some old prophet who told him to bathe in a rinky-dink muddy stream instead of a big river, Naaman balked. It took a faithful Jewish servant to reason with him that maybe he was being a bit too proud to accept the ordinary because he was focused on the extraordinary (namely himself). In the gospel for today, Jesus chides his hometown crowd because they could not accept the carpenter's son as a fulfillment of the prophets! He was too ordinary for them!
I think sometimes we make Lent a bit too extraordinary and do things that seem dramatic to us, like giving up something everyone knows we love in order to seem extraordinary (at least for 40 days). Maybe a better course is to go back to basics like simple ordinary daily prayer and renew what we take for granted so that when Lent is over, we have a strengthened foundation for the rest of the year. When Naaman the extraordinary listened to his ordinary servant, he got the results he wanted, even if he reacted in an extraordinary way by asking for mule-loads of dirt to take back with him! What would the folks in Nazareth have gained by listening to the hometown guy? What is the voice of ordinary and basic spiritual practice urging on us this Lent? AMEN