Two of our four readings this Sunday are about healing,
healing which causes the recipients to be radically aware of God’s grace acting
in their lives.
In our first reading from 2 Kings, Naaman, a foreign general, worships the gods of the kingdom
of Aram. Having contracted leprosy, he needs a divine action to eradicate his disease –
action he only finds in the God of Israel, in the form of wondrous deeds (Psalm 98) that cause him great joy and immediate
conversion: I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other God except
to the Lord. God changes the way
Naaman lives in his world, just as God’s action changes the way the Samaritan
in Luke’s Gospel lives in his
world. Healed with nine other lepers, the
sole Samaritan is reinstated into God’s community, into relationship with God,
because he recognizes God’s presence and God’s action in his life, salvation, in Paul’s sense of the word
in 2 Timothy, as evidenced by the fact that God is ever faithful. And so it is with each of us: God won’t necessarily change your
world, but God will change you in the world, and how you live in the world. Settling for the status quo is, simply
speaking, settling for less. Change is
the norm, and all change – God’s action in our lives – is transformative.
What would our lives be like if we were not aware of God’s
activity in them? Would we have a sense
of grace? Would we have a sense of the power
of love to get us out of difficulty? Would
we still love? What would be
different? Recognizing that your life
alone is not everything is the same as recognizing God in action, and that is a
beginning... of a beautiful relationship.
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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