Grace isn't fair

2 Kings 5:19b-27 (NRSV)

Greed brings leprosy to Gehazi

But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, thought, "My master has let that Aramean Naaman off too lightly by not accepting from him what he offered. As the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something out of him." So Gehazi went after Naaman. When Naaman saw someone running after him, he jumped down from the chariot to meet him and said, "Is everything all right?" He replied, "Yes, but my master has sent me to say, 'Two members of a company of prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim; please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.'" Naaman said, "Please accept two talents." He urged him, and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and gave them to two of his servants, who carried them in front of Gehazi. When he came to the citadel, he took the bags from them, and stored them inside; he dismissed the men, and they left.

He went in and stood before his master; and Elisha said to him, "Where have you been, Gehazi?" He answered, "Your servant has not gone anywhere at all." But he said to him, "Did I not go with you in spirit when someone left his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to accept money and to accept clothing, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves? Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you, and to your descendants forever." So he left his presence leprous, as white as snow. 

And addendum to the addendum to Naaman's story.

We don't like it when folks get off too easy, do we?  Our "innate sense of justice" is offended.

Can we blame Gehazi for being offended at Naaman getting off so lightly?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I'm not so sure that under the same conditions I wouldn't have looked at this man - an ancient one-percenter with access to the best health care of his day - and wanted to cry foul.  All he had to do was dip in the Jordan river, and that's it?

Of course, Gehazi's sense of justice seems ultimately not about righting a wrong done to his master, but as a means to line his own purse.  Wanting those in power to pay their due is one thing.  Wanting to use their wealth for our own gain is another.

God's justice is different.  God's gift of grace is different, and sometimes, God's grace falls on those who maybe we might not have chosen.

That grace is so bountiful, so overflowing, and so generous, that it spills over places and people we might not think of.  Like the lavish seed scatterer of Jesus' parable, God throws that grace far and wide.  On us, and on our "enemies."  We are called to proclaim that abundant grace, even when we aren't sure we think it's fair.

Grace isn't fair.  It's love.

Generous and loving God: Help us to be partners with you in the spreading of your good news, telling others of your generous, spectacular grace.  And when we think that grace isn't fair, remind us of the love you bear all of your people and invite us to love them just as abundantly.  Amen

Backtracking

2 Kings 5:15-19a (NRSV)

Naaman seeks to repay Elisha

Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant." But he said, "As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!" He urged him to accept, but he refused. Then Naaman said, "If not, please let two mule-loads of earth be given to your servant; for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the Lord. But may the Lord pardon your servant on one count: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow down in the house of Rimmon, when I do bow down in the house of Rimmon, may the Lord pardon your servant on this one count." He said to him, "Go in peace." 

This addendum was, I think, better being left off yesterday's Old Testament reading for worship.  It is almost like an unsatisfying additional ending to a movie you thought ended already.  I've left many a movie where I thought "why did they bother with that last five minutes?  They already had the perfect ending"

I liked the ending of Naaman's story yesterday.  He'd found faith in the true God and his pride had been healed along with his leprosy.  Happy ending!

But this…it sounds almost to like Naaman backtracking.  Who wants to read about that?

Well the reality, is, that's kind of what happens, isn't it?

I've had some pretty powerful moments of full charged grace in my life.  Those moments feel often like happy endings.  But the reality is that sin always seeps its way back in.  Bargains form on my lips again with God and I am always reminded that I am still on this journey of faith and am still both saint AND sinner.  Life is continual death to sin and then resurrection.  The cycle of death and new life happens over and over and over.  Sin sweeps in, but Grace continually makes her presence known and shows who's in charge.

I can't be too hard on Naaman.  His faith has been born on that day in the Jordan river.  But as with rivers, he would find many twists and turns along the way as death and resurrection, sin and grace, end and beginning, would lead him down occasional rapids in the ongoing journey of that life of faith. 

That journey is what leads us onward to wholeness as our "old self" continually dies to sin along the way.

Gracious God, we thank you for the patience you bear us throughout our journey of faith.  Forgive us when we stumble.  Be there to pick us back up and set us back on our way with your grace, keeping us ever mindful of your desire for nothing else than for us to be the whole, beloved creatures you intended us to be.  Amen.

Wholeness

2 Timothy 2:1-7 (NRSV) Share in suffering You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier's aim is to please the enlisting officer. And in the case of an athlete, no one is crowned without competing according to the rules. It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in all thing I've been reading a lot of Richard Rohr and Brian McLaren lately, as well as just finished reading Nadia Bolz-Weber's memoir, Pastrix.  And while they all might say it differently, what comes always through loud and clear is that there is no path to "salvation" except through suffering and pain.  There is no resurrection without the cross.  There is no wholeness without first going through division.  There is no spring without winter.  You don't fathom the magnificence of the light without experiencing darkness. In the same way that you can't get to a finish line without running the race or reap your crops without the toil that goes into it, you don't ultimately get "saved" without first going through the valley of the shadow.  There's no way around it. This is not, I truly believe, a passage claiming "do the work, get the prize" or work's righteousness.  Instead it is a truth that is much more profound than that.  It is that pain, brokenness, suffering, harsh conditions, and death are true.  They are a reality we can't get around.  But without them, we'd not be able to experience that salvation of grace. This isn't salvation simply meaning "getting to go to heaven."  This is salvation meaning experiencing the fullness of life that only grace can bring.  It means wholeness both now and not yet. Gracious God: When the valley of the shadow comes, you are with me.  Prepare for those times, and walk with me during the valleys, and let me be ever mindful of those who need me to walk with them.  Amen.

Letters from a loved one

2 Timothy 1:13-18 (NRSV)

Paul in prison

Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

You are aware that all who are in Asia have turned away from me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain; when he arrived in Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! And you know very well how much service he rendered in Ephesus. 

Letters are a lost art for the most part.  So it is hard sometimes to remember the often personal nature of some of the "Epistles" of Paul.

Paul (or at least probably Paul…) writes from prison anticipating his death and wanting to bolster strength and courage in his follower Timothy.  They had a close relationship and so reading this letter is quite different from reading something like the Gospels or the Book of Acts, or even one of Paul's letters to his churches.

How do we bolster each other these days?  We don't really write letters.  Texts and emails don't always have the same punch, do they?  And we can't hold on to them to remember the person in the same way we can with letters.

Not long ago, my mother gave me some old letters of hers that were either from me or about me in different periods of my life.  One was the first letter I'd written from college - giving her my dream menu for my first trip home.  Another was from a friend of hers I worked with in my first job, telling my mom I was doing fine, and another from my grandmother about my coming to visit her.  

They are good treasures that my mother has entrusted to me.  And while we might not have letters the way we used to, we still have the best treasure: the faith.  It's entrusted to us with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.  It doesn't get more personal or strength-building than that.

Good and Gracious God: You have entrusted to us the most wonderful of gifts - your Spirit that sustains us and draws us together.  You claim us for relationship with you and with our neighbors.  We don't always remember the gift, and we don't always treasure it so we thank you for the loving reminders you give us along the way. Amen

You get what you set

Mark 11:12-14, 20-24 (NRSV)

Faith that moves mountains

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it. ...

In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered." Jesus answered them, "Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 

I've read this passage I don't know how many times before, but this is the first time I've noticed exactly how Jesus phrases his directive about prayer:  "believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

Not believe that you shall have it or you'll get it, but believe that you have received it - as in you already have it.

For someone looking for something specific in a prayer, this is perhaps frustrating, but as someone who as a parent is constantly wanting her child to believe that she is strong and capable and intelligent and most importantly, loved, this is everything.  It's kind of like the cliche I used to tell the sales people I trained in my days as an Insurance Sale Rep trainer:  "You get what you set."

Where we are emotionally and spiritually has a lot to do with how we approach prayer.  If your starting point is: "I believe I am a loved child of God," that comes from that faith that moves mountains.

But the truth is for me that's not always where I am when I pray.  Sometimes what I'm experiencing in the moment isn't God's love but my own desperation or sometimes my own entitlement.  In those times, I really don't believe I already have it, and I probably also don't believe I'm going to have whatever it is I seek because I either see myself as unworthy of it, or in that moment of entitlement, worthy of more than I need.

Faithful Lord: You want us to believe what you know to be true - we are your beloved children. Help that be our starting place in all of our prayer life and in all of our interactions with each other.  We believe that we have received the most precious gift of all from you.  Remind us always that that gift is already ours.  Amen

Flimsy Security

Habakkuk 2:5-11 (NRSV)

Those who heap up what is not theirs

Moreover, wealth is treacherous;
the arrogant do not endure.
They open their throats wide as Sheol;
like Death they never have enough.
They gather all nations for themselves,
and collect all peoples as their own.

Shall not everyone taunt such people and, with mocking riddles, say about them,
"Alas for you who heap up what is not your own!"
How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge?
Will not your own creditors suddenly rise,
and those who make you tremble wake up?
Then you will be booty for them.
Because you have plundered many nations,
all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you
because of human bloodshed, and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who live in them.

"Alas for you who get evil gain for your houses,
setting your nest on high
to be safe from the reach of harm!"
You have devised shame for your house
by cutting off many peoples;
you have forfeited your life.
The very stones will cry out from the wall,
and the plaster will respond from the woodwork. 

The last verses of this reading remind me of the gated communities that dot the landscape of the US.  Mansions and McMansions hidden behind iron gates.  I live in such an area and have a house that could easily be called a McMansion.  No gate, but there are things in my daily routine that keep me safely ensconced from seeing the real life that so many other Americans face.  Ones without safety nets or gates or 401Ks.  

Wealth is treacherous.  It keeps us from seeing reality.  It keeps us hidden behind a veil of flimsy security that can easily be taken away, as many learned during the bubble burst of the real estate market.  

So what do we do?  How do we pull that flimsy veil from in front of our eyes so we can see clearly?  So we can stop trusting in nests on high and instead trust in the Lord on High?

It's a daily challenge for those living in my country and in my county specifically.  We need to remind ourselves of that challenge each day so that the real life experienced by those without those safety nets becomes the challenge we don't ignore but instead take on.

Generous God:  You have given this world your bounty.  Help us not to hoard it but to share and share generously so that we can feel the security that only you provide.  Take the veil from our eyes so that we can see the real plight faced by those we don't always see.  Amen.

Fish caught in a net

Habakkuk 1:5-17 (NRSV)

The wicked swallow the righteous

Look at the nations, and see!
Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days
that you would not believe if you were told.
For I am rousing the Chaldeans,
that fierce and impetuous nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth
to seize dwellings not their own.
Dread and fearsome are they;
their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more menacing than wolves at dusk;
their horses charge.
Their horsemen come from far away;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
They all come for violence,
with faces pressing forward;
they gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff,
and of rulers they make sport.

They laugh at every fortress,
and heap up earth to take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind;
they transgress and become guilty;
their own might is their god!

Are you not from of old,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
You shall not die.
O Lord, you have marked them for judgment;
and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.
Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous,
and are silent when the wicked swallow
those more righteous than they?
You have made people like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.

The enemy brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net,
he gathers them in his seine;
so he rejoices and exults.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his seine;
for by them his portion is lavish,
and his food is rich.
Is he then to keep on emptying his net,
and destroying nations without mercy? 

There's always a catch to these warrior references from the OT.  The reality is that on most of my days, the enemies I face are much more subtle than this.  And I also think there is danger in taking this prophets poem about enemies of Israel and transferring them to enemies of of the United States.  The United States is not God's chosen nation in the same way Israel was, no matter how many ways we like to think so.

But there ARE days when groups of people and individuals feel caught up like a fish in a net of no mercy. That metaphor strikes me as the perfect one to describe how institutional evil sweeps people up into it's snares.  What else to think when cuts in spending affect the most vulnerable while the growing gap between rich and poor gets greater and greater?

This particular passage doesn't end up the note of hope and promise that many do.  The question to the Holy One is left hanging at the end:  is he then to keep on emptying his net and destroying nations without mercy?

But in the middle of the reading the promise is there:  O Lord, you have marked them for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment. Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; 

There is faith and trust that God will not let this matter stand.  God's true nature is known and every now and then one of God's people reminds the Holy One that we do remember that nature.  And it is there that our trust lies.

Oh Holy One:  Many suffer like fish caught up in a net of despair.  Remind us always that that is not your will.  Move us to be your hands in this earth to help free them and let your justice be known.  Amen.