Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Galations 6:7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
“The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.” He told them, “Go on your way”.
I’m a good Episcopalian. I don’t like to knock on doors, and the idea of traveling without a purse and expecting strangers to put me up? I don’t think so. Furthermore, we are a community that was without a building for 10 years, and the loss of our building was painful. So this is not a gospel that I find comforting. It is instead very challenging. And let’s face it: it’s not just me. Most churches are tied to buildings. Even if you knock on doors, you do so to invite people to a building.
I’m currently traveling in England, and this morning I attended the local parish church. It was, it turns out, celebrating 150 years since the church was dedicated. The church is famous for liturgy and music, so it was a splendid service, with a musical setting commissioned for the occasion and the Bishop of London presiding and preaching.
This, needless to say, put front and center in my mind the tension between us in our buildings and the Gospel. Yet maybe it’s not as much of a tension as I initially thought. As Bishop Sarah Mullaly reminded us this morning, what happens in our buildings supports us when we go out into the world. The church is both the building and the people. When I remember the churches I have been a member of, it is not primarily the buildings I remember, but what happened in them: how the people of God did God’s work where they were.
And it doesn’t always have to be complicated. In our reading from 2 Kings today, Elisha agrees to heal Naaman of his leprosy. But Naaman is disappointed because Elisha did not come out himself, but sent a messenger with the message that he should wash in the Jordan seven times. Why didn’t Elisha come out to him? Why wasn’t there some drama, calling on the Lord, or some complex ritual? If he just needed to wash in the river, what was so special about the Jordan? He eventually goes along with it, and is indeed healed.
Do we, like Naaman, sometimes make things more difficult than they need to be? I know I do, when I panic about Jesus sending his disciples out. If I remember that I am sent out to do my work, not the imagined work that I think it should be, then it is manageable.
In the week ahead, may we see ourselves living our lives, bringing the good news, not by knocking on doors, but through how we live our lives. What does it mean to live as if we are going out, as Jesus commands, to do God’s work?