Listening For The Word Of God

You are preparing to make a recipe that you have wanted to try for some time.  You know that it has pecans in it and you love pecans.  You make the decision to focus on the pecans to the exclusion of all else.  The recipe is for a pecan pie.  If you follow through on your plan to focus solely on pecans at the end of the day will you have a pecan pie?

You buy a bookshelf.  One of those prefab jobs that come with a nice long list of instructions.  You empty the contents of the box and take a look at the instructions.  There are nine steps.  You really like step two.  It looks doable and it makes sense.  You decide that you are going to focus on step two to the exclusion of all the other steps.  If you follow through on this plan to focus solely on step two at the end of the day will you have a bookshelf?

Most all of us have passages of scripture that are our favorites.  Some folks really resonate with John 3:16 or Psalm 23.  I personally am drawn to Romans 8.  It can surely be a benefit to have pieces of scripture that speak powerfully to us and perhaps are our go to scripture for times when we feel in special need of comfort, encouragement or guidance.  However, if we find ourselves consulting only passages of scripture that we enjoy or feel connected to, if we focus only on what we like in God’s Word to the exclusion of all else we risk having a stack of pecans instead of a pecan pie, a pile of parts in place of a bookshelf, a limited view of the kind of person God created us to be and the kind of life God desires for us to live.

2 Kings 5:1-19 is the story of Naaman, a general in the army of the King of Aram.  Naaman had a skin disease.  An Israeli servant girl is captured in a raid and becomes a servant of Naaman’s wife.  Seeing the suffering of Naaman, the servant girl tells of a prophet in Samaria, Elisha.  If Naaman would go to Elisha, she believes he could be healed.  After some back and forth with the King of Israel, Naaman decides to visit Elisha.

Naaman and his entourage pull up in their limousines in front of the prophet’s home.  Naaman anticipates that Elisha will come out, there will be a light show or something, words will be said, maybe a small explosion or two and he will be healed.  Instead, one of the prophets aids trots out to the car with a message.  “Go wash seven times in the Jordan river and you’ll be fine.”  Naaman is not happy with the lack of ceremony and not happy with being told to go wash in the Jordan which he feels is a subpar river, not terribly clean and truth be told more of a mud puddle masquerading as a stream.

Naaman’s people have a word with him.  They point out that if he’d been told to go climb the highest mountain or slay a dragon or some really hard thing he’d be all about completing the task.  Here all he has to do is go take a dip in the Jordan - maybe it would be a good idea to set aside his dignity and give it a shot.  Naaman does and it works.

In the Luke 17 passage, Jesus heals 10 individuals all suffering from a skin disease, all keeping their distance from the world because of that skin disease.  They call across the distance to Jesus for help - he sends them to the Pharisees to be certified clean and as they turn to go they realize they are indeed clean.  Of the ten, one comes back to express gratitude to Jesus.  That one is a Samaritan.  Only one comes back and as Jesus notes that one is a foreigner.

Two great stories.  Both stories chock full of great life lessons.  We might say Naaman needed to get over himself and do what God suggested, and we should move our egos aside and listen for God’s direction as well.  We could assert that one person out of ten who were helped showed gratitude to Jesus and that we should take note and aim to express our thanks to God for the blessings in our lives.

But there is more.  Even within the individual stories there are a wealth of takeaways beyond the two in the previous paragraph.  With scripture there is always so much more.  Most Sundays when I read the scripture before I begin I will say, “Let us listen FOR the Word of God.”  The wording is intentional.  Listening for the word of God asks something of you.  You are not passive in the process.  You have interpretive work to do.  Scripture does not speak one word to us and then it is exhausted.  Scripture speaks and speaks and speaks and then speaks again.

We may listen TO scripture and we may hear a particular message from a specific story.  But we may also listen FOR scripture.  For the voice of God speaking in multiple scriptures.  Across time.

On the edges of the two stories today we may notice that Naaman is a foreigner to the people of Israel.  God helps him.  In the story of the ten folks who Jesus helps we don’t know the breakdown of who made up that group, but it seems safe to assume the majority were of a Jewish background as Jesus sent them to the Pharisees for their certification of cleanliness.  And a point is made that the one who showed gratitude was…a Samaritan, a foreigner as Jesus pointed out.  When we listen for the Word of God we listen not just to one scripture, but the many voices of scripture.

And this day when we listen for the Word of God we listen not just to what happened, but to what is happening - now.  And in that listening this day there emerges a message about diversity and inclusion.  God moving beyond boundaries imposed by humans and showing that the God of Israel can heal a general in the army of Aram and that the Jewish Messiah can heal a Samaritan and that a Samaritan can be the one person in ten whose heart is so filled with gratitude that a thank you is offered.

A message that reminds us that God’s heart knows no borders and that if we are seeking after God’s heart ours won’t either.

I think of this in particular this day in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.  My son moves to Charleston, South Carolina and a week and a half later they are in the path of a massive hurricane.  And so I will be honest and say I was paying closer attention than I might normally have been to the hurricane as it developed and was moving towards the United States, moving towards Charleston, South Carolina, moving towards Cameron.  And as I was watching my vision was pulled this morning to the north of Cameron to North Carolina where there is flooding and where, as the actual hurricane is winding down, some of the worst damage and most dangerous moments in the US version of the hurricane in terms of human life are taking place.  And I was watching as this monstrous hurricane was battering Haiti, leaving nearly nine hundred people dead, and a population still staggered by an earthquake, devastated by Matthew.  A reminder that God's heart is breaking for the people of Haiti and when I look beyond where my own vision would naturally take me I find my heart breaking for Haiti too.  (And grateful for the folks at Presbyterian Disaster Assistance who are already there.)

On this day God sends two scriptures about looking beyond where our vision may be set.  As though God may know that Hurricane Matthew has been packaged for us as though everything that happened prior to it’s arrival in Florida was preamble to when it truly mattered.  As though God was pointing us beyond our first glance, to Haiti and to the devastation and the need there.

It is a powerful thing we do when we approach God’s Word and when we attend our ears we may trust that God will have something to say.  To us.  Today.

Let us listen, always, for the Word of God.  Amen.