Experiencing God Through the Ordinary

Catholic Liturgy for the 28^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Oct. 13, 2019. 2 Kings 5:14-17 (for the full story read 1-19). Theme: Experiencing God Through the Ordinary

I almost always preach on the Gospel but this Sunday’s first reading about Naaman the Syrian is one of my favorites and a story that I just can’t ignore!  I have to say that I am disappointed that for some reason our liturgy has us are dropping into the story almost at the end. So much has happened that we haven’t heard! Unless we know what comes before, we miss out on some extremely important details that enable us to better appreciate Naaman’s cure and his coming to faith in God. So, allow me to quickly fill in the back-story of what is missing.

Naaman was the prestigious commander of the army of the King of Syria. In one of his many raids upon Israel, had captured a young girl as a slave for his wife. After he contracted leprosy, this slave-girl told him about Elisha, a powerful prophet of the True God back in her homeland. She assured him that through this holy man he could be healed. So, Naaman sets off seeking the cure.

Being a pagan who is used to a lot of fanfare and frenzy in his religious practices, Naaman expects that the almighty and majestic God of Israel will surely manifest himself by means of some awesome dazzling displays of power. However, no such things are connected with his cure.  Elisha simply tells Naaman to do immerse himself seven times in the Jordan River if he wishes to be healed. Now don’t think of the Jordan as you might the Russian River in its glory or the gorgeous Columbia up in Oregon. The Jordan River at this juncture was small, muddy and quite ugly.

Naaman doesn’t take this well becomes furious! He feels like he has been treated disrespectfully and made to look like a fool. In his wounded pride, he packs up and intends to return to Syria. However, the servants traveling with Naaman convince him to at least give it a try. They say that if Elisha had told him to do some bizarre things, such as waving his hands, jumping up and down and chanting magic incantations, he would have followed those instructions.  So why not do as the prophet says, wash seven times in the Jordan River and see what happens?  And this is where we enter the story into today’s first reading. And of course, we know that he was indeed healed of leprosy and converted to faith in the One True God.

This story speaks to me about an important way in which we as Catholic Christians encounter God’s presence and power in our lives today.  The choice of the number seven and the use of an ordinary thing like river water makes me think immediately of the seven sacraments because they are so much like what we see in Naaman’s experience of God.  These seven God-given and God-giving actions that we received from Jesus himself, make use of ordinary things to bring the extraordinary into our lives.

And like Naaman, I think that it’s so easy for us at times to find it hard to believe that such simple rituals can bring us to an experience of the presence and power of God. Like him we would prefer an unmistakable sign that God hears us. We would like him to manifest himself powerfully and dramatically. We can find it hard to believe that God’s presence and grace truly comes to us and changes us through such ordinary things like the water of baptism, the oils of Confirmation and Anointing, or the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

I mean who could imagine that simply through the pouring of water in baptism, we are healed of the spiritual emptiness that every human is born with and become the adopted sons and daughters of God, heirs to Heaven?

And how incredible does it sound that through the power of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of a priest, the bread and wine of the Eucharist are truly transformed into the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord Jesus so that he can come to dwell within us?

Or that through the simple honest conversation that takes place between priest and penitent in Confession our deepest sins are completely erased as if they never happened and our dark past is utterly obliterated by the mercy of God?

But let’s not forget that Naaman wasn’t cured simply by going through the action of washing in the Jordan.  He was healed because he trusted in the promise and power of God even if he didn’t understand how it could work.  And I believe that each one of us can truly experience more deeply the presence and power of the God through the sacraments if we approach them in the same way as Naaman: with humble, trusting and obedient hearts, willing to do whatever God asks of us.