Psalm 42:1-7
2 Kings 5:1-15b
Luke 4:23-30
Playing the hometown crowd is not always easy. What stirred the congregation at Nazareth into such a rage? I have never heard a sermon so offensive that the preacher deserved to be hurled from a cliff. Perhaps if Jesus had been from a faraway town or a noted rabbi down from Jerusalem, his reception would have been different. The sudden fury could have come only from people who knew Jesus well.
To his neighbors in Nazareth, Jesus was just another boy who had grown up among them. Naaman, on the other hand, was known as an important man. He, nonetheless, had the humility to listen to his wife’s servant — someone with about as much standing in his society as an illegal immigrant has in ours. He also had the humility to undertake a simple act of faith to cure his disease.
God does not always speak through the channels we set up or in the manner we may expect. I am often surprised that the voice of God or the presence of Christ manifests itself in some of the simplest, everyday things and through some of the people I know best.
