Dirty Dust
2 Kings 5:1-14; Luke 10:1-20

July 4, 2004

It comes as a surprise, if not a shock, that there were a lot more than the cozy Twelve traipsing around with Jesus. Where did the 72 apostles come from? After Easter, the Book of Acts (Luke’s second volume) will count a total of 120 people in the cluster of disciples. Already it had become a movement. The numbers should not be understood mathematically, and if you are a number person you have noticed that 72 and 120 are multiples of 12 - the tribes of Israel. The point is that the faith of Jesus was infectious and growing exponentially. By the end of the first century A. D. estimates number approximately 250,000 Christians in the Mediterranean basin. From our contemporary perspective, that is not a huge number, but nevertheless Christianity was catching on. You couldn’t ignore it.

It is not by chance that Jesus sent out these 72 others in pairs, two by two. Animals went two by two into Noah’s Ark in order to preserve life; now human beings went out into the world to put life back into the villages. They were cautioned not to put faith in their own physical and mental prowess, not even their administrative abilities. Go unprepared, take whatever you get, don’t worry about what you lack. Your goal is to accomplish somehow God’s mission, not your own. Something will happen.

Jesus, however, had been around the block a few times when he sent them out. I am sending you as lambs among wolves. Some will receive you gracefully and kindly; others will hate you automatically. Especially in polite Canada, we have come to believe that if you are nice and do good things for others, no one will bother you, everyone will like you and treat you well. People who believe that have not been in a church for a long time. Doing good in every society will eventually get you into trouble. Of course, there are lots of people who think they are doing good, who may pretend to be doing good for others. But I’m talking about the people who are really doing real hard core good. They are the ones who will really get into trouble.

If they don’t treat you well, says Jesus, then just leave, wipe the unclean dust of their houses and streets off your feet, and put them out of your mind. Bitter words from the sweet Jesus.

It is excruciatingly hard is to make a measured decision about which town, which people, to leave behind and forget about. Jesus is most definitely not advising you to hold a grudge, but to truly let go and let God take care of the matter and that matter’s people. If you are still carrying around a grudge or a memory of being done wrong, dirty dust is still clinging to you. And dirty dust has a way of rendering you unclean, making you miserable to deal with and miserable in your heart.

A big part of our dust problem is that you and I expect God to reward only the good, and when it doesn’t work that way - and it doesn’t an awful lot - we feel cheated, wronged, and betrayed. God is the one who isn’t playing fair, especially when I, the one simply trying to do what is right and good, am the one who is attacked and abused by the unethical and the manipulative. It twists you all inside out and the end result is that you can’t see what God is really doing.

Can you imagine sitting down here and hearing some preacher read the story of Naaman the Syrian general for the first time? I hope the preacher told the story on the doorstep of the synagogue and then ran. It’s Independence Day in the United States today. Can you imagine some body inserting the names of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein into Naaman’s slot? They would be legitimate equivalents for Naaman was a pagan, a nonbeliever in Israel’s God of the Universe, and the general who had just led a crushing defeat of the Israelite army. People were enslaved as a result of Naaman’s military aptitude. Osama and Saddam have nothing on the venality and viciousness of Naaman.

Yet every human being has a weakness and Naaman had his in abundance. He was a leper. The Biblical narrator attaches no judgmental edge to this fact. God was not punishing him, though leprosy was certainly perceived as the AIDS of the ancient world. One could only have done something really wrong to have deserved such a horrible disease. But Naaman simply, plainly had leprosy.

It still bothered him greatly, but he knew not where to turn. The wonderful irony of the Biblical tale is that it was one of his Hebrew female slaves in his household - a real victim of his diabolical behaviour - who apparently loved him enough to tell him about Elisha, the prophet and man of God in Israel. Naaman was excited, but being a true military man he believed deeply in following bureaucratic protocol. He convinced his king to write to the Israelite king a letter of introduction; however, it came out sounding like some letter from George W. Bush to Saddam Hussein. The king of Israel - who is never named - is insulted.

Bad news always travels faster. Elisha gets wind of the king’s chagrin and invites Naaman to come and visit him. It’s not the kind of visit Naaman, a man of great dignity, achievement, and power expected.

When Naaman got there, Elisha played a game - he wouldn’t come out of his house to see Naaman personally and communicated only through a messenger. Naaman now was the one infuriated and insulted. Go wash seven times in that dirty river Jordan when my own rivers back home are infinitely more hygienic!

Again, it was a servant who argued with the commander-in-chief: if he had asked you to do something difficult, you would have done it. This is simple, just do it and see what happens. Naaman simply did it and he was cured, his skin pure and smooth.

He was so cured, it affected his soul. Naaman came back to Elisha, offering lavish gifts that were refused, because he now knew that there was a prophet in Israel, the prophet of a real God of the Universe.

And the 72 returned to report to Jesus about what happened on their journeys through friendly and dusty villages. They were amazed and overwhelmed, “Lord, in your name, even the demons submitted to us.” They recognized that it wasn’t their skill, but God working through them. Jesus exclaimed, “I saw Satan falling from heaven like a flash of lightning!”

What a marvelously loaded poetic metaphor. The opera is not over until the fat lady sings. It’s not over until it’s over. When you and I go out of this sanctuaried Ark and walk up and down those dusty streets and villages and help others live, not by our power and genius, but humbly as agents of Christ, Satan does come falling down from where he doesn’t belong. When Naaman rose from the River Jordan pure and returned to Elisha knowing there is only one God to serve, didn’t Satan fall like lightning?

We expect God to obey our understanding of his rules, that only the nice and the politely good will be rewarded, that if one is nice and good, everyone will love you. God has a bigger world than that. Saints are abused and humiliated, Naamans are healed and made into budding saints, and that’s when Satan starts falling from heaven like lightning.

You are one of the 72 and more who are being sent out as apostles with only God’s agenda in the back of our minds, not our own plans for glory. Unbelievable what you can do when you are not doing it for yourself. Even Satan falls.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan