I call today's sermon "small matters" because the texts for today speak to us about small and insignificant things.
In the first reading we hear about a miracle of healing that occurs in a most unexpected place, in the River Jordan- which is not much more than a muddy creek along much of it's course, a river unlike the great rivers that Naaman, the commander of the armies of Aram, was familiar with.
And in the Gospel reading we hear about the disciples of Christ - who are few in the face of much need - and who are commissioned to go into the world - into the harvest that God has prepared - like lambs in the midst of wolves: and to carry with them none of those things that people normally rely upon as they travel - no purse, no bag, no sandals - and to proclaim peace to all who will accept it - peace, and healing, and the nearness of the Kingdom of God.
The story of Naaman's healing is one of my favourite bible stories. As I read it this week I asked myself, what I would want to hear if I was in the congregation? What's the good news?
I think the good news here is found in the solution of the story.
Naaman has a problem, leprosy, one of the most dreaded diseases of the ancient world, and he needs a solution, he needs a healing. That is something we can all relate to.
Naaman seeks his solution and, by the grace of God, he finds his solution. All he has to do is "Do it".
All he has to do is to humble himself and to recognize that his great problem can be taken care of: taken care of in a simple act of obedience within a small and insignificant river.
As you know, Naaman resists this idea.
Naaman believes that his healing should come from the prophet Elisha himself. That Elisha should come out of his house and stand before him and call on the name of God and wave his hands over his leprous spots and so heal him.
Naaman is much like us.
He has a hard time grasping that the small things - the seemingly unimportant things are the things that God most often uses to accomplish great things.
And he has a hard time grasping that solutions - especially divine solutions - are most often wrapped up in obedience - obedience in what are seemingly small matters.
I can think of people who have gone to their doctor after a heart attack and have been told to walk for 30 or so minutes each day. It's a small thing (relatively speaking) but many don't do it.
Diet change is another one. The solution is there. And it's up to us to obey. But many do not.
In these folk, and indeed in my own life when I have been confronted with a large problem, I can hear a bit of Naaman saying,
"I want the cure, but I don't want to be part of it. Elisha is supposed to care of things for me. I should only have to show up and be healed."
Naaman is told that his healing will be found in washing seven times in a muddy river and he tramps off in a rage because he wants - and expects - the solution to be something different, something more dramatic, something more special, something that is more proportional to who he his and to what the problem is.
How close Naaman came to walking away from the cure!
Fortunately, his servants loved him enough to confront him and counsel him with loving reason,
"If it had been a great thing that had cost a lot of money,"
"if it had required a long journey,"
"if it had required some heroic effort,"
"you would have done it..."
And Naaman responds to this reasoning, he listens to his servants.
I wonder what it must have been like for Naaman after the first dunk in the River Jordan?
And after the second, third, fourth, and nothing had happened...
I wonder if Naaman began to doubt.
Fifth. Still no healing.
Sixth. Nothing.
I wonder if he said, with mud dripping off his hair: "Let's get this over with. Yuck!" or "What's the use!"
Yet he persevered - he immersed himself the seventh time - and lo - the blessing came!
Obedience. And then the blessing! That's usually the way God works.
We don't earn the blessing. But are granted the blessing when we surrender our will in obedience to His will.
When we earnestly seek a solution to our problems, God is faithful and will supply a solution.
If we choose to be obedient to that solution, our problem will be taken care of. And more. Because not only is Naaman cured physically, but his soul is healed too. He knows afterward not only is there a prophet in Samaria, but that there is a living God in Israel.
When we are obedient to God's solution, even though God's solutions appear disguised as small matters, the results end up to be more than we wanted, more even than we could have hoped for.
Small matters matter - especially when those matters are God directed and we are obedient in them.
As for the gospel reading - well, small matters there as well.
In the case of the gospel reading it is the disciples themselves who are small. Small in the face of the task that Christ assigns them - the task of being the ones who go into the abundantly populated fields of God and bringing in the harvest.
Like Naaman the disciples are told to do something that seems foolish. They are told to perform their tasks with absolutely none of the support that people normally have when they set forth on a journey or go out to harvest an earthly crop.
No purse containing a change of clothing or tools to make the job easier, no bag containing food to sustain them as they labour, no sandals to protect their feet from the rocks of the roadways or the hot sands of the wilderness.
They are told to rely only upon the welcome of those who will receive their greeting of peace and to shake off the dust from their feet against those will not and go on to the next place.
Indeed they are told not even to rejoice in the powers that God will give them as they go forth: the power to heal - the power to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the powers of evil, but to rejoice only that their names are written in heaven.
In short they are told to rely on nothing familiar to them, but to rely only upon what God will provide for them through men and women of peace as they proclaim the message concerning the nearness of the kingdom of God.
"The harvest is plentiful - but the labourers are few" says Jesus. "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field."
And then - his command and his statement of what things will be like....
"Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves."
Isn't it like that for us today?
We are constantly told by people both within the church and those outside it that we are few in number and that the need around us is great; greater than our ability to address it.
How can we build an addition here - with so few people - and so many of them elderly people?
How can we even make the regular budget, let along build something beautiful for the work of God?
How can we touch the community with God's love when the worldly forces around us are so strong and so opposed to that love.
How can we speak to our neighbours of God's peace and perform healings and announce the coming of the Kingdom of God - when we have so few resources and when the kingdom itself seems so small in comparison to the greed, to the injustice, to the evil, of this world.
Indeed, how can we do anything for God - for Christ - when we are ourselves are so small, so uncertain - and at times so divided among ourselves?
But we are commanded to go. To go with nothing but the word of peace and the promise that we will be looked after.
Like Naaman, like the disciples, we are confronted with a big problem - a big task, and as with them the solution that has been proposed to us requires of us two things: - to abandon our ideas of what the solution should look like - and to wash ourselves in the cleansing waters of humble obedience, in those same waters in which Naaman was immersed and Jesus himself was baptised.
I don't know what all your special and individual problems may be. All I know is that most of us, like Naaman, have one.
I don't know all the difficulties that each of you face as individuals.
I do know, however, what the problem of our world is: - I do know that every home needs the peace of God to come upon it, - and that every nation needs the kingdom of God to draw close to it, - and that, indeed there is a huge task - a huge harvest - waiting for the servants of God - out there....
And I do know from the story of Naaman, and from the story of the sending out of the 72 disciples, and from so many other passages of holy scripture - that the answer to our problems is most likely already before us, - and that it is most likely bears a humble form, - and requires of us nothing more than a humble submission, a humble obedience.
In our finances - which so often look desperate, the Word has long told us that if we give a 10th of what we have to God, that the windows of heaven will be opened and our land, our crops, our families, will be richly blessed.
In our longing for peace of mind and a sense of hope and wholeness, the Word has long told us that if in everything we make our requests known to God with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving; and if we but meditate on those things that are worthy, those things that are good, beautiful, and true, that the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep us safe in the knowledge and love of God.
In our desire to have our burdens lightened or removed altogether, the word has long told us that if we but offer to Christ our burdens and take upon ourselves his burden, his cross, that we will have rest.
Small matters - with big consequences; big consequences for those who accept the word - who accept the solution - and who do what it asks.
Naaman's servants went to him and said,
"My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!"
So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
What is it that you need to do today?
What have you put off doing because it seemed too simple, too small, too silly to do?
What act of humble obedience do you need to perform so that you might claim what God is offering to you, and through you - to your family, your neighbours - and indeed to your world?
Is it as simple as remembering to pray each day? To pray as Christ told his disciples to pray - for more workers for the harvest? Or to pray for the peace of those homes which you enter - and to accept that which those who receive your greeting of peace offer to you without question, and without seeking more?
Does it require you to abandon your reliance on the small but needful matters of life? - your home, your bank account, your job skills, your knowledge of the ways of the world? And to trust instead in God to do what he has promised to do even as you dip for the fourth, or the fifth, or even the sixth time into the muddy waters of a spiritual Jordan?
The solution is not out there somewhere in a place where you have to look for it. Rather the word - the solution is here - it is already in your hearts - and upon your lips, that is the word of faith that we are proclaiming, the word God wants you to believe and act upon so that peace may come upon your household and healing may be done in our community.
All in all today - the scriptures speak to us of today of small matters - with big consequences.
It is up to us to receive the word - or not.
It is my prayer, and it is the prayer of Christ and of the whole church - that you may indeed receive the word of peace, and be ones who live by it in trust and humble obedience.
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen
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