Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 6 July 2025.
Elisha refusing the gifts of Naaman, by Pieter de Grebber (Source)
• First Reading: 2 Kings 5: 1-14 (Naaman healed of leprosy)
• Second Reading: Galatians 6: 1-16 (Doing good to all; the new creation)
• Gospel: Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20 (Jesus sends out the seventy-two)
The greatest athletes and sports folk train and practice extremely hard. The competition to succeed starts once the last race has been run or the last match played.
They rehearse every detail of what event has just been completed as they find lessons to learn and successes to be reinforced. It is never ‘just a game’. More like life itself, only more so with the glories of success and the miseries of failure. Anything less than winning is therefore a failure.
Now look at our lessons and there is a very different picture.
Naaman, commander of the Syrian army, is successful in the field of manoeuvre and of battle, but in company he is utterly lost. Giving orders to others but as a leper, he is shunned and at best, treated with great politeness and deference – all practised at as great a distance as possible.
This may be fine when fighting a battle but completely useless in society and at social events. Certainly at the royal court. And so he feels his inadequacy, deeply.
How to inspire his officers if they cannot get close to him?
And then this great man is presented with some challenges:
First, he must listen to the advice of a slave girl, captured in a raid on Israel.
Second, seek healing from the man of God who is at the court of his perennial enemy, Israel.
Third, he must go to the house of the man of God – for he will not find any healing at the court of the king of Israel. He must go to the man of God – not the other way round.
Fourth, he must treat with him as he finds him. If there is no ceremony or welcome, then deal with it. If he only gets a curt message from a household servant, then deal with that as well.
Fifth, and worst of all, he must immerse himself in a river which is not too unlike the Kelvin or the Cart. Not once but seven times. Not just a sprinkling but the full immersion treatment.
Humph, there are better rivers at home. What’s wrong with them? Well, they are not the rivers specified by the man of God. So: will you comply – or not?
The great feat of strength was to be nothing like the works of King David or the labours of Hercules. The work was not to be one of achievement and self-promotion. It was to be self-denial and of self-abasement.
And all the more trying for a man of such standing as the Commander of the army of Syria. For the word would spread that he had humiliated himself – in Israel, of all places.
It was by stripping off his self-importance and his habit of commanding others, and becoming one in need of others, one who would humble himself in the sight of the man of God of his enemy: this was the way to receiving the healing that he so desperately wanted.
Now look at the 72 ambassadors sent out by Jesus. Not the inner circle of the 12. Not the closest disciples, who were receiving the most intimate teaching.
No, these were the second circle of followers. The second 11. The also connected with Jesus.
But Jesus was ready to entrust them with His message anyway. Maybe not the most presentable or prepared of His followers, but He was ready to trust them anyway. They would have felt both privileged to be given this task but also badly under-prepared.
And yet these were still willing to go out and to give it their best shot. It was not their own message but Jesus’ that they were carrying. It had an urgency: do not even say ‘hello’ to anyone at the roadside. Go straight into the town or village ahead, and let the message be received as they give it.
This is about faithfulness, not excellence. Self-giving, not self-fulfilment. Certainly not self-projection.
And yet they were astonished at the results. The messengers were ecstatic having seen the miracles that the Name of Jesus was achieving.
Again, people personally unprepared but willing to go as they were bidden.
St Paul puts it into a fuller context. If you live in the spirit then God will meet you and support you. If your life is directed at the desires and priorities of the flesh – the self and its demands for priority, then you will fail.
But that means not being too full of themselves. It means being willing to support one another in their needs and hesitations. It is not a success ethic but one of faithfulness.
It is certainly not finding a satisfaction or superiority when a colleague comes short, and personal comparisons are deadly for they conceal far more than they reveal.
It means a gentleness and forbearance with each other, especially in times of stress and uncertainty.
Yet God is faithful and it is as we find our ways through these challenges that we also grow. It is as we trust in Him and His provision that we grow in the qualities that were there in Jesus Himself.
For He is still sending us out as His messengers, and that message is there in how we are and how we speak of Him: gently but with great confidence: He has already overcome sin and death.
