Luke 4:21-30 (NRSV)
Read Luke 4:21-30 on biblegateway.com
Verse 21Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Verse 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" Verse 23He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" Verse 24And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. Verse 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; Verse 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. Verse 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." Verse 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. Verse 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. Verse 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Devotion
Naaman, the Syrian foreigner, was the only leper who was cleansed in the time of the prophet Elisha, even when there were plenty of lepers in Israel who could have benefited from that healing. Even as he proclaimed the year of the Lord's favor, Jesus reminded his neighbors that a Syrian stranger received God's favor in that earlier time.
In our time as well this reminder leaps off the page: God's favor is loose, unruly, uncontained by presuppositions about who needs it or who deserves it. It escapes from human boundaries, those marked by brick walls and stained glass, those made of words, those drawn on maps or stamped in passports. Maybe we should not be surprised by this, since God's favor has long operated thus. Nonetheless, today when Syrians are so often shown to us as strangers, Jesus reminds us that God’s love heals even strangers.
Prayer
Dear Jesus, I long for God's favor. Teach me to recognize it wherever it appears and open my heart to rejoice whenever it heals. May this be the year when all your world is made whole. Amen.