Today’s Gospel reading continues from last week’s, with Jesus having set out resolutely towards Jerusalem and all that awaits him there, now wanting to spread the good news of the kingdom of God on earth to as many places and people as possible. He sends out seventy people in pairs to prepare the way for him, giving them authority to represent him in advance of his arrival, and they later return to him, overjoyed with the experience of having put that authority to good use.
The seventy have been privileged to bring the kingdom of God close to those whom they have encountered, whether these have welcomed them or not. They have brought gifts of peace and healing to those who were willing and able to receive them, and they have received hospitality in return. There has been a sharing of life in the kingdom, and God’s will has been done on earth as it is in heaven.
The apostle Paul situates life in the kingdom in a different context. While the evangelist Luke has Jesus instructing the seventy to travel light with a sense of urgency, carrying as little as possible, Paul is describing kingdom life for the Galatian church in the context of established community, and he considers two kinds of necessary carrying.
We are each to accept responsibility for our own lives and learn to carry the load which has been given to us, in terms of our gifts and capacities that can be used for the good of those around us. We are to do this, as far as possible, without comparing ourselves with anyone else.
On the other hand, we are to learn to recognize when some in community are struggling under the heaviness of their burdens, to the extent that they are stumbling and in danger of falling, whether physically or spiritually. The other members of the community are then to come to the assistance of such a one, and help to carry the burden in a spirit of gentle caring attentiveness.
These kinds of carrying call for humility in discerning which is necessary when; humility as discovering our proper place and role in life, in relation to God and those around us.
Naaman was a man who initially lacked such humility, but he was blessed to have those around him who did not. The most surprising aspect of his story, to me, is who those people were.
Naaman was a mighty warrior who is said to have been made victorious by a God whom he did not yet worship. He hadn’t realized that yet, and seems to have thought that he was a bit special, even to the extent of expecting to be treated with respect for his dignity by the prophet he approached for healing. He got a bit huffy when Elisha did not do so, when the prophet did not in fact bother to make an appearance himself but sent someone out with a message instead.
The first person who came to Naaman’s assistance was the one who told him about the prophet in the first place. Why would a captive young Israelite girl care enough about her captor to do such a thing? I must assume that this testifies to the character of Naaman and his wife, who presumably treated her well under the circumstances.
The other people who came to Naaman’s assistance were his servants, who carefully pointed out to him that all his stubbornness was doing was preventing him from possibly being healed. That they refer to him as ‘father’ while doing so surely testifies to the kind of man he was in his dealings with those he would naturally have thought of as being beneath him.
Together, these people help lift the burden of pride from Naaman so that he can receive an even deeper healing than the removal of his skin disease. As the story goes on to tell in subsequent verses, he is freed to enter into life in the kingdom of God, a kingdom he perhaps had been living adjacent to without quite realizing it.
How might we become the sort of people who are able both to carry their own load and help others carry their burdens?
Jesus spoke about an abundant harvest being ready, by which he perhaps meant a harvest of people ready to enter into life in the kingdom of God on earth. The apostle Paul speaks about this harvest in a different way, as the harvest we reap from the habits we develop and nurture in our own lives.
Pope Francis wrote something to the effect that we should be asking ourselves not what we want to do, but rather what would be good for us to do in a given situation. The more we give attention to satisfying only our own needs and selfish desires, the more we will harm ourselves spiritually. The more we give attention to the presence of the Spirit of God with us and try to respond to the guidance and prompting of that Spirit in doing good and acting with compassionate kindness towards those around us, the more our spirits will come to life.
May Christ bring us all together unto everlasting life.