Radical restoration

 

2 Kings 5:9-14

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Consumed with our own importance

we lose sight of the beauty contained

in simple things

Intent on our own agendas

we crowd out the possibilities for collaboration

Caught up in our own stories

we miss out on collective dreaming

God beckons us to follow a way

that is off the beaten track yet easy to find

God waits for us to discover 

surprising connections all along the way

And God drops liberal invitations for us

to imagine radical possibilities

that will lead to restoration