Responding Lushly to God

Readings 2 Kgs 5:1-15ab; Lk 4:24-30

Today’s first reading helps us understand the gospel in that 2 Kings tells us about the healing of Naaman the Syrian that Jesus references in the gospel passage.

And the people got so upset with Jesus that they wanted to throw him over the cliff.

Why?

Let’s set a little context.  Jesus is back in Nazareth, his hometown.  His reputation has spread, and the locals are probably feeling some love for the “hometown hero” who is doing all these great things all over the place.  And then he says to them, “I couldn’t do any of it here because you people are so closed off!”  But wait, it gets better!  Jesus then goes on to tell them that God found almost no faith (period) in Israel and, thus, decided to heal folks OUTSIDE of family because they had more faith than the insiders!

Now you’ve gone and done it, Jesus.

We can spend time looking at the dynamics between Jesus and his kinfolk, but the story is really meant to be a mirror for us.  While most of us have been taught and socialized to “read” ourselves into the story on the side (or even in the person) of Jesus, we’re most likely in the crowd.  And we’re mad.  Or offended.  Or defensive.  Or closed off.  

Today’s readings really invite us to look inward at our own defensiveness and what we take offense to.  What about our lives has been hard to face?  What truths do we need to reckon with?  How has a rigid posture prevented God from moving more freely in our lives?

Hildegard of Bingen was a 12th century nun who was a mystic, healer and teacher (among so many other things). Like Jesus, her vision of the church and of God was rejected by her “kinfolk” (an all male clergy who never thought that “revelation” could come through a woman of their time).  And like many women of her time (and our time), she created an alternative vision outside of the structures that rejected her.

Hildegard – who is really someone whom we all should get to know a bit better and is really a prophet for our current moment – described God’s activity as “viriditas” which translates into English as “vitality, fecundity, lushness.”  The response of Jesus’ kinfolk, the response of the church in Hildegard’s time and the response of many (including us) to God’s invitation is often just the opposite of viriditas.  We are dry, brittle and sterile.  Not much can emerge from us because we cling to whatever it is that we think we are certain about.

Part of the challenge of Lent is letting go – letting go of what we cling to so that God can do something new, something lush in our lives.  Perhaps we cling to hurt.  Perhaps we are stuck in the past.  Perhaps we are afraid.  Perhaps we want to be right.

For today, just sit in silence and ask God to make the dry, brittle places inside find new, lush and vibrant life.