We have been talking a lot about home this fall at Central. We have discussed how Jesus makes his home with us and how the Holy Spirit helps us to make so many places home with the ways she shows up and creates community.
This weekend in our stories from Scripture, people are dealing with what it means when your very own body doesn’t feel like home. Naaman is someone who has always been in complete control. Not only in control of his own body, but also for lots of other folks, too. Naaman says, “Jump!” and those around him say, “How high?” Then he gets leprosy. In his day, any chunk of patchy dry skin, bubbly blisters, or discoloration would have people terrified about catching leprosy from you. Naaman doesn’t know what to do, or who to call on. But a little girl who was his wife’s captive knew. She knew who could fix it. She knew what faith in a healing God looked like.
There were, in Jesus’ day, ten men with a skin disease, and they knew who could heal them, too. When Jesus finally got close enough, they called out to him, hoping and praying he could do for them what he had done for so many other people. They were hoping he could make them at home in their very own bodies again. It is their faith that makes them well. Jesus confirms it for the one Samaritan that came back to thank him.
Many of us know what it’s like to lose hope when our bodies become strange and unknown territory. We will look at what that feels like and what it means to find our home in a healing God this weekend. It is good to be back among you here at Central. It is home for my body, too.
Shalom,
Pastor Melissa