わが岩、わがあがないぬしなる主よ、どうか、わたしの口の言葉と、わたしたちの心の思いがあなたの前に喜ばれますように.
“More prayers, more prayers!”
This was the cry of the first person I met during clinical pastoral education at St. Paul’s Hospital, a man who had just woken up from a below the knee amputation.
I offered prayers when I came in, but he squeezed my hands until they ached and cried, “More prayers! More prayers!”
And oh Lord don’t we hear that call sometimes, out in the world. More prayers, more love, more blessings. They can feel so, so thin on the ground these days.
“More prayers,” Naaman must have begged for his skin condition, which was not Hansen’s disease, aka leprosy, but probably something more akin to psoriasis, something which, of course, ancient people did not understand at all in the way that we do now. The Jewish Study Bible I consult goes into great detail in its commentary on the book of Leviticus, saying that in the ancient Jewish world, there was a belief that these types of skin diseases were a gradual disintegration, first of the skin and then of the flesh – basically, life slowly peeling away, the body consumed in real time by death. It was a serious problem, and he needed help fast.
“More prayers!” Naaman surely thought, standing at Elisha’s door, frustrated with his lack of witchery. “How can he possibly expect me to do something as simple as wash, when my life is leaking out of me? More prayers.”
“More prayers,” the seventy must have thought, as they listened to Jesus say “See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves”; as they were told to take no money, no lunchbox, no shoes; as they were told to make no connection with anyone until they got to their destination.
“More prayers,” the pairs within the seventy must have thought, on their way to villages where they might be welcomed or expelled; where they might be fed or denied; where the first house they found might not have enough for them but they’d better stay there anyway and eat whatever they were given, even if it was paltry or rotten or marked for someone else but offered up to the guest, a truly sacrosanct being in Middle Eastern culture, then and now.
“More prayers,” we think as we wake up, perhaps much earlier than we’d like, to go off and do what needs to be done. “More prayers” as we turn on the TV or open the news app and see wall-to-wall carnage from here to hell and back. “More prayers,” as we prepare for a conversation we’re terrified to have. “More prayers,” as we, or someone we love, starts chemo. “More prayers,” when we get that awful phone call. “More prayers,” as we try to help a loved one with dementia trace the slowly fraying threads of who they once were.
“More prayers,” but what for, when we have no way of knowing whether they’ll be answered?
I did give the man in the hospital room more prayers, but they didn’t bring back the leg he lost. I don’t even really know if they soothed his soul in the moment, although he was doing physio the next time I saw him and managed a smile, and it was beautiful. Choosing to wake up that day and start physio might not feel like much of a choice – I mean, what’s the alternative? – but him doing that still was a choice, and he made it.
He took a risk.
Naaman did not get more prayers, but very simple instructions: trust in the power of the land, as manifest in the Jordan river, to make you well. He also was astute enough to take note that a slave girl recommended the healer, and his servants encouraged him to listen. That story is all about powerful people yielding to the wisdom of the common folk, who somehow know of Elisha’s healing powers, while the king of the whole nation does not.
Naaman took a risk.
The seventy didn’t receive prayers. They didn’t even receive any doctrine. They were told only to receive hospitality, cure the sick, and proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near. That last one is so important that they’re even supposed to do it if no one will allow for the other two.
No doctrine. No sinner’s prayer. No confession or denomination or tracts or giving out Bibles. They’re not teaching anything. They’re not baptizing. They are commissioned to proclaim that even here, even now, the Kingdom is breaking in. Whether that’s welcome news or cause for serious concern, it’s here.
Relying only on your ability to make that feel real to people? That’s a big risk, maybe the biggest one yet.
How could anyone count themselves among that seventy, when the ask is so big?
Well, the first thing you learn in hospital chaplaincy is that you do not bring Jesus into the room with you. He is already there.
So don’t worry about bringing anything with you, as you move into the world as one of these seventy lambs, bringing healing (and you do) and proclaiming the kingdom (and you do). You already have all you need, and all you need will be waiting for you. Jesus is with you, and Jesus will be waiting for you, and Jesus awaits you back home too, no matter your success or failures.
The second thing is that the person who is waiting for you in the room might be far more aware than you that Jesus is there. The job is to bear witness, to testify.
So don’t worry about having the most eloquent messaging, or the best marketing skills. You won’t know who’s waiting for you until you get there. You won’t know what they need until you see them and talk to them. Don’t waste time trying to plan for every possible situation. You won’t be able to predict them all, and even if you could, you would not be able to predict who is in the situation, and what they need.
The real work is healing and proclaiming.
If that seems impossible, you’ve surely heard that healing is not the same as curing. While miraculous cures do happen, healing is a whole other thing. Healing is holistic. And healing can come in the smallest and most amazing ways, utterly independent of any intent, even.
Proclaiming is probably the harder of the two, because the seventy are called to do it whether they’re welcomed or not. And let’s be clear, we’re not talking about knocking on people’s doors and giving out pamphlets to save their naughty, naughty souls. We’re talking about testifying to the beauty and hope all around us whenever we see it, as an antidote to the poison gospels spilling forth from the powers and principalities of the world right now: the ones that say that everything is lost and broken and filthy and wrong, that people on the whole are a lost cause, that there’s nothing worth fighting for except some sad little strongman idol’s dying empire.
We’ve been given our commission. Take nothing. Receive everything.
And here’s something interesting. In the NRSV version we read, the text says: “If anyone is there [in that first house] who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.” When I was looking up the passage in Greek, I discovered that a much better translation lies in the King James Version: “And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it[.]”
The son of peace. The child of peace.
Friends, there are children of peace everywhere we go. There are friends we haven’t made yet, and they’re waiting. They are waiting for someone exactly like you to tell them that their labour is not in vain. They have been waiting for you to come and tell them that their labour is blessed. They are waiting just for you. As a dear friend and I remind each other constantly – if you do not do your special work, the ministry given to you and only you by God, it won’t get picked up by someone better, or prettier, or smarter.
It just won’t get done.
