Trinity III, Sunday 6th July, by The Rev'd Lucy Newman Cleeve

2 Kings 5:1–14
Galatians 6:1–16
Luke 10:1–11

Some of you will know that for a number of years I ran a contemporary art gallery. Several times a year, we would pack up our best pieces and travel to international art fairs: Hong Kong, Miami, New York, Basel. I would invest thousands of pounds on booth fees, shipping and accommodation, then spend a long weekend on my feet, trying to sell the work and place it in the right collections.

I spent a lot of time watching people, trying to work out who the serious collectors or museum curators might be. It was very easy to start making assumptions. You would look for expensive clothes, a confident manner, the gallery representatives hovering nearby with champagne, ready to fawn over someone who looked the part.

But those visible cues were not always reliable. Some collectors deliberately dressed down, and some sent assistants or researchers ahead of them to scope things out. The person in trainers and a hoodie, quietly circling back to look again, might turn out to be the assistant to a major museum director. The unassuming woman taking photographs and making notes on her smart phone could be working on behalf of a private foundation. The gatekeeper did not always look like the person you expected.

If you were not careful, you could start to treat people differently depending on what you thought they could offer. You would find yourself paying attention to all the wrong things.

It’s a pattern we easily fall into elsewhere too, assuming that value looks a certain way or that importance will always announce itself. The world prizes appearances, credentials and status, but the ways of God often confound our expectations.

Our reading from 2 Kings introduces us to Naaman, a military commander from Aram, in what is now Syria. At the time, Israel was a small and vulnerable kingdom, overshadowed by greater regional powers. Aram was not merely a rival but a frequent enemy. So this is not just a story about a foreigner, but someone whose victories have come at Israel’s expense, someone who represented a real and present threat.

And yet, with striking theological irony, the text tells us that it was through Naaman that the Lord had given victory to Aram. Even here, in the life of Israel’s adversary, God is somehow at work.

Naaman is powerful, decorated, respected. He has the king’s favour and the resources of a nation behind him. But none of that can touch his private suffering. Despite all he controls, he carries a chronic skin condition that he cannot cure.

Into this story walks someone we barely notice: an unnamed servant girl, an Israelite captive. She has no voice, no authority, no freedom, yet she sees clearly. She remembers that healing is possible and has the courage to say so.

It is a quietly radical moment: the voice of hope comes not from a prophet or general, but from the one person in the story with no power at all. It would have been so easy for her to stay silent. But she speaks.

And Naaman listens. He makes the journey to Israel. But his pride is still in charge. He arrives at Elisha’s house with horses and chariots, expecting ceremony. Instead, he gets a message: “Go and wash in the Jordan.”

No dramatic encounter. No special ritual.

Naaman is furious. “Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel?” he demands. His sense of entitlement, his need for something difficult or impressive, almost prevents his healing.

It is his servants, again the ones with no rank, who gently intervene. “If the prophet had asked you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? So why not do the simple thing?”

Eventually, Naaman relents. He goes down to the river. He lets go. He is cleansed.

The man who expected to be honoured is healed through humility. The powerful man is saved by listening to the powerless. Grace meets him not in spectacle, but in the ordinary waters of a foreign river.

I often find myself returning to the servant girl. She is easy to overlook, but without her, there is no healing. She could have stayed quiet. She could have resented her captor. But she chose mercy.

Her action may seem small, but it changes everything. Scripture so often lifts up those without voice or power, those on the margins, as vessels of grace and truth. The youngest son, the barren woman, the foreigner, the child, the unnamed slave — again and again, God works through those we are quickest to overlook. God’s power is often disguised; it rarely wears the robes we expect.

The same theme continues in our Gospel reading. Jesus sends out seventy-two disciples in pairs. The instructions are striking in their simplicity: take no purse, no bag, no sandals. Rely entirely on the hospitality of strangers. Speak peace. Heal the sick. Say, “The kingdom of God has come near.”

No backup plan. No funding model. No qualifications required.

Jesus does not say, “First go and study theology, then take a course in mission, then get your references in order.” He simply says, “Go.”

How often we complicate discipleship. We tell ourselves we are not ready. We build elaborate prerequisites before we will risk obedience. Sometimes that comes from fear, a reluctance to take the risk. But sometimes it comes from pride. We want to tell ourselves that we are worthy. We want our effort, our preparation, our sense of readiness to count. It is hard to receive grace when we want to prove ourselves deserving.

But Jesus calls people in process: fishermen; tax collectors; people who are learning as they go.

The seventy-two do not go out because they’re the finished product. They go out because they are willing.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul confronts both over-complication and pride, those impulses that lead us to add layers to grace, or to believe we can earn it. Some insisted that Gentile converts must be circumcised, adding human expectation to what God had made simple.

Paul will have none of it: “For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything.”

We are not defined by credentials. We are not saved by performance. We are transformed by grace, made new through the Spirit, drawn into a life that bears fruit not through striving but through surrender.

That doesn’t mean our choices don’t matter. Paul’s image of sowing and reaping reminds us that our actions have consequences. But those consequences grow from the kind of seed we plant, whether we sow to the Spirit or to the self.

Each of these readings asks us to look again at what we assume about power, importance, and grace. They challenge us to notice the voices we are quickest to overlook. To pay attention when wisdom comes from the edge.

They invite us to ask whether we are still trying to earn what can only be received. Whether our pride is getting in the way of obedience. Whether we are delaying our response to God because we want to feel more ready—more qualified, more worthy. Do we make space in our churches for voices that are unpolished or unfamiliar? Do we expect God to act in ways that suit our preferences? Or are we listening for the quiet instruction to go and wash in the river?

God comes near, often nearer than we realise, but not always in the way we expect.

In a few moments, we will gather at the Lord's Table. It is the great leveller. The place where Naaman the commander and the servant girl meet. The place where the seasoned believer and the new disciple kneel side by side.

We come not because we have earned it. Not because we are holy. But because Christ has invited us.

The water that washed Naaman reminds us of baptism's waters, where we too are named and cleansed. The sending of the disciples reminds us of our calling: not to carry everything, but to travel light, trusting the God who provides. Paul's vision of the new creation reminds us that the old categories - insider and outsider, clean and unclean, powerful and weak - no longer hold sway.

What matters is the new life that Christ is shaping in us, a life marked by humility, trust and obedience.

The kingdom of God has come near in Jesus Christ. Not through spectacle, but through the cross. Not through worldly status, but through love poured out.

As Paul writes, and as we’ll shortly echo in the words of our offertory hymn: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 Amen.