Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Kings 5:14-172 Timothy 2:8-13Luke 17:11-19

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The background to today’s First Reading for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C-Cycle) begins at the opening of chapter five of Second Kings, where we find the subject of our story; a man named Naaman, who the text informs us is a great and mighty man of valor and is also a commander in the army of the king of Syria who he has won high favor with. Naaman had also leprosy. Upon hearing that there was a prophet in Samaria who could cure him, Naaman went and got permission from his king who gave him a letter to take to the king of Israel asking that king of cure his servant. In hopes that this favor is granted, Naaman also brought along with him silver, gold, and festal garments to give in thanksgiving for his cure, and in preparing this way, Naaman anticipated a miracle. He anticipated that God might bless him with a cure and was prepared to give thanksgiving and praise to God through the prophet who would heal him.

Now, when Naaman finally arrived at the house of the prophet Elisha with all of his horses and chariots, Elisha sent a messenger out to Naaman with strict instructions on what to do to be healed. He told him, “Go and wash in the Jordan River seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” But this angered Naaman because he had a different idea of what his miracle would look like. He said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and cure the leper.” But after some convincing, as the text says at Mass today, “Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times at the word of Elisha, the man of God. His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean of his leprosy.” You see, Naaman thought that the prophet would have to do something big to heal him, but sometimes it is in those simple and seemingly unspectacular things where God reserves His greatest blessings. It is true, what is a big problem from us, is no problem at all for God if we just do what He tells us to do.

Afterward, Naaman repeatedly attempted to give to Elisha those gifts of silver and gold and festal garments that he had brought along with him, but the Prophet persisted in refusing such. Naaman then said, “If you will not accept, please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth, for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the LORD.”

In the Second Letter to Timothy 2:8-13, the Apostle Saint Paul shows us another side of what it means to give thanksgiving and praise to God. Whereas Naaman was ready to give honor and glory to God for what God might do for him, Saint Paul is teaching us to give the Lord our thanksgiving and praise for He has already done, is doing, and will do; that is, we give praise to God because God is trustworthy. Yes, there are some of you who only know how to be like Naaman; to give God thanks when there is evidence that God has done something miraculous for you, but you are silent when all God has done is give you another day to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. You are silent about praising God when you are suffering but loud about praising Him when you’ve been made well. Yet, what Paul is teaching Timothy is that is when we are suffering; when we are “even to the point of chains, like a criminal,” Paul says, we are still called to remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, and He is the promised one from the seed of David. In saying this, Paul is reminding us that God is always faithful and always keeps His promises, even when we are unfaithful, “he remains faithful because he cannot deny himself.”

Whereas in Second Kings we read about how just one lepe