Monday of the Third Week of Lent

Naaman's entourage: He came with silver, gold, garments, and a royal letter. He expected a cure that matched his status. God gave him a river and simple instructions. The homiletic question: where do we demand that God work on our terms rather than his?

The slave girl: The entire story hinges on a captured Israelite slave girl who suggests the prophet. She has no name, no status, no power. Yet she sets in motion the healing of a foreign general. Preach the theology of God working through the overlooked. Who are the slave girls in our parish?

"Are not the rivers of Damascus better?": Naaman's objection is the objection of every person who resists God's simple means. We want something more impressive, more theological, more sophisticated. God says: wash. The sacraments are rivers of Damascus moments - they look too simple to work. They work anyway.

Nazareth's rejection: Jesus' own people rejected him because they knew him. Familiarity is the enemy of faith. Connect to the Lenten examination: have we become so familiar with the sacraments, the Mass, the Gospel that we've stopped expecting God to act through them?