• Jeremiah 19: 1,4-7

Inserted into the text of the Book of Jeremiah is this “letter” sent to God’s people living in exile in Babylon.  The message it contains is unexpected.  Even in this alien place, God’s “letter” says, and in your humiliating and dispiriting circumstances, “Build houses and live in them;” plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Have children and grandchildren; “multiply there and do not decrease.”  Promote the welfare of this foreign place because “in its welfare you will find your  welfare.”

• Psalm 66: 1-11

The psalmist summons “all the earth” to sing God’s praise for the “awesome works among all humankind.”  The psalmist then recalls God’s great act of salvation– turning “the sea to dry land…”  God pays close attention to all nations.  Therefore, all peoples “bless our God…” who tested God’s people and refined them.

OR

• II Kings 5: 1-3, 7-15a

A highly successful military man in Syria, Naaman, enjoyed the king’s favor, but suffered from leprosy.  In his household was a young Israelite woman, taken captive in some prior raid on Israel, who served Naaman’s wife.  She tells her mistress that there is “a prophet who is in Samaria” who would cure him of his leprosy.  Naaman takes a letter  from the King of Syria to the King of Israel demanding  a cure for the commander of his army.  The King of Israel panics at this impossible demand. “Am I God, to give life or death, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of leprosy?”  But when the prophet Elisha hears of these developments, he sends word to send Naaman to him.  The powerful military leader, who is accustomed to dealing with kings through channels of command, arrives with his retinue of men, horses and chariots  at the cave where Elisha lived.  Elisha himself does not appear to greet Naaman, but instead sends a message telling him to go wash in the Jordan river seven times “and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.  Naaman is insulted.  He expected some spectacular display of the prophet’s prowess and certainly some gesture more dignified than washing himself in a river, which compared to those in Syria, could hardly even be called a “river.”  Naaman was ready to leave when his aides presented him with an intriguing argument.  They reasoned: “if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you have done it?”  But all Elisha told Naaman to “Wash and be clean.”  So, Naaman followed through on the prophet’s single, simple direct instruction and “his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”  Naamna returned to Elisha and announced: “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”

• Psalm 111

The psalmist declares her praise of the Lord, whose great deeds are “discovered by all who desire them.”  The Lord’s traits are distinctive and consistent– bounty, sustenance, trustworthiness, “truth and justice….”  The Lord’s wisdom is available to all who honor the Lord and “perform….”

• II Timothy 2: 8-15

This short, urgent “letter” attributed to Paul is comprised of pithy summaries and sayings for the church.   This excerpt begins with a foundational statement of Paul’s gospel:  “Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David…”  Although Paul was put in chains as a prisoner for his preaching,  “the word of God is not chained.”   He then equates whatever suffering he must endure (and by implication his readers could as well) to the suffering and death of Christ.  His (and their) fate will, like Christ’s, culminate in “salvation.”  Considering the urgency and gravity of these fundamentals, the writer issues a stern warning to the church: “avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.”  Instead, be a “worker…”

• Luke 17: 11-19

In this episode, unique to Luke’s gospel, Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem when ten lepers approach him and shout, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  Jesus responds, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  Jesus resumes his journey leaving the ten behind, and the ten lepers “were made clean.”  Only one chased after Jesus to thank him, “praising God with a loud voice.”  In true Lucan irony, the zinger comes, “And he was a Samaritan.”  Jesus asks where are the other nine.  “Was none of the them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Expectations work until they do not; expectations are useful for a while, until they make things more complicated than they need to be.  The prophet Jeremiah had to disabuse God’s people living as second class citizens in exile of their assumption that their only alternative was to languish in exile.  Build, buy, have children, support this foreign government that is holding you hostage, because its welfare is linked to yours.  The psalmist also calls for a change in expectations.  Although God’s people will never forget that singular act of salvation when as just-freed slaves they walked to freedom on the dry bottom bed of the Red Sea, they must now come to realize that this display was not just for them.  Naaman almost misses getting his heart’s desire because what unfolds does not fit his expectations:  A prophet, who lives in a cave and does not even come out to meet him, sends a message to him to go wash in a stream the locals jokingly call a “river!”   The psalmist comes to understand that God’s ways are open to any and all “who desire them,” regardless of past experiences, loyalties and expectations.  Because the Word of God cannot be restrained (“chained”) by any human intervention, Timothy’s mentor writes, do not waste time wrangling over words,  just get busy doing God’s work– be a “worker.”  Leave it to Luke to make the least expected person– “this foreigner,”  a Samaritan!– the hero of his story about ten lepers who were healed, but only one gave thanks.  These readings and today’s gospel, insist that when dealing with God, expect your expectations to be upended, because God’s real interest seems to be on getting God’s work done.  Everything else is just a complication.

Among those writers who are regarded as postmodern and share an affinity with this biblical theme is Graham Ward.  In a short, but very productive essay entitled “Postmodern Theology” for the collection Modern Theologians, Ward writes:

“Postmodernism has been thought by some to be profoundly anti-religious”  Instead, “With Marion and Certeau [as two example he offers] postmodern theology portrays how religious questions are opened up (not closed down or annihilated) by postmodern thought.  The postmodern God is emphatically the God of love, and the economy of love is kenotic.  Desire, only possible through difference, alterity, and distance, is the substructure of creation.”  “Postmodernism, read theologically, is not the erasure of the divine.  Rather, it defines the space within which the divine demands to be taken into account.”  (p. 598)

Postmodern theology, Ward insists, refuses the [Babylonian?] exile of religion imposed by Modernity, because it remembers God’s passionate love, which is the only truly original and consistent good news for all people of biblical testimony; this “Word,” cannot be “chained.”  It constantly upended expectations in the biblical texts and is just as disruptive today.  It uncomplicates what we have made complicated, even esoteric, about the biblical good news.  The unexpected we have been told to expect is that God shows up ready to go to work for justice in expected places, people and ways, but when that path no longer works, God skips in  a heartbeat to the totally unexpected if that works as well if not better.  Is God capricious?  It seems more likely that God is driven.  God stops at nothing to find partners in justice.  Now that we know God’s priority, ought it not be ours, too?  Now that we know exactly what God wants and how passionate God is about what God wants, is it really necessary to keep making things more complicated than they have to be?  God finds allies among the likely and least likely.