Sermons from the Pulpit

     The king of Israel is terrified. He knows he can't cure this foreigner, and he doesn't know of anyone who can, and he figures the king of Aram is just picking a fight, finding an excuse to bully Israel again.

     This nation called Aram, by the way, has a different name today. It's called Syria. Syria and Israel - unfriendly neighbors today, and just as unfriendly 2800 years ago. Kind of puts the whole Golan Heights thing in perspective.

     But in those days, unlike these, Israel was weak and so was its king. Confronted with his own impotence, he wails and tears his clothes, which is what one did in those days if one was having a really bad day. We don't tear our clothes much anymore, and that's too bad. It's hard on the clothes, but I imagine it could be very therapeutic.

     Therapeutic for the little king of little Israel, but not for Naaman. Naaman needs some more potent therapy. He is a leper.

     So what's a leper? I've been wondering all week.

     You won't find the answer to that question by looking up leprosy, which is now called Hansen's disease, in the dictionary. There's good historical evidence that nobody ever had that disease in the ancient Middle East. So who knows what sorts of chronic disfiguring diseases they may have had, Naaman or any of the other lepers in the Bible.

     The only thing we really know about leprosy in the Bible isn't clinical information, it's social consequences. Lepers had to clean up their act quick or else they would be ostracized, cut off, and cast out. It may or may not have meant physical disability or pain, it may or may not have been contagious, but it certainly took away whatever place you had in the world. Lepers were required to stay physically away from everyone except other lepers. They were not allowed in places of assembly, especially not in places of worship, and if they were out and about they were required to holler out, "Unclean! Unclean!" wherever they went as a warning to everyone to avoid them.

     And that's why mighty Naaman is willing to follow the advice of a captive slave girl, a nameless nonentity to whom he would normally pay no attention at all, and travel to Israel looking for a cure, and his mighty king is eager to help him by sending along that wonderful letter of introduction, not to mention ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ten sets of garments, and all those horses, chariots and servants. Apparently Naaman and his king are familiar with the high cost of health care! But Elisha the man of God doesn't want to get paid. He works for free.

     Or does he? I think, on reflection, that Elisha made Naaman pay a very high price. Consider:

• As we already noted, Naaman had to start out by taking the advice of a little girl.
• Then when Naaman arrived at the royal court of Israel, Elisha wouldn't come to him there; he had to go to Elisha.
• Elisha showed nothing but contempt for all his wealth and power.
• Elisha wouldn't even come to the door and see him, much less play doctor for him.
• Elisha told him to take seven dips in a muddy, shallow, inferior river.
• And finally, he had to swallow his rage at all of the above and take the advice of his own servants before he could get what he needed.

     The price that Naaman paid for his healing was the surrender of his pride, his ego, and his status. Not cheap. Not cheap at all. A huge sacrifice, and you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of this other reading, the first one Bruce read, the epistle, where Paul gets all carried away with this notion of his that Christians have to be spiritual athletes. I'll tell you, that whole paragraph drives me nuts. I mean, the spiritual journey as a competition, like a footrace or a boxing match, where I win, you lose, or you win, I lose? That's Christian? And we have to punish and enslave our bodies for the sake of our souls? Gimme a break!

     But Naaman did need self-discipline and self-denial and just plain guts to get through his healing. Not that he had to earn his cleansing, but rather that he had to accept that he could not earn it or pay for it in any way. Elisha's God took pity on him and cared for him. Nothing more, nothing less.

     It didn't matter that he was a mighty warrior and a conqueror and in high favor with his king. His royal letter of introduction, his silver and gold, his horses, chariots and servants, were all as dust. All that mattered was: God chose, for no apparent reason, to give him life and health, and he had to live with that for the rest of his life, and that called for a whole new approach to his existence.

     The strutting generalissimo of Aram could never strut again. The new Naaman knew how small he was and how great God is. He became a worshipper among other worshippers and a creature among other creatures. And it turns out, if you study Paul, that is exactly what Paul meant by his athletic metaphor.

     We live on God's terms, not our own. Every single one of us is determined to prove otherwise, and sooner or later every single one of us fails, just as completely and just as comically as Naaman did. We fail, and the failure is the key to our healing, as it was to his.

     And who knows this best and is therefore best qualified to teach the rest of us some good, solid theology? That's a no-brainer. It's the ones who have already been to the same place where Naaman went. I'm told, for example, that so-called disabled persons like to refer to so-called able-bodied or able-minded persons as t-a-b, TABs, Temporarily Able-Bodied. That is the truth that hurts and heals.

     There is a leper lurking in everyone, and we are all caught between the urge to come clean about it - shouting, "Unclean! Unclean!" - and the hope that we can keep it secret, pass for normal, and spend our lives thinking, "If they only knew!" Never dreaming that if they did know, they might embrace you as a sister or a brother before God.

     The other leper, the one in the Gospel, barges up to Jesus, which is a violation of all the rules for lepers, and he says, "If you choose, you can make me clean." If you choose! He has no doubt about the power of God to help him. What he doubts is whether God, or God's Messiah, will care enough about him to do it. That's at the root of all our posturing and our stubborn self-reliance - the fear that nobody, not even God, who knows us as we are could ever care for us that much.

     But Jesus does choose, God chooses, and we are chosen. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but it heals. It may or may not cure diseases and disabilities, but it heals. If you get stuck on Elisha or Jesus as a miracle worker, then you are likely to say, "Wherever God is, there is no misery." That would be a serious mistake, but many Christians make it. If you see what healing really means, you say instead: "Wherever misery is, God is there too, and that makes all the difference."