SERMON 2.12.06

This story about Naaman is a story about reversals and surprises—and how hard it is to let God be God and let God act in the ways God will act—God being God—and not our expectations of God. Naaman is a big deal. He’s a general, he’s had great victories, he is someone the King of Syria has noticed. He’s important—and he’s wealthy to boot. One problem is that he has leprosy—he’s developed this skin disease that is the kind of thing that can leave you powerless, and unnoticed—even avoided. No matter what a big deal he is now—if this disease continues he’s doomed to a life waay outside the realms of power. No doubt by the time our story opens he’s tried everything—gone to every doctor Syria has to offer and even probably tried some alternative treatments. who knows? whatever… he actually notices when a Israelite slave girl speaks hopefully, wistfully kind of, about how he could be healed if only he were with the prophet in Samaria. “He would cure you of your leprosy.” So here we have it, powerless—slave—servant to his powerful wife—who speaks a word of hope out of her memory. She remembers—and she speaks a word that challenges the WAY THINGS ARE. And, the Big Man hears her—and although his rational self must have thought this was insane—his vulnerable sick self acted on the words of the outsider. He goes to his King—what else would he do? A BIG man has to go through the proper channels. And his king sends a note to the King in Samaria—who else would he send a note to—after All KINGS DEAL WITH KINGS. And Naaman being Naaman goes with the note and a retinue of men no doubt and piles of money to pay for his own medicare. So here’s the deal. The King in Samaria reads the note and thinks it’s a trap—a trick! After all this is how Kings are—suspicious—and when was the last time he heard from the King of Syria? He tears his clothes off in a show of total misery and depression—and says, “What do they think, am I God? (That gives you pause, doesn’t it?) I can’t heal anybody. I’m a King.” Elisha—the man of God—residing on the outskirts of power—somewhere on the edges, sends his own message to the King. Quietly stating the obvious. “Of course you can’t heal—you’re only a King. Send him to me so he’ll know there’s a prophet—a healing presence—a channel of Yahweh’s healing grace living here on the outskirts of power—ready to heal.” He does. And Naaman appears most probably in a Mercedes, or maybe a Hummer, don’t you think? with all his retinue in front of the rather unprepossessing place—like maybe a store front clinic I think. Elisha doesn’t even appear—he sends his nurse’s aide out with a message. Go dunk yourself in the Jordan 7 times and you’ll be healed and made clean (you’ll be able to return to your place in society). You have got to be kidding. Here’s where Naaman goes off the deep end you might say. The poor guy. He has such a sense of entitlement. He expects that because of his high status he will get the attention he deserves—and a rather spectacular healing too. He’s been thinking about how it might come—and surely at the very least it will involve MRIs, private suite in the hospital... How insulting—and from this nitwit Samarian too. We have better, bigger, cleaner rivers in Syria. To say that he is annoyed is an understatement. Once again there’s a reversal. Because Naaman who is sick and whose sense of his own privilege holds him captive—hears a word of truth from his servants—folks who in a sense are held captive and have few privileges. Oh, go try it. At this point, whadda you have to lose? He does—and the story says, according to the word of the man of God his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy and he was clean. He comes up out of the water that 7th time and proclaims, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.” Praise God. This little story from Mark’s gospel echoes the healing of Naaman. People would have heard it against that backdrop. Here the leper calls out to Jesus that if he chooses to he can make him clean. “I do choose,” says Jesus. That is my nature. That is who God is the One who will make you clean—restore you to your community. No one is outside the mercy of God. No one. Jesus sends him to the priests to seek their affirmation that he has been made clean. He in a sense perhaps wants to challenge their authority with this healing that has happened outside of expectations. But the man, overjoyed no doubt runs out instead to spread the word to others. It’s hard to contain joy. Joy, thanksgiving, praise. Our psalm is filled with them. And as people of faith we gather every Sunday (and here on weekdays as well) to do joy, give thanks and praise. And, I want to say to you that these are radical even subversive acts that we commit here every Sunday. For as the psalm tells us and these stories show us—we praise God because God has lifted us up, brought us up from the dead, restored us when restoration seemed impossible. Sing to the Lord you servants of God’s (like the little slave girl perhaps) Sing to the Lord in remembrance of his holiness. Don’t forget and when you remember sing! Praise! And, the psalm makes it clear that those who sing in praise and thanksgiving are those who have suffered—losers, outsiders, the hopeless, and destitute. Weeping has spent the night—maybe many nights—before joy comes in the morning. In a sense you must weep to know joy. I have to have reached the limits of my own ability to control my life—to make my own healing happen—to change the outcome of my own disastrous decision. When I’ve done that THEN I’ve been able to receive God’s healing grace—which has so often come to me from the small, the mundane, the little—and receiving the pure gift, unearned—when I am able to finally receive, then thanksgiving and praise flow out. I cannot contain them. I say these are subversive activities because when we give praise to God we are undercutting all the powers that be—all the structures, governments. kings, bureaucrats, who want to demand our devotion—who claim to have all the power—and really don’t. To come here in whatever shape we are in to thank God, praise God, to commit a little joy is to proclaim that God is real. We do this in a world that mostly denies God is real or just ignores God. We testify to a reality that is counter- cultural. Praise is also subversive because it is profoundly useless. What could be more subversive than to gather together to do something useless in a world that judges us by our achievements, our possessions, and our capabilities of making things happen. Finally praise and thanksgiving and joy join us together and to God. By their nature they open us up, reach out, draw in, involve others. Thanking someone in your head is not really thanking them. Joy is not something that stays contained. Praise is other-directed. All remind us that we are NOT self-sufficient. Our own world is full of fear. We see images of violence and are told everyday in countless ways that we are under threat. Riots and angry words, the burning of embassies, a meth epidemic, division into red and blue—lines are being drawn everywhere to separate us. In truth, the Kings of our day seem to have little capacity to make life secure. The world of the possible seems dark indeed. Our God is NOT a god of the possible. Our faith proclaims a different understanding: That in this very world—often in surprising ways, little ways, thru little people, ways and people beneath the radar of our inflated sense of entitlement, there is God’s grace. It moves in mysterious ways, and it transforms and brings life where there seems only death. Others may fail to see this or they may deny it. As followers of Christ, we are among those who choose to claim God as real; In a sense, we live into--we entrust ourselves to God’s radical life-changing movement. So we come here in joy (perhaps with tear-stained faces from the night just ended) week in and week out, to give thanks, and to praise God—the one who makes possible the impossible and turns our worlds of power upside down. To do so is useless, and subversive, and freeing and it opens us more and more to receive the very one we praise.