Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
July 4, 2010
II Kings 5:1-14
Some of you may recall that in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth following his baptism by John in the river Jordan, he preaches a sermon. And one of the Biblical texts for his sermon is this text from II Kings – the healing of Naaman. Luke tells us that there was a very interesting reaction to Jesus’ sermon, this first sermon from the local boy, one of their own. According to Luke, when they heard his sermon, “all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove Jesus out of the town, and led him to the brow of a hill, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.” Now that was some sermon, I’ll tell you! “But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” We find this in Luke 4.
Now our daughter, Bethany, is preaching here in two weeks, and I hope she receives a much gentler reception from her home town congregation! You can throw the old man over the cliff, but hands off the daughter when she preaches here! But why were the people of Nazareth, people who had known Jesus since he was a child, so upset with these words? And how does any of this possibly relate to July 4th, Independence Day?
Well, let’s take a little closer look at our text. And right in the beginning let us establish that Naaman was the enemy. Things are tense between Israel and its neighbors today – things weren’t much better thousands of years ago. Naaman was the commander of the army of Aram, which today we know as Syria. So I’ll just call him a Syrian. And a skilled and powerful general he was. Israel and Syria were momentarily at peace during this time, but there had been many battles, and Naaman and his army had beaten up on the armies of Israel more than once. Even his enemies admitted that he was a great warrior whom God had favored in battle. As one pastor has said, when you think of Naaman, think Colin Powell, only with one big difference: Naaman was far less photogenic, for the national hero, the mighty warrior, had leprosy. And no one in Syria could make him well. A hero whose hand no one wanted to shake; a hero who always found it a little awkward and embarrassing to appear in public.
But note who first helps him…a Jewish slave girl. This is a story that drips with irony. The mighty and the powerful are clueless, kings are helpless, but this girl, this slave, this nameless, worthless one, the least of the least, the marginalized one, an undocumented alien, is the one who suggests a healing path for Naaman. She is the only one who has a clue as to what God might be up to. “If only my Lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.” And what did she know? How could one such as her possibly be a conduit of God’s providence? The whole thing was preposterous. Except that when one has suffered as Naaman had suffered, even the preposterous is worth a try.
So he goes to his king, and the king says, “Why not? Take your best shot.” He writes a letter to the king of Israel. “I’m sending my general to him; I want you to cure him of leprosy.” The assumption is that if there is a leprosy cure available in Israel, then surely the king will know about it. So Naaman goes home and packs, and since he doesn’t know about medical care in Israel, what the fee might be for healing, he takes along a fortune of silver and gold and all kinds of clothes. Whatever the price, he’s going to pay it.
When he arrives in Israel, he discovers that the king is as clueless as the king of Syria. He knows nothing about healing, about God’s power and providence. He does not know what the slave girl knows – the healing power of God. The king sees the letter and its request as a trap and rips his robe in despair. The king of Syria has asked him to do something he cannot do. This will just give Syria an excuse to declare war on Israel. Politics is all he knows. Past conflict is all he knows, all he has ever known. There is no room in his reality for something new to break in, for the surprising and unexpected mercy of God.
But apparently word of the king’s distress gets around town pretty quickly, and Elisha, the prophet whom the Jewish slave girl knew about – although interestingly the king doesn’t seem to know about him – more irony – sends a message. “Send the general to me that he may learn there is a true prophet in Israel.” Might as well just tell the king, “You’re useless.” Apparently there are sources of power that have nothing to do with kings and armies and politics as usual.
So Naaman gathers the fortune he has brought and goes to Elisha’s house. The mighty warrior stands before the door of the prophet. But Elisha doesn’t even come out to say hello. His message is delivered by a servant, another non-person. “Go wash in the Jordan River seven times and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” Now it’s Naaman’s turn to be shocked. “No greeting from my host, not even the offer of a cup of water? Does this man know who I am? And now he wants me to take off my clothes, go splash in that shallow, muddy excuse for a river like some kind of five-year-old kid?” He is furious. He is a general for heaven’s sake; he expects far more, he expects something far more dramatic. So he angrily prepares to go home.
But again, an unexpected intervention. His servants, not even believers, not Jews, suggest that he swallow his pride and take the world’s longest bath in that dirty river that barely comes up to his knees. “If the prophet would have asked you to do something difficult in order to be healed, you would have done it. Instead he has asked something simple. Why not try? You’ve come this far. What can it hurt?” Again, the servant, the marginalized one, the non-person, the one disregarded by society, becomes an agent of God’s grace. Do you see a pattern here? God uses whom God will use, regardless of circumstance or appearance or education or even, it would seem, religious faith.
So Naaman gets in the water. Barbara Brown Taylor describes the scene like this: “The water was greenish and smelled of fish. There was nothing remotely sacred about it. Naaman found a place to kneel and sank down for the first time. It was cold under the water but not on top of it. He did not dare look at his skin. Seven times he made the passage from cold to hot, from river to sun. Each time he rose he sucked air like a newborn, then he went down again. By the seventh time he was winded. But when he looked down at his skin, he saw the flesh of a five-year-old. It was smooth. It was fresh. He was well. God did for him what military victories and kings and bags of money could never do. God restored his flesh. God created him all over again, and he was made new.”
Maybe it was a strange story for Jesus to tell in Nazareth. Perhaps a strange story to tell on the Fourth of July. So why tell it? Well, note how everyone in this story has expectations about how things must be, about what is possible and what is not possible. There are even assumptions about who really is eligible to receive God’s healing mercy. But as the story unwinds, those assumptions unwinds. Everything is turned upside down and that, I believe, is what infuriates the people of Nazareth. They don’t want to hear a story about how God is merciful to a hated enemy, about how God heals and accepts one whom they find unacceptable. They simply cannot handle, cannot accept, the wide reach of God’s providence and care. It’s frightening, infuriating, de-stabilizing when God doesn’t work the way they expect or desire, when the reach of God’s love exceeds the limits which they – we – try to put on Him. “God is supposed to use us, to bless us…not them!” As Jonathan Swift once observed, “We have just enough religion to make us hate one another, but not enough to make us love one another.”
And herein is the word for us on Independence Day. In my mind’s eye, I can still see those angry signs from rallies across this country, “I want my country back!” “I want America back!” And when I see those signs I wonder what country do you suppose they’re referring to? Is it a reference to a perceived simpler, happier, “Leave It to Beaver” time which in fact was never all that simple or happy? As one pastor has observed, “I often have to remind my congregation that “Leave It to Beaver” was not a documentary.”
The message in this text is that we need to put away our fear and anger, our much too limited expectations of God, and look instead to what new things God might be up to in our midst, who God might be including, who God might be using for God’s purposes. And they may be people who do not look or talk or believe a lot like us, or even Ward and June and Wally and the Beaver. Think of the role played by the unlikeliest of people in this text. Think of how God’s mercy and love are extended again and again to the outsider, the enemy, the alien. As one theologian has said, “It may not be too much to claim that the future of our world will depend on how we deal with identity and difference.”
And so as this America – July 4th, 2010 – this America, not the America of fifty years ago – as this America struggles with racial, cultural, sexual, religious differences, rather than scapegoating and blaming and tearing ourselves apart, I hope we can follow the way suggested by none other than Jesus, which is to see God’s image in the one who is not in our image, which is really to see the other, even the one who is different, as one who has no substitute, who can never be replaced, whose heart holds things for which their is no language, whose life is an unsolved mystery. Says Taylor, “The assignment is to get over yourself. The assignment is to love the God you did not make up with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and the second is like it; to love the neighbor you also did not make up as if that person were your own strange and particular self. Do this, and the doing will teach you everything you need to know. Do this, and you will live. Do this – love like this – and you will be truly free.”