Sunday, July 03, 2016

Sermon from Sunday, July 3, 2016

Reading:  2 Kings 5:1-14

It shouldn’t surprise us that what comes in the story of Israel after the departure of the great prophet Elijah to heaven and the death of the terrible King Ahab on the battlefield, is a story of healing.  Healing is what God does.  Is there any time, when healing is not what God is doing?   The only question, really, is who and what is being healed, how and by whom, and to what end.


In our pew Bibles this story is titled “The Healing of Namaan” and that’s part of this story’s surprise because Namaan is a foreigner – an outsider to the covenant community – part of another tribe.  And not only a foreigner, but an enemy and a live threat to the kingdom of Israel, because commands the army of the neighbouring kingdom of Aram that by God’s good will, the story says, has just recently defeated and killed King Ahab of Israel on the battlefield. 

Is it surprising that God might will the defeat of God’s own people and even the death of their king at the hand of their enemies, for the sake of healing the world?  Being God’s elect, I read this week, does not mean being given a special place of control or dominance in the world, but rather that your purpose in the world is to show God’s power to heal – even when it means your destruction or humiliation.  Something that followers of Jesus, of all people, at some point have to face and learn to embrace.

So Namaan, the alien enemy to God’s people, is God’s hero in this story, and it’s Namaan’s healing that the story is about.

But his healing is not just a matter of Namaan and God working things out between them.  Others are involved – other heroes in their own way.  And I wonder if we identify with any of them.

There’s Elisha, the new prophet in the kingdom who has inherited the mantle of Elijah, who like Elijah lives at some distance from the new king, and like Elijah listens to follow the way of God, not just the will of the king he lives under or the whims of the kingdom he lives in.  Which is why when he hears that dreaded Namaan, who any good citizen of Israel would love to see dead, has come looking for healing from his disease, Elisha says, “Tell him to come see me; I will do for him what I can, and what God commands.”

Sounds like a Doctor Without Borders, going wherever allowed, to help heal anyone in need, regardless of their side, their politics, or their uniform.  Sounds like Dr. Betty Bridgman and the medical missionaries with her in Angola, during a time of civil war opening their clinic and their hearts to government and rebel forces alike.  On a less political, more personal level, does it sound at all like you or like anyone you know who has helped an antagonist, given comfort to a foe, taken time to care about, try to understand and heal a relationship with someone you or they have been at odds with, or been hurt by?

Or even before Elisha, earlier in the story, there’s the slave girl who during the fighting between Aram and Israel has been taken from her home in Israel and sold to be a servant to Namaan’s wife.  She has no reason to feel kindly towards either her or him.  But she too is a holy hero of sorts, taking her mistress’s distress at her husband’s disease into her own heart, making their sorrow her concern, and offering what she can to be of help to them.  She too is willing to love and show care outside the lines, to go above and beyond the call of duty, to care about people whose suffering she might just as easily have ignored, or even taken delight in.

At the other end of the political spectrum, there is Namaan’s boss – the king of Aram.  He knows of Namaan’s leprosy, and probably has put Namaan in touch with all the physicians, magicians, healers and workers of wonder he can find in his kingdom.  But when he hears of the healing power of Elisha, the new prophet living somewhere in the land of Israel, it’s not a slam-dunk he will send him or even allow him to go there.  Would it be consorting with the enemy?  How much risk will his best commander be in, with people in Israel still more than happy to put an arrow through Namaan’s heart?  But Namaan wants to go, so his boss arranges for it to happen.  The promise of healing what’s wrong in the world seems to require putting your own security and well-being on the line, and the king joins Namaan in accepting the risk.

And then there are Namaan’s servants.  When Namaan is too proud to accept the way of healing Elisha commands, the servants have a choice.  Do they let it go and not stick their necks out?  Just let things stay as they are?  Or do they call their master out on his pride, tell him where they think he is wrong, and challenge him to do the right thing?  Have you ever been in that spot?  Of having to confront someone about where you think they are wrong?  Of risking their anger by challenging them to act in a different, more healing way?

A lot of people – both big and little, have to act in heroic ways, outside the lines, beyond the borders, above and beyond the call of duty, for this story of healing to happen.  Which makes me thinks that ultimately it’s not so much a story just about them, or even about us, but a story about God – about God as the real and ultimate hero, the real mover and maker of the tale of healing on Earth, and them as heroes of a sort to the degree they co-operate with the story of the healing God is willing to do in their time.

Each one overcomes something to be part of the story -- obstacles and hurdles in the world outside them, prejudices and preconceptions in their own character and history.  They all have good reasons not to be involved – to hold back and limit what they will do.  But they don’t do that, and that surely says something to us about being part of the healing God is willing to do in our time.

The only one in the story who doesn’t get involved in the healing, ironically, is the king of Israel, God’s chosen one and one of Ahab’s sons now on the throne and in charge of God’s kingdom.  When Namaan shows up in his court with a need he knows he can’t meet, he fears the worst.  He thinks it’s a trick to give cause for another attack on his kingdom.  He questions the motives of the person in front of him asking for help.  He projects onto the other his own insecurities and his own need for control and power. 

And I wonder if ultimately that’s the one thing always that keeps us from being part of God’s story -- if it’s fear, insecurity and projected suspicion of the other, that keep us from being part of whatever healing God is willing to do in our time, from being able to help heal what God wants to heal in the world today.

Are we ruled sometimes by fear?

Do our insecurities get the better of us?  Or keep the better part of us from being expressed?

Are we sometimes suspicious of others, projecting onto them our own need for control and power?

What is it we learn from Namaan, Elisha, the slave girl, the king of Aram, Namaan’s servants, and all others who choose to be part of whatever healing God is willing to make happen in the world today?

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