The Lord’s Prayer and Airport Security

25 07 2010

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church

Boise, Idaho

July 25, 2010

Luke 11:1-13
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;
for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’
And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’
I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.
For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?
Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

We’re done with the Year of the Bible, although I hope that you aren’t done with reading the Bible. I hope that you feel more comfortable now than you maybe did a year ago, to see connections between your story and the story in the text.

But, for those of you who miss the corporate routine of all reading the Bible together, the Session voted to make this coming year, beginning now, the Year of Prayer.
Again, many of you were reading the Bible and praying long before anyone declared years that were dedicated to them. But we’re hoping that during this coming year, we can enter into some new conversations about prayer.
How do we pray when we are together?
How do we pray alone in our room?
For what should we pray when we gather at the bedside of people who are ill?
Who can pray?
Why do we pray?

And we don’t pray just to inform God about things. “Dear God, my mom is in the hospital.”
“WHAT?” says God. “When did that happen? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

No, God knows what is going on before the words are even on our tongues. Yet we still are called to pray.

Yesterday at the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, one of the many great preachers we heard this week, Tony Campolo, told a story about his son as a child. He came to his parents and said, “I’m going to bed now. I’ll be saying my prayers. Does anyone want anything?”
Often, perhaps, our prayers are like that. Giving God a list of things as if it is Christmas and God is Santa Claus.
So, for what should we pray?

Jesus’ disciples seem to have had similar questions to ours. “Lord, teach us to pray.”

I never knew there was a wrong way to pray until my brother came home from school in 2nd grade and told our family, as we were saying the blessing for dinner, that we were all praying wrong.  He had recently started attending a Catholic school and the nun who was his teacher told the students that the our prayers go to heaven if our hands are pointed up straight to heaven.

Our family were hand curlers, with our fingers dangerously pointed d o w n. I’m sure his teacher was just trying to come up with a clever way to help her students attain proper prayer posture, but my brother took it very seriously. Because, like the disciples, we want concrete answers to very mystical and mysterious questions.
“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Jesus doesn’t talk about what we should do with our hands. He doesn’t get into specifics much at all, actually. This passage is short. And it seems cryptic, to me, at least.

Let’s look at the prayer itself.
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

This is not, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the prayer we say every Sunday. The one we pray each week is clearly related, but comes from the 6th chapter of Matthew.

Pared down from the language that seems so familiar to us, this prayer makes me uncomfortable. It is asking for just a few things.
For God’s kingdom to come.
For people to have what they need to eat so that each person can live.
For forgiveness of sins—both in heavenly and earthly relationships.
And for deliverance from the time of trial.

Yesterday, on my journey home from Triennium, I had an interesting experience going through security. For the first time in my life, I think, I packed light enough to only need a carry-on sized bag, which is a notable achievement for me. But that meant I had to put my bag through security. And the screener called a few people over to look at the image of my bag. And then they pulled it out and asked me, “do you have some sort of cup in this bag?”
“Yes, it is a communion chalice”, I said.
“We’ll need to x-ray that”.
So, my bag was unpacked and they pulled out this communion chalice, and put it back through security.
I have nothing to say against the security screener. He was just doing his job. And it turns out that there is a metal rod inside this chalice to hold it together. Who knew?
But the image of a communion chalice, a symbol of our Christian faith, being subjected to extra security made me think of this prayer in Luke’s gospel.

Because the Lord’s Prayer is dangerous.

If we really, truly pray for God’s kingdom to come, rather than praying for our wishes, then things will change.

If we really, truly pray for our daily bread, and not for a stockpile of food for some and none for others, things will change.

If we really, truly pray for the forgiveness of sins in our heavenly and in our human relationships, things will change.

I don’t think the Lord’s Prayer would make it through security. There is nothing safe about it.

The world does not want us to pray this prayer. Our world prefers the kingdoms of this world to be in charge, because it adds to the illusion of our own power. The powers of this world don’t tell us to seek to God’s Kingdom. Because that would require justice for all, not just for those who can afford it. In God’s Kingdom, people aren’t subject to prejudice because of the color of their skin, or because of their sexual orientation, or because of their gender, or because of the way they serve God. When God’s Kingdom comes, things are going to change.

The powers of this world also don’t want us to pray for our daily bread. Our economy is not built on each person having just enough. Our economy is built on the idea that you and I need to buy as much as we can, to fuel the engines of our economy. And in order for some of us to have too much, others of us must go without. Those are the laws of scarcity.

In 2008, in our very prosperous country before the economy tanked, 49.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households—32.4 million adults and 16.7 million children. That is almost 15% of our population. People who aren’t sure how they are going to feed their families this week. Today.
Give us this day our daily bread.

Across the world, the numbers are worse. Over 1 billion people across our planet are hungry right now. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That’s one child every five seconds. Over 600 children will have died from hunger-related causes in the hour we spend here today worshipping God.
Give us this day our daily bread.

If we really, truly pray the Lord’s Prayer, things are going to need to change.

And then we’re supposed to pray for the forgiveness of our own sins and for the restoration of our relationships with others. We pray the Prayer of Confession each week in worship. It is one of my favorite elements of worship because it is so freeing. To be able to approach God and acknowledge that we have not been all we would be, frees us to try again.
During worship at Triennium, after 5,000 kids prayed the Prayer of Confession and received the Assurance of Pardon– I declare to you in the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven—the auditorium burst into applause and shouts of joy. I don’t know if you’ve ever worshipped with 5,000 teenagers, but it gives me hope for our future. None of them have studied Theology and Worship, learning about the relationship between the elements of worship, etc, etc. But, on a visceral level, when they heard the good news of forgiveness proclaimed, they responded appropriately. They raised the roof. Why don’t we do that each and every week? The forgiveness of our sins is something to celebrate, people! (Triennium worship photo by David P. Young)

If we were really truly to pray for the forgiveness of our sins, seeking repentance and change, then things would change. And that change would have to spill over into our human relationships as well.
To pray that we forgive everyone indebted to us would change everything.
Do you suppose Jesus meant we were supposed to actually forgive debts, as it says in the prayer? He couldn’t have really meant what he said.  Did he mean real debts, do you think?

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

In Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, God’s forgiveness of our sins is tied to the idea that we’ve already forgiven everyone indebted to us.
“And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”

Luke’s version suggests to me that we have to keep very close the connection between our relationships with others and our relationship with God. We can’t just say, “God please forgive me for my sins. But I can’t stand so and so, and I don’t want to be in relationship with them NOW, and I don’t want to forget about what they did to me yesterday, but I know that we’ll get along fine someday in Heaven.”
That isn’t going to work, friends.

If we really are to pray the Lord’s Prayer, we have to believe, on a deep level, that if God can forgive us for the things we do, then we have to be able to do the same for the people in our lives.

When I first read this text, I thought I would focus most on what Jesus said to his disciples after he taught them the prayer. About the bread for the late night guests, and the scorpions to the children. But I think the Lord’s Prayer is enough for today. Maybe even too much for today.  So I promise that I will address that part of the text at some point in the future.

Friends, we are people who have chosen to walk this journey of life together as followers of Christ, like the disciples in our text this morning, and so we ask, Lord, teach us to pray.

But we can’t ask that question casually. Because it is dangerous and would not make it past the security screening of this world.

Because if we’re asking to enter into a conversation with God, we need to expect that God will speak to us. So we need to listen.

We need to expect that God will listen to us when we speak, so we need to mean what we say.

And we need to be open to change, to be the change that God needs us to be in this world so that God’s kingdom can break in to our brokenness, to our pain, to our injustice, and to our violence, bringing a kingdom of peace, of equity, of wholeness and health for all of God’s children. Lord, teach us to pray. Amen.


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Categories : Lord's Prayer, Luke 11

A Sabbath Sermon

11 07 2010

A guest sermon by Lucy Waechter Webb

July 11, 2010

Southminster Presbyterian Church

Gen 2:1-4
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all heir multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested form all the work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Luke 10:25-37
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into that hands of robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Who is my neighbor? That is often the question we hinge on from this familiar gospel story. We’ve each probably heard a half a dozen sermons about the Good Samaritan, many no doubt asking us important questions about how we treat those around us, and who we consider to be neighbors, or maybe even why we should show people kindness. But I’d like to take us in a different direction this morning.

Some of you may have heard about a study conducted in 1973 by a couple of psychologists who used the story of The Good Samaritan as their template. Their intention was to look at personality factors that affected whether or not people would stop to help another person in distress. Interestingly, they recruited seminary students (of the Presbyterian variety, from Princeton) as their participants, and instructed each of them to travel from one building to another where they would give a talk. They had a few variables, half the students were asked to talk about job prospects in that talk, the other half were asking to preach a sermon on the Good Samaritan. Then each of those two groups were broken into thirds, one third was told to hurry over to the next building, they were going to be late! The second was told they were on time, but not to dilly dally, the final group was told the program was running late and but they could go ahead and make their way over. Every student passed an actor playing a homeless man who was in health distress on their way to the second building to talk.

The researchers were hoping to find that these benevolent seminary students would differ in their responses mostly based on personality, but what they found was that the biggest factor in whether someone stopped to help was whether or not they were in a hurry. Those who stopped the most, were those who had been told the program was running late and had extra time to spare.

When was the last time you were in a hurry? Maybe Friday afternoon, rushing to get out of the office and beat weekend rush hour traffic? Perhaps it was yesterday as you made your way to a meeting or the kids practice. Or was it this morning as you left the house in a flurry to make it to church on time?

Being busy is a status symbol in our culture today. It is a compliment of sorts to hear, “Wow, you must really be busy” and reply with a non-chalant, “nah, not really.” Being too busy is the number one reason why people say they can’t vote; half of people who don’t attend church say it’s because they’re too busy. We have twitter because we’re too busy to read an entire letter or e-mail about how our friends are doing, we’ve got blackberries because we’re too busy to remember what comes in the next hour, we’ve got 8-minute ab workouts because we’re too busy to find time to be active outdoors doing something we actually enjoy that is good for our bodies.

Thomas Merton talks about this business as a kind of violence; he says:
“To allow oneself to be carried away by the multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace, [because] it destroys our own inner capacity for peace.”
And indeed, when we look at the story of The Good Samaritan and the priest and Levite who both passed by, or the study in which even budding do-gooder pastors walk by the homeless man, we begin to see how this busy life might in fact deliver violence in our world.

So how do we respond to this life? How to we resist the status of a full calendar, and find time to rest, to nurture ourselves, those around us, and our relationship with God?

I had the opportunity to think more deeply about this in seminary. I found myself at the end of two full years of studying and interning, and realized I didn’t have it in me to do another summer of work; Clinical Pastoral Education was next on the docket. So I went to one of my professors to talk it over with him, and said I just needed to take a break, I was overwhelmed and so emotionally dry that I couldn’t begin to imagine serving as a chaplain for the summer. He supported my decision to postpone CPE, but corrected my description of it, telling me that I was not merely “taking a break”, but instead practicing Sabbath.

I think this ancient faith practice, one that we only vaguely recognize as Christians today, is one way we can respond to our hurried culture. When you hear the word Sabbath, many of you might first think about Judaism, or even Seventh Day Adventists, and indeed they are two traditions that prioritize the Sabbath.

Jews have several texts that inform their practice of Sabbath, but there are two that seem particularly foundational, and Christians also hold these passages in high esteem. One of these texts was our first scripture reading from this morning in Genesis, in which God creates the seventh day, rested, and hallowed it. But this alone, might seem like not enough of a reason that we should deserve a weekly rest, creating the world must have been harder work than anything we could have ever possibly participated in. So look then to the Decalogue, the ten commandments. We generally attempt to follow these basic laws right? We’re all familiar with thou shall not steal, murder, or covet your neighbor. You shall honor your father and mother, and not make false idols.

But we often forget the fourth commandment; can you name what it is?

“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.”

You may be wondering what is the Sabbath, or how do we practice it? Certainly we go to church on Sundays, and you may have heard about other traditions like Judaism in which they refrain from labor and work, but also cooking, or use of light or transportation, and eat traditional meals with family. It may even conjure up memories of the old blue laws which prohibit the sale of liquor, gambling, bingo, labor, or recreational sports on Sundays depending on which state you are in.

But Sabbath is not about restrictions or rules, nor is it about idle rest. It is an active cessation of work, a rest in motion. Sabbath is not a time intended for us to make it as far as we get until we collapse into a desperate repose in which we can do nothing for our exhaustion.  Instead it is an intentional time to regularly tend to God, to community and self, to celebrate life. In fact it is less a particular practice and more an observance of a particular time.

Let’s turn to the Genesis passage again. Throughout the entire story, God has created each portion of creation, declaring each good at the end of the day. But what happens on the seventh day is unique. God creates another day, another portion of time, and then God rests and blesses that time. The Hebrew is qadosh, which means holy, or to make holy. It is the first appearance of that word in the Bible, and notice it is not used for creation, not on the Earth, the waters, the animals, nor even us. God makes time, a particular time, holy. And then God dwells in that time, and later invites us to do so too.

Abraham Heschel was a rabbi born in Germany, but came to the US just before WWII. He was adjusting to his new life here with fellow Jews who were trying to figure out what it meant to be American. His book, The Sabbath, was written largely in response to what he saw happening to the Jewish Sabbath. I quote his daughter’s introduction of the book, “The Sabbath appeared at a time when American Jews were assimilating radically and when many were embarrassed by public expressions of Jewishness…For them, the Sabbath interfered with jobs, socializing, shopping, and simply being American.”

Heschel talks about how we have lost the distinction of time. Time has become a commodity, a thing that can be traded and measured. He contrasts time to space, arguing that space is the real commodity we’re after, and we use time to gain more space (more property, more things, more power, more cubic feet). Hence the phrase, time is money.

But try as we might, we really cannot conquer or dominate time, it does seem to march on incessantly no matter how hard we try to contain it. And whether we like it or not, time is not as uniform as we may think. We do not consider being five minutes late to a dinner party the same as being five minutes late to work. Nor do we consider a 10 minute traffic delay the same as a ten minute delay spent catching up with friends. Or consider the nine long months of pregnancy compared to the first nine months of your child’s life. There is work time, vacation time, chore time. In our faith we have Ordinary Time, Lenten Time, Advent Time, and Christmas and Easter time. Sabbath is another particular time, one that happens weekly. And it is time that has been made holy by God first.

When I began to think about Sabbath more intentionally, I realized that part of the purpose of Sabbath was to participate in sanctification (or the making holy) of myself and of the world. And I thought that if I could just get the right practices down, and spend time dedicated to those practices, I would be on the right track. But then I realized it is the time itself that is holy, not the practice. And it isn’t until I submit to that time, not until I dwell in it, revel in it, celebrate that time, that I too experience the holy.

The Sabbath is a sanctuary from the world as we know it, from the time we battle during the week, from the labor and work we are required to do, from the reality of this world. It is a day for praise, a day for the celebration of life. It is a day where we stop thinking about space, and think about time in a new way. It is a day to stop thinking about what we need to do, or what needs to get done, and rest in a time meant for God, for community, and for self.

What is on your to do list for this afternoon? Mow the lawn? Do the budget? Read those documents from work you didn’t get to on Friday afternoon? What would happen if you didn’t get to that list?

I mentioned that Sabbath is more an observance of time than it is a practice, but that doesn’t mean that certain practices can’t help you transition into that time. Certainly coming to worship with your faith community is a good place to start. Simply being with others who are attempting to enter into that time collectively can help any one individual resist the temptations to succumb to another six or seven day work week. Worship can set the tone for the joyous celebration of the day of resurrection that we observe as Christians on the Lord’s Day. It can be a time where the community swells with life. But what happens after church? What will help you find that different mode of time, and let go of the anxieties and to do lists? What will help you create a sanctuary in time?

Maybe you turn your cell phone off for the day, or refrain from using the internet. Perhaps you do house chores on Saturday and spend the day enjoying your garden or lawn by playing games or sitting and reading in it. Maybe you extend your time with community by sharing a meal. Perhaps you journal, run, sit in silence, sing loud, or dance. Maybe each week you do something new, or you might develop a regular practice. Whatever it is, it should take you away from those spatial comforts Heschel talks about, and draw you nearer to the people you love, nearer to God, and nearer to self. It should not just be a distraction from you work, but a delight in life and rest. It should feel like a different time, so that when step out of it, you feel somehow lighter, you feel fed, more alive.

The poem on your bulletin this morning I think summarizes how Sabbath should feel quite well. Wendell Berry is a writer, and lives on his farm in Kentucky. Part of his Sunday Sabbath is to walk through his property, often in silence, and sometimes he writes (he writes poetry though, which is intentionally different from his day job). This poem is one of his Sabbath poems, and I’m just going to read you the end of it:

The mind that comes to rest is tended
In ways that it cannot intend:
Is borne, preserved, and comprehended
By what it cannot comprehend.

Your Sabbath, Lord, thus keeps us by
Your will, not ours. And it is fit
Our only choice should be to die
Into that rest, or out of it. (from A Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry)
May we walk away from this sanctuary, but remain in a sanctuary of time where our mind and our hearts are tended, where community is nurtured, and out of that rest is born life. Our own lives, the life of our community, and life that extends beyond us; life that reminds us to be the Samaritan who will stop, and maybe even take a step out of our daily time, even on a Tuesday.

Amen.

(Editor’s note: Lucy Waechter Webb is a Candidate for Ordained Ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is seeking a call. She blogs at Sowing Sabbath).


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Categories : Sabbath, luke 10:25-37

Simple as Possible

6 07 2010

A sermon preached by Marci Auld Glass

July 4, 2010

Southminster Presbyterian Church, Boise, Idaho

2 Kings 5:1-15a

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.  Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife.  She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”  So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.  And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments.  He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”  When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.”

But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage.

But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”
So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.
Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel”.

The kids at Vacation Bible School used this text a few weeks ago to show that kids can be heroes—like the slave girl who is brave enough to offer a word of hope to a foreign military commander.

It is a great text because is full of conflict and juxtaposition and surprise agents. People who have—kings and commanders—are contrasted with people who have nothing—foreign slave girls and servants. People who are in the faith—like the king of Israel—are contrasted with people who are outside of the faith—like Naaman, the Syrian and the Syrian king. And notice that the behavior we expect and presume from people within the tradition—like the king of Israel—is shown to be lacking when compared to the outsiders.

This text also disproves the notion of the “prosperity gospel”—that idea so popular in the American church today that says if you only have faith, you will be rich, successful, prosperous beyond measure. But the person in this text who has faith is not the one who is rich and famous and king of Israel. The person with faith in this text is an Israeli girl who has been captured into slavery, taken away from her home and family, and living in servitude in what is today Syria. This text should be a reminder to us that cultural, political, economic, or other advantages don’t equate to spiritual advantages. God is an equal opportunity grace bestower—no matter how much we wish God only liked the same people we do. No matter how much we wish it were easy to just look at people and decide if they are worthy or unworthy, in or out, good or bad. Stories like this remind us that God doesn’t operate in ways that make snap judgments possible.

Additionally, this story suggests that worldly advantages may get in the way of our faith.
When you can look around your life and rely on your own devices, gumption, and success—does that keep you from being able to rely on God? The King of Israel didn’t seem to consider that God might have something to do in this situation. He panicked because he looked around at his resources—armies, advisors, gold, and authority—and realized that there was nothing he could do to heal Naaman. But it never seems to cross his mind that he could rely on God.

To fully appreciate the King of Israel’s plight, let’s look at the context of this story. It is likely that the King during this time is Jehoram, son of King Ahab. Ahab, whom you might recall from a few weeks ago with his wife Jezebel and the vanquished prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel, was killed by the King of Aram in battle. This same King of Aram then writes a letter to Jehoram, asking him to do the impossible—cure someone of leprosy.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if someone who had killed my father asked me to cure someone of leprosy, I’d probably freak out a bit too. Do you know how to do that? I certainly don’t!

And he isn’t asked to cure just anyone. He’s asked to cure the David Petraus, the biggest military commander, of their biggest military opponent.

So there’s no pressure. None at all. Easy schmeazy.

But the King of Israel makes the mistake of presuming he knows the motives of the King of Aram. He reads into that letter ALL sorts of things that aren’t there.  Jehoram reads the letter and thinks, “he’s trying to trap me! He’s sent me an impossible request! His commander is going to die and he wants to blame me for it!”

But here’s what the letter actually said, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

Just a simple letter and ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of designer clothes.

Perhaps the King of Aram could have given Jehoram a little more information, but it is as if the King of Aram was also making assumptions—presuming that if there was a prophet in Israel who could heal people of leprosy, that the King of Israel would certainly know about him and would automatically send Naaman to him.

And what does it say about General Petraus, I mean Naaman, that he is still the commander of the Syrian army even though he has leprosy? All of the other lepers we meet in scripture, if I recall correctly, are outcasts. They are marginalized and excluded. Naaman was clearly in high favor with the King, and was militarily that important, to still have his job and to be sent to Israel with those kind of gifts.
But it appears that being a Big Deal gets in Naaman’s way too. Naaman is sent to Elisha to be healed and he pulls up in the driveway with all of his chariots, horses, and hangers on. But he doesn’t knock on the door. He just stands there—looking very impressive, I’m sure—waiting for Elisha to come out and thank him for the opportunity to heal such an auspicious man.

We don’t know what Elisha is doing in the house—rearranging his sock drawer? Watching the World Cup on TV? Reading the Wall Street Journal?—but he sends his messenger out to Naaman with some simple instructions. “Go wash in the Jordan River seven times and your flesh will be restored and you will be clean.”

The next time this happens, when your yard is full of Syrian chariots, here’s a tip—don’t send your servant out to greet the General. They get a little insulted.

And, apparently, Elisha should have also come up with a more impressive cure. Don’t just send them off to do something simple—come out and make a big show of it! And if you are going to send someone to wash in a river—make sure it is an impressive body of water—and one that would have been familiar and comfortable to the General.

Are we like Naaman? When we are seeking healing and cures, do we put conditions on our requests? Do we have pre-conceived notions of how healing is supposed to look that get in the way of receiving the healing when it comes?

But then again, like the slave girl, Naaman’s slaves, the people with no voice in society, speak wisdom to Naaman. “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”

Thank God for people who speak truth to us, especially when it comes with some risk to them. Slaves weren’t usually invited to point out their masters’ mistakes, I’m guessing.  Yet, here, they did.

Who are the people in your life, trying to speak truths to you? Are you open to hearing truth from the people to whom society gives no voice?

Naaman, to his credit, recognizes the truth when it is spoken by his slaves and he goes to the river to be cleansed.

His flesh was restored. He was cleansed. He was healed. He was saved. And his healing led to faith. His response to being made clean was to acknowledge, before Elisha and all of the hangers on that “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel”.

His claim about God is a big claim. This Syrian General, commander of the armies, announces that the one true God isn’t from his hometown. He has to let his partisan allegiances go to make this claim about God.  He could have said nothing, taking his healing and going silently back home to Aram.

He could have said, “thanks for the healing. For a bunch of Israelis, your God is pretty good, but now I’m going back to Aram where the gods are awesome!”

But he doesn’t. He makes a public claim for a god who is not backing his particular candidate.

I really had no interest or desire to mention the 4th of July in my sermon. After all, it is not a religious holiday we are celebrating today. But as we celebrate our nation’s independence today, I do think Naaman is worth remembering. Because while he was certainly involved in the politics of his day, his faith was a much bigger issue—one that rose far above his politics.

And that is one thing that makes America so great—the political and civic involvement of her people. Each of us are called to be involved in this political experiment that has been underway in this country since the Declaration of Independence was signed on this day in 1776. And how that looks to each of us is different.

But, as Christians, like Naaman, we are called to something higher than the American political process. We are called to proclaim “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel”.

So, as we prepare to share communion this morning, I invite you to consider that here we gather as people of many nations, many ideologies, many understandings, and many differences. But we will gather as ONE because it is through Christ we are connected.  Listen to the words of the apostle Paul from his letter to the Galatians:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Naaman lived before the time of Christ, but his declaration at the end of his healing reminds me of Paul’s words. Naaman, having been washed and cleansed in the same river that would one day baptize Jesus, could have said, “in God there is no longer Israeli or Aramean, there is no longer slave or king, there is no longer clean or unclean, for all of us are one in God”.

So, friends, it is right for us to be proud to be American and to wear our red, white, and blue. It is right for us to celebrate this day that for over 200 years, our nation has stood for freedom, giving voice to the voiceless, and being an advocate for liberty and justice around the world, often at the cost of American lives.

But I hope we’ll also remember Naaman, and our calling as Christians to serve a greater kingdom, coming together despite our differences to be united in a common purpose, that there may be healing for us all.

Amen.


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Categories : 2 Kings 5:1-15