Sermon for Sunday February 15, 2009/Epiphany 6

Epiphany is a season of surprises – we look through a series of Biblical accounts that illustrate not only how God works in our lives to bring about change and transformation, but also tell of how our lives are often lived completely oblivious to the presence of God.

It’s a human condition that we pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves on our self-importance quickly pointing out how busy we are, especially when asked to give something of ourselves. Though we may pay lip service that ‘all we have in our lives is given by God,’ but when it comes time to pass on what we have been first given – our selves, our time, our possessions – we suddenly become very important, very busy, and very defensive.

Which really comes down to power, I think. I think when we’re doing well, and are successful, and comfortable – then we feel powerful, and are reluctant to attribute the gaining of that power to anyone but ourselves. It makes us feel small.

The opposite of that is that when the bottom falls out of the market, or the test comes back positive, or your spouse walks out on us, God figures very highly in our lives – again, I think because we feel we’ve lost power and must then believe in a being that exerts some kind of ultimate power over the circumstances of our lives.

The atheistic objection to God – why does God let bad things happen – is a power question. It is never phrased as its opposite – why does God bless people with all manner of good things – because, quite frankly, most people don’t want God poking in on their affairs when things are good, but want someone to blame when they’re bad. Value is placed on things only if they cost us something or give us power – not if they are freely given. It’s this aspect of God’s grace that often have difficulty understanding – that it’s freely given, though purchased at a far greater cost that we can ever imagine. It is ‘power’ in a way that we can barely understand.

So Naaman found. Because by and large, I think his story is about power – how he perceived it and wanted to use it, compared to how God used it to bring about his healing and wholeness.

Naaman. Commander of the army of the King of Aram – present day Syria – and in high favour with his master because the Lord had given him victory over the armies of Israel. Yes, we did hear that right – God had given the leader of an invading army victory over his own chosen people. But Namaan didn’t know it – he just knew that he was big and important.

But he was also sick. Leprosy, the story tells us – really, a catch-all term for a host of skin diseases. To give the story a modern twist, we could even speculate it as a kind of melanoma – a fast moving cancer of the skin that can be very painful. It had to be painful in some way, at least, for the slave of his wife to notice. She was a token taken in battle by him, and given to his wife to be her servant. I give my wife nice earrings; he gave his a slave. Happy Valentine’s Day, honey.

But the slave girl believed in God, and from this most unimportant of messengers came the first witness to Naaman of the Lord. And Naaman in turn, went to his master to ask permission to travel to the land that Syria had just conquered. Actually, what he did was go to the source of his own power (given to him by the King) to ask permission to tap into another monarch’s power.

Naaman sought out what he perceived to be the source of power in the land, and went to the King of Israel with an honour guard of his own and a gift – probably eighty thousand dollars or so. And he demanded of the King that he be cured.

But he didn’t do anything that we don’t do. He sought out the place where power was traditionally held in his society. We go to a doctor, not a naturopath or a faith healer. We ask politicians, not pastors, to fix our woes.

And the King of Israel hadn’t heard of any prophet. So far, Elisha hadn’t done anything to attract the attention of the King. Sure, he’d travelled around with Elijah, but had done very little on his own. The King took Naaman’s request directly, and panicked. His own power was being immediately threatened, and he assumed that Naaman was back to fight him again, so soon after gaining victory. What could he possibly want? Naaman, a huge and powerful man, was demanding of the King the power of God – to cure Naaman of his sentence of death. Power the King had – power to sentence someone to execution, to invade, to raise an army – but not the power of God, to give death or life.

So picture the capital of Israel. Not Jerusalem, but Samaria. A squat city, surrounded by a large wall. And then picture several hundred foreign charioteers camped outside the gates. They’re not for show; they’re a professional elite fighting force.

(Picture instead, if you will, a battalion of Marines accompanying the next American businessman to come to Calgary for lunch with the mayor. You’d sweat. They’ve got the best weapons of the day. They’re trained to use them. There’s a largely undefended populace. And by the way, the Marines are very, very bored).

So word spreads across the country to the rural backwater where the prophet Elisha is staying. And the prophet sends a message to the King. Note that: he sent a message. He didn’t come himself. Whether he didn’t consider himself important enough to present himself before the King with the admission or simply knew that God’s power didn’t need fashionable circumstances is a good question.

The message Elisha sends the king reads more or less as follows: “don’t be stupid. Send him to me, that he may learn of God”. Not “that he may be healed,” not “that I can help you,” but simply, “that he may learn there is a prophet in Israel.”

So Naaman goes back on the road. Not just himself, though; no, he takes his honour guard with him. This would be quite a production, I think. Children would line the road to see this army come through – curiosity would overwhelm fear, after they’d passed through the first two or three towns with little pillaging. And then this group stops at the house of the prophet Elisha. Naaman, the man who brought Israel to its knees, commander of the armies of Aram, a mighty warrior – is then given a message at the door.

“Don’t come in. Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and be clean.”

Is that it?? Go and wash in the Jordan seven times? Naaman is enraged, and we catch a glimpse of exactly how powerful he thinks he is. “I thought that for ME he would surely come out, and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the sport, and cure the leprosy!” No big show. No production values, no God talk, no flashing lights. Naaman is convinced that Elisha is mocking him – telling him he smells. He needs to see something – hocus pocus, abracadabra a showing of power – or to do something for this to be healed.

But his servants stop him, and remind him gently that power manifests itself in other ways. “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?’” And Naaman, humbled, went and washed in the Jordan, and became clean.

Naaman’s sense of his own identity sprung from his own conception of power – he was powerful as a leader and a warrior. So, when he sought out healing, he believed that it would come in the same form as he found power. First, that he could force a King to heal him, or force the king to direct the prophet. Failing that, he arrived on the prophets’ doorstep and demanded a sign. Being told to go and wash – in effect, that all he needed to do was something very simple – he became angry, because he wanted to see power. He wanted mumbo jumbo.

What he found, then, was that God’s healing – God’s grace – comes freely, and simply. There are no strings or steel hawsers attached; no mighty deeds, no quests. God’s grace isn’t found in the fantasy story of the mighty hero doing noble tasks on a arduous quest – it’s found in the gift of a dandelion held in a grubby little fist. Simple, and free.

The story of Naaman opens our eyes to the reality that God’s power is made manifest in the weak, the humble, and the simple. From the words of a servant girl, to reluctance of a prophet, to the warrior stripping off his armour to wash, and be made clean.

God’s power is made manifest here among us now, in bread and in wine, in times past and in times to come. We, who have been washed in the Living Waters of our baptism, gather in community at the table of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the waters, like Naaman we find the power of God. It can bring the dead to life, and it can fill an empty soul. May Jesus in this season of Epiphany open our eyes to see his power at work in places we don’t expect it, in places that we often ignore or seldom care about.

And may that power equip us for work and service in the kingdom of God, that we may serve with joyful and believing hearts and share the message with all people:

Wash, and be made clean.

Amen.