Sermon:
February 16, 2003
Sunday Night Alive!  

Scripture:
2 Kings 5:1-14

About ten years ago on a warm summer morning, a fourth grade boy, whom I’d been camping with all week long, woke me up. It was a Saturday morning, the day parents came to pick up the campers. He woke me up because he had these itchy little red bumps all over. At first I thought it might be poison ivy. But it turned out to be chicken pox. 

That was the summer before my first semester at seminary. In fact, five days after camp was out, I was in campus housing. At age 27, I had never really seen chicken pox before. I assumed I had had it. We all have, haven’t we? Did you know that the incubation period is 14 days? 

Some of you may already be doing the math. About a week and a half into the start of summer intensive classes, the new guy comes down with chicken pox and is quarantined in his room. Fortunately, fellas from the seminary and folks from the local Methodist church heard about what happened. They brought groceries, called every other day or so, and got me through it. It’s a powerful experience to be on the receiving end of Christian love, to have complete strangers caring for you. 

In tonight’s reading, the problem isn’t chicken pox. As miserable as they are, they do pass. The problem is leprosy, a disease that eventually kills. It was the AIDS of the Bible. The fellow who has it is named Naaman. He’s the right hand man of the king. Imagine if Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney or Colin Powell announced they had AIDS.  

Naaman knows what lies ahead. He’s heard the stories. He’s seen others. He’s willing to try anything. Yet, as the rocker Meatloaf promised about love: “I would do anything, but I won’t do that.” Naaman has to get over some of his own hurdles first.

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.  (2 Kings 5:1-14)

In April 2001, a Gallup poll of 1,000 people revealed that 63 percent of Americans who experienced remarkable physical or psychological healing, consider their religious faith to be the most important influence on their lives. That’s compared to 28 percent who have never had such an experience. We have to take from this that there is something innately powerful about a situation we cannot control, a time in our lives when our own resources are not enough, a time that opens us to God in a way maybe never before experienced. It’s when we’ve got nowhere else to go that we’re willing to listen. But even then, we’re our own worst enemy. Look at the passage. 

Naaman first goes to the King of Israel. He goes to the top right. That was probably a fellow by the name of Jehoram, who was not one of Israel’s most godly kings. Jehoram responds: “Am I God? Do I have the power to cure?”                       

A friend once attended the baptism of his neighbor’s son. It was at a Greek Orthodox Church and was a huge event! Everything was taking place in the middle of the congregation, and the place was packed. Unfortunately, Lawson was running a little late and had to sit near the back. It didn’t seem to matter which way he leaned, he couldn’t see what was going on. Even more frustrating to him was that he was sitting directly behind a mother and her young son. The boy was squirming and moving around, standing up and talking, as children do. Lawson tried to offer the child something to play with, but finally it was more than his patience could take. 

As he told it, he leaned forward to the mother and whispered: “Can’t you please keep your child quiet? I can’t hear what’s going on.” The mother whispered back: “What’s going on isn’t about you. It’s about God.” 

How often do we assume it’s all about us, that we’re the center of what God is doing? Jehoram didn’t realize that God just might be working in a way he had no part of.  

Fortunately, Elisha heard that Naaman was seeking help. Now, when we are looking for help today, what do we look for? How about a referral, someone who knows the person and has had a positive experience with the person? “If he or she helped me, maybe they can help you.” Whether we call it by name or not, we’re giving personal testimonies all the time. 

We also look for personal attention. How satisfied would you be if you had a potentially fatal disease and the doctor responded to your appointment by sending an assistant who never examined you, but simply handed you the doctor’s prescription? I can imagine the assistant saying: “You can have that filled across the street.” I just don’t think that would go over very well. 

While we in the 21st century might say, “How can anyone know my condition without examining me?”, Naaman is enraged, and storms away saying: “For me, he should have come out, called on the name of his God, and waved his hand over the spot.” In essence: “I’m important. He’s not doing it right. I need to be healed.” 

Do you remember, back in college, those impossible multiple choice exams? You think you’re ready and yet the object is to pick the “best” answer. And you end up missing the question because it didn’t seem like it could be that simple. We do it to ourselves all the time. And Naaman is no exception. God’s prophet sends him word, telling him to “Go, wash in the Jordan.” He starts listing all the reasons why that’s not enough. 

So often it’s not our circumstance that keeps us separated from what God would have for us, but rather it’s our refusal to believe that God just might be doing something. There are times when we are called by God to action and we’re overwhelmed. We see what’s ahead and say: “O Lord, how am I ever going to be able to do this?” Then we hear Paul’s words (from Philippians 4:13) once again: “We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.” 

There are other times when it is so simple, we just can’t believe it’s true. We can’t believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—such an awesome God—could act in such a simple and straightforward way. It’s not so much that the jump is high or low, it’s that the jump requires faith.  

One day a boy, John, called his parents. It had been two years since they last heard from him, but in some ways those two years had been a relief. John had a drug problem. He had stolen from the family, manipulated them and, in so many ways, broken their hearts. It had been a long ten years, and in some ways they were glad he was gone. 

When John called, he told his father that he had gotten treatment, that he had been in a rehabilitation program, and there he had met Jesus Christ. “I’ve been forgiven for my past, Dad,” he said. “Now I want to ask you and Mom to forgive me, too.” 

They were torn between hope and cynicism. On the day they picked him up from the airport, the clean, bright-eyed young man who arrived looked like a stranger to them. In the days that followed, John told of the treatment and the withdrawal, how in the midst of that he had found a church, and one Sunday evening asked Jesus to be his Lord. And his life hadn’t been the same since. 

For the parents, the change was almost too dramatic to be believed. They struggled to open themselves once again. “I don’t know if I can do that.” Yet, in the end, it was seeing the new life that John exhibited that allowed them to understand. It was God doing it, not just John. 

It never is solely about what we can do, or what we can’t do. It’s about what we’re willing to trust God to do. After all, it’s not about us. It’s about God. And that’s good news in the midst of all that the coming week will hold. Thanks be to God. Amen.