This is the text of the message I prepared for Kaniva Shared Ministry for Sunday 3rd July 2022.
2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.
I wonder, has God ever asked you to do something stupid? Maybe not, or maybe yes and you didn’t recognise that it was God because what you were asked to do seemed pointless or tokenistic or random for the sake of random. One of those situations where your prayer might be “okay LORD, I know you and I know you are sovereign, but couldn’t we just do this the obvious way instead? Do we really need to be so radical and extravagant just to prove that it’s by your Spirit and not by my might?” It can be a difficult situation when you know that it really is God speaking to you, and not a trick of your imagination, but it just seems so extra when it could have been so simple.
This is kind of where Naaman was when Elisha sent him to bathe in the Jordan. If baths had worked then he wouldn’t have come all the way from Damascus, he would already be clean. Naaman was looking for something more in his miracle, but also something less. Okay so wash your skin condition in holy water, which sounds miracle-inducing, but why a river of all places when there are rivers enough back home. With all the effort I have made to get here, where is my prophetic anointing with oil, where is my hocus pocus (hoc est corpus meum)? Sometimes God can be confusingly redundant.
When I look back through the story of Naaman, a story I know I heard first at Sunday school over forty years ago, including colouring in the picture of his scabby arms, there are a few things that I see as stupid and random; but the activities of God and of Elisha are not amongst them. There’s a whole bunch of attitudes here, and what I see is God working as much on men’s hearts as God is on one man’s eczema. Ah, the benefits of hindsight and a Christian upbringing.
The first unexpected outcome in this story is that young Israelite woman shows compassion on Naaman. I say “woman” and no age for her is given in the Bible, but “girl” is probably closer to the point. This young woman (girl) is a captive, probably taken as booty in a battle between the Arameans and the Israelites, and she is a domestic servant. Even so, as a slave and a war-prize she shows love to this man who took her from her family and her people, and now owns her as if she were a domestic appliance; and tells her mistress to tell the master about the man of God in Samaria. Samaria where she is from and where the kings of Israel now rule. Slaves aren’t generally thought to have compassion for their conquerors, but here she is showing kindness. Good for her.
Then we have the King of Israel to whom the King of Aram sent a letter. The Israelite girl had spoken of a prophet, and not a king in Samaria, nonetheless the correspondence goes to the palace. Is there an attitude there I wonder; are the Arameans too important, or is Naaman as a king’s general too important for anything less than top-level diplomatic letter-writing? Let peasants go to General Practitioners and prophets, generals go only to Specialist Surgeons and kings. Clearly the King of Israel has no idea what is going on, and he takes the letter as a threat. Well it is a threat, he’s being asked to do something that he is powerless to do, but then the plea wasn’t supposed to go to him anyway. Regardless of social status you cannot ask a king to do what only a prophet can do: fortunately for all concerned the appeal to help makes its way to Elisha and all works out. Too much arrogance and status there, Big Male Energy.
Then Naaman hears the invitation from Elisha and he and his retinue continue on from the palace and arrive at the home of the prophet; at which point the general is sent on his way with a simple instruction for his healing (take a bath), but without a proper greeting. Again there is humility and simplicity from the LORD’s agent, and Big Male Energy from the helmet on the horse.
The story we can pull from this Hebrew Tradition is that The LORD stands ready to help, especially when the helpless one does not insist on holding human-ascribed dignity before The LORD. As willing as God is to heal, no one deserves anything from God and no one can command it, not even the general of a conquering army whose victories were won in the strength of The LORD, attested by scripture. Grace is always free and underserved, as soon as you insist upon how deserving you are you actually miss the point, and you begin view God as a tool or even as a slave to you. Naaman is cured because his maidservant was kind and his manservants are open-minded to the possibilities of God’s working, as much as by the power of The LORD spoken through the prophet. Naaman went home healed of his scabies and eczema, but he also returned to Damascus and his place of high honour with a heart softened and made humble toward God, the only LORD.
When we turn to Psalm 30 and the reading which the Lectionary specifically connects with the Hebrew story we find a better attitude toward seeking God and receiving healing than that showed by Naaman. O LORD you bought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from those gone down to the Pit is what we read in Psalm 30:3. This is a man (probably) who understands that God did a miracle, something that the man himself and all of his doctors and advice-givers could not do for him in his serious illness. But have a look further along where at Psalm 30:6 he speaks of a previously held attitude, held in his prosperity where he declared at the time I shall never be moved; by your favour O LORD, you had established me as a strong mountain. Well that doesn’t sound so bad, we might think, after all it is The LORD who has built him up in my prosperity as the man acknowledges of himself. When we read along a bit we get the sad story of God that you hid your face; I was dismayed. But straight away to you, O LORD, I cried, and to The LORD I made supplication; there is no sense that the man was ever arrogant, he attributes his prosperity to God, yet he still felt estranged from God. Immediately he prays for a hearing and for mercy, and his next words are you have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. Prosperous because of The LORD and yet humble, his suffering seems undeserved and one of those things that happens in a fallen world, yet he calls out to the God who had blessed him with wealth and he gets his health restored straight away. And then he gets his worship on. Maybe this is a song of Naaman in hindsight. It isn’t actually so, the psalm was (apparently) written by David and so is a lot earlier than Naaman’s century; however the Hebrew subheading suggests that it was later used at Hanukkah, so this song stayed in use and Naaman could well have learned it and used it in personal worship. I think of him praying that “everything I thought I had earned in my own Big Man Energy I now know came from The LORD. Now, and for the rest of my life I will give right praise to God, and I will proclaim the goodness and favour of Israel’s God, even in Aram, (except when the King is looking)” That’s the spirit of 2 Kings 5:15b, 18.
When we turn to the Jesus story today and our two readings from Luke 10 we find a similar-yet-different response to Naaman’s original attitude and an insight into Elisha. How do we best serve God when we are the ones God choses to bring healing? Firstly, your job is to be humble, just as the one seeking God in you comes in humility, because the miracle you provide is not given in your own strength. Go out as ambassadors of grace, with the fullness of God in your hearts, minds, feet and fingertips, but go with simplicity (Luke 10:4), a sense of gratitude (Luke 10:5-8), and servant-heartedness (Luke 10:9-10). Even when you are rejected know that it is God who is being rejected, and simply leave that place (Luke 10:11) and take your blessing with you (Luke 10:6, 11). Leave nothing behind but deliberately and resolutely move on to the next place. And no, James and John, you don’t need to call down fire from Heaven (Luke 9:54-55); were you not listening last week? Just walk on. And when God does act through your feet and fingertips, and when God does act for you through the hospitality and provision of the communities to which you were sent, return praise to God who rules all things and give worship to the one who has called you to salvation (Luke 10:19-20). By all means get busy with The LORD’s work; but remember The LORD and don’t get ahead of yourself as a self-appointed hero of the faith.
There is a lot more that could be said about this Luke 10 reading, but you’ll probably hear that in 2025 when the lectionary rolls this way again. In the meantime live a life of confident humility before God, know that you are precious to the Father and that you do have a place in the affection of Heaven and the mission of the Kingdom, but also know that all of that is by grace through faith and that you can only receive it, you cannot grab at it or snatch it as a deserved prize or wage. Naaman received his healing when he was prepared to do the thing that gave most glory to God, even when in the short term it made him look like a fool. The Psalmist received his healing when he immediately went to God, even with his prosperity in every other area, and cried out for mercy in the place of his relationship. And the apostles who went to all nations of the earth returned rejoicing at what The LORD in God’s glory accomplished through their willingness and simplicity.
Let us be the same, and do the same, for the sake of the one we adore and cherish: Jesus.
Amen.
damienwrites 