The Rev. Amy Hodges Morehous
Proper 9, Year C
July 4, 2010
Church of the Ascension
2 Kings :1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
“Oh, say can you see….”
How odd, today, of all days, to begin with the reading about Naaman – that conquering general, and famous leper. On this day, the day when we celebrate our freedoms – at least, our political ones – our unalienable rights in this country, rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – we hear a story about a famous, successful, wealthy and powerful man, a man who had everything one might think would make him happy in life, but who was on a desperate quest to find the one thing that would make him whole.
Naaman is a general in the Syrian army, and an enemy of Israel – a man who commanded armies, who defeated his enemies…and a man who was defeated by his own body. If you’ve ever had any sort of chronic illness, you know exactly how frustrating it is to be at the mercy of your own immune system. Such was Naaman’s life. And such was his desperation in his search for a cure, that when he heard a perfectly ludicrous suggestion from the most unlikely of places…well, he took it.
And what was the key to Naaman’s healing? A young slave girl. A girl with no home, no status, no money, and no freedom of her own. She doesn’t even rate a name in the story, but she is the one to point Naaman in the right direction.
Naaman cleans out his bank account, gathers together 10 of his finest outfits, and sets out on his journey of hope. He goes immediately to the king of Israel – if it’s healing you need, obviously you go to the place of the most power. In Israel, of course, that must be the king. Only the king can’t help him. The king’s kind of earthly power is useless in the face of Naaman’s disease. The king even suspects that the whole thing is a plot to return the two countries to war, and has what my grandmother used to call “a conniption”. But Elisha hears of Naaman’s disastrous audience with the king, and offers to help. So the grand procession goes in turn to Elisha’s house, horses and chariots and servants all in procession.
When Naaman reaches the house of Elisha, a servant comes out with a note for him, telling him to wash in the Jordan seven times, and he will be cured. Naaman, perhaps inspired by the king’s example, throws his own fit, a blistering temper tantrum worthy of any two-year-old.
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 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.
Naaman clearly wanted the full-on show. He wanted to be coddled, and shown respect according to his status, and when he didn’t get it, he did what most of us would do. He took his toys and stalked off, muttering. But once again, the people with the least amount of status save the day. His servants, more of those nameless, powerless people, approach him, and persuade him to do as Elisha suggested.
Naaman strips and wades into the Jordan River, exposing all the parts of his leprous self that he would probably rather no one see, and does as he is told. And, miraculously, he is healed. “His flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy.”
What we don’t hear today, unfortunately, is the continuation of the reading in 2nd Kings. Naaman returns to Elisha, in gratitude and thanksgiving, and acknowledges the power of a sovereign God. “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel!” Then Naaman wants to pay him for the healing, wants to give a gift to Elisha, but he is refused. This healing, this miracle of grace, was given freely by God, and no payment is required, even from the man who has everything.
As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “All (Naaman) had to do was empty himself out, abandoning the pretense that who he was or what he was worth could get him what he needed. God did for him what military victories and kings and bags of money could never do. God restored his flesh. God created him all over again, and he was made new.”
On this 4th of July, maybe there is a reason to remember this odd but profound political story of the Old Testament, a story full of human divisions, and complicated national relationships. The story of Naaman, who was great and powerful man, but broken. Of the slave girl, who was an instrument of healing, even while a captive. Naaman was the enemy of everything Israel stood for, was, in fact, a man who had killed Israelites, had sacked their cities, and taken them into captivity in Syria. Naaman’s wealth, power and prestige were gained through his oppression of the people of Israel. Despite that, God turns our predisposed notions on their heads, and makes him whole anyway, extends to him grace upon grace, so that he is healed in a way that exceeds his wildest expectations.
On this day of joyful national celebration, we remember that our God is no respecter of tidy political boundaries. God’s grace is for all of God’s people, in this country, and around the world. God is the God of the powerful, and of the weak. Would that we had a day of celebration that tied us all together, one common humanity, under one God. Some day, we are promised that healing vision, when God will be all in all, when our very human tendency toward division and strife will be overcome.
When I was a little girl, my mother would take us to see the fireworks. One evening, full of food, warm from the heat of the day, and tired from all the excitement, I turned to her, and said, "Mom, do you think this is what heaven is like?" You can understand my confusion there - there's great food, and your family is there...and fireworks! What could be better than that? Everyone is one motley family, immigrants all, joined only by our belief in a profound hope. On Independence Day, for a few hours, we are all given the chance to celebrate a common good, one that surpasses class, wealth, gender, and all those other divisions we are good at observing the other 364 days of the year.
Today as a country we celebrate our shared hope, the one that the founding fathers articulated so profoundly; “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” When the founding fathers concluded the Declaration of Independence, they wrote: “For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Today we celebrate those vows, and we hold to that mutuality.
We celebrate every fourth day of July that we are not alone, that we are interconnected in our hope of something larger than ourselves, in our wish that our country would live up to the highest of ideals, and the greatest of hopes. When we stumble, and we do, would that we could remember these moments of national unity, when we together are greater than the sum of our parts.
So it is in the kingdom of God. We are reminded by the story of Naaman that neither our country nor the world can be divided into one big game of ‘us vs. them’. Today, we are assured that God responds to profound human need, regardless of class or station...or nation. There is no one people God favors over another. As Paul reminds us earlier in Galatians, “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.”
We affirm today that wealth, status, earthly power, and pageantry are nothing in comparison to God’s freely given gift of grace. We celebrate that boundless grace is given to the wealthy, and the penniless. To the general, and the slave. To the free, and the captive. There is no person, not one, beyond the reach of God’s healing grace. God reaches out to heal each of us, and make us new, today and every day, and we are a new creation. In celebration, we take off our sackcloth, and we clothe ourselves with joy. On this Independence Day, and on all days.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Proper 9, Year C
July 4, 2010
Church of the Ascension
2 Kings :1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
“Oh, say can you see….”
How odd, today, of all days, to begin with the reading about Naaman – that conquering general, and famous leper. On this day, the day when we celebrate our freedoms – at least, our political ones – our unalienable rights in this country, rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – we hear a story about a famous, successful, wealthy and powerful man, a man who had everything one might think would make him happy in life, but who was on a desperate quest to find the one thing that would make him whole.
Naaman is a general in the Syrian army, and an enemy of Israel – a man who commanded armies, who defeated his enemies…and a man who was defeated by his own body. If you’ve ever had any sort of chronic illness, you know exactly how frustrating it is to be at the mercy of your own immune system. Such was Naaman’s life. And such was his desperation in his search for a cure, that when he heard a perfectly ludicrous suggestion from the most unlikely of places…well, he took it.
And what was the key to Naaman’s healing? A young slave girl. A girl with no home, no status, no money, and no freedom of her own. She doesn’t even rate a name in the story, but she is the one to point Naaman in the right direction.
Naaman cleans out his bank account, gathers together 10 of his finest outfits, and sets out on his journey of hope. He goes immediately to the king of Israel – if it’s healing you need, obviously you go to the place of the most power. In Israel, of course, that must be the king. Only the king can’t help him. The king’s kind of earthly power is useless in the face of Naaman’s disease. The king even suspects that the whole thing is a plot to return the two countries to war, and has what my grandmother used to call “a conniption”. But Elisha hears of Naaman’s disastrous audience with the king, and offers to help. So the grand procession goes in turn to Elisha’s house, horses and chariots and servants all in procession.
When Naaman reaches the house of Elisha, a servant comes out with a note for him, telling him to wash in the Jordan seven times, and he will be cured. Naaman, perhaps inspired by the king’s example, throws his own fit, a blistering temper tantrum worthy of any two-year-old.
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 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.
Naaman clearly wanted the full-on show. He wanted to be coddled, and shown respect according to his status, and when he didn’t get it, he did what most of us would do. He took his toys and stalked off, muttering. But once again, the people with the least amount of status save the day. His servants, more of those nameless, powerless people, approach him, and persuade him to do as Elisha suggested.
Naaman strips and wades into the Jordan River, exposing all the parts of his leprous self that he would probably rather no one see, and does as he is told. And, miraculously, he is healed. “His flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy.”
What we don’t hear today, unfortunately, is the continuation of the reading in 2nd Kings. Naaman returns to Elisha, in gratitude and thanksgiving, and acknowledges the power of a sovereign God. “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel!” Then Naaman wants to pay him for the healing, wants to give a gift to Elisha, but he is refused. This healing, this miracle of grace, was given freely by God, and no payment is required, even from the man who has everything.
As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “All (Naaman) had to do was empty himself out, abandoning the pretense that who he was or what he was worth could get him what he needed. God did for him what military victories and kings and bags of money could never do. God restored his flesh. God created him all over again, and he was made new.”
On this 4th of July, maybe there is a reason to remember this odd but profound political story of the Old Testament, a story full of human divisions, and complicated national relationships. The story of Naaman, who was great and powerful man, but broken. Of the slave girl, who was an instrument of healing, even while a captive. Naaman was the enemy of everything Israel stood for, was, in fact, a man who had killed Israelites, had sacked their cities, and taken them into captivity in Syria. Naaman’s wealth, power and prestige were gained through his oppression of the people of Israel. Despite that, God turns our predisposed notions on their heads, and makes him whole anyway, extends to him grace upon grace, so that he is healed in a way that exceeds his wildest expectations.
On this day of joyful national celebration, we remember that our God is no respecter of tidy political boundaries. God’s grace is for all of God’s people, in this country, and around the world. God is the God of the powerful, and of the weak. Would that we had a day of celebration that tied us all together, one common humanity, under one God. Some day, we are promised that healing vision, when God will be all in all, when our very human tendency toward division and strife will be overcome.
When I was a little girl, my mother would take us to see the fireworks. One evening, full of food, warm from the heat of the day, and tired from all the excitement, I turned to her, and said, "Mom, do you think this is what heaven is like?" You can understand my confusion there - there's great food, and your family is there...and fireworks! What could be better than that? Everyone is one motley family, immigrants all, joined only by our belief in a profound hope. On Independence Day, for a few hours, we are all given the chance to celebrate a common good, one that surpasses class, wealth, gender, and all those other divisions we are good at observing the other 364 days of the year.
Today as a country we celebrate our shared hope, the one that the founding fathers articulated so profoundly; “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” When the founding fathers concluded the Declaration of Independence, they wrote: “For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Today we celebrate those vows, and we hold to that mutuality.
We celebrate every fourth day of July that we are not alone, that we are interconnected in our hope of something larger than ourselves, in our wish that our country would live up to the highest of ideals, and the greatest of hopes. When we stumble, and we do, would that we could remember these moments of national unity, when we together are greater than the sum of our parts.
So it is in the kingdom of God. We are reminded by the story of Naaman that neither our country nor the world can be divided into one big game of ‘us vs. them’. Today, we are assured that God responds to profound human need, regardless of class or station...or nation. There is no one people God favors over another. As Paul reminds us earlier in Galatians, “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.”
We affirm today that wealth, status, earthly power, and pageantry are nothing in comparison to God’s freely given gift of grace. We celebrate that boundless grace is given to the wealthy, and the penniless. To the general, and the slave. To the free, and the captive. There is no person, not one, beyond the reach of God’s healing grace. God reaches out to heal each of us, and make us new, today and every day, and we are a new creation. In celebration, we take off our sackcloth, and we clothe ourselves with joy. On this Independence Day, and on all days.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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