Posted by: pastor on 02/24/2009 17:38:52
Sermon from February 15
Naaman: Little Big Guy
In the Name of Jesus:
I lost a bet to Anna Young. I could hardly believe it. I don’t generally make bets that I consider to be any sort of gamble. I bet when I know I’m right, when I hold all the winning cards. But my certainty, in this instance, was misplaced. It had to do with who read what at the Easter Vigil last year, and it’s too long a story to tell now; suffice to say my pride is rather wounded, and as if that weren’t enough I owe Anna a cheesecake.
My ego has received worse damage than that, I can assure you; but it’s such a painful thing that most such incidents are pretty well buried. I’d have to do some psychic excavation to get at them.
I suspect I’m not alone in that, so perhaps we can all empathize with Naaman: Naaman the great commander of the Syrian army, the victorious warrior, surrounded with all of the spoils of war won against Israel, including a young Israelite girl captured and brought back to serve Naaman’s wife.
What does Naaman look like? How do you picture him in your mind? Put another way: what actor might portray him in a film? George Clooney? Denzel Washington? Clint Eastwood? Maybe…Certainly not Keanu Reeves or Will Smith. They’re both way too baby-faced to be believable to me as a mighty military commander.
And yet …for all of his apparent success, his evident power, his seeming invincibility, Naaman has a problem: a problem of huge proportion on many levels: a skin disease, which has implications no dermatologist could solve. His skin disease is also a social disease, one that alienates the community from him. His stature in other regards can’t change that, and perhaps makes it even more acute, in his own mind. In his own mind, and the minds of many, he is a tower of strength; his skin disease undercuts that image.
The Israelite girl enslaved to Naaman’s wife tells her about the great prophet Elisha, and despite the social gulf that separates them, Naaman’s wife conveys the information to her husband. Both proud and desperate, he takes the girl’s advice—sort of: a man of privilege, a man with resources, he goes not to the Elisha, but his presumed superior, the king of Israel, taking with him a letter of introduction from his king, a boatload of silver, another of gold, and 10 Armani suits—or something like that. Power speaking to power in the language of money. It nearly backfires when the king of Israel, faced with a demand for healing he can’t possibly meet, demands, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure man of his leprosy?” Elisha hears of it, and sends for Naaman.
Naaman has learned little, and approaches Elisha, again with all of the accoutrements of position, with his horses and chariots—the 6th c. BCE equivalent of a stretch Hummer. Without bothering to express even a little admiration for the exhibit Elisha sends out word, the simple command to “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be made clean.”
When cake mixes were first introduced to the market-place in the early 1930s, they weren’t greeted with widespread accolades. One reason: the results were inconsistent. Another reason, probably more significant: hey were too easy, too simple—left the loving housewives preparing them feel like they were short-changing their families. It wasn’t until new formulations, without powdered eggs, were introduced and women could add their own fresh eggs—really make a contribution to the effort—that they caught on.
Naaman exhibits something of this attitude. You might think that he would be relieved, pleased at the simple solution Elisha prescribes; but he’s like the guy with a head cold who doesn’t want chicken soup; the big man is a big baby and wants to see a specialist and have an MRI.
Little guys—his servants—intervene, and gently persuade him to give it a try. What’s the harm, after all? So he wades in the waters, washes seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and the mighty man emerges with skin as soft and smooth as a baby’s bottom. And though we don’t hear the rest of the story today, he emerges a new man, a man of new faith in the God of Israel.
Naaman’s life and health are restored as he comes to trust the word of God step by baby step, through the ministrations of God’s nameless, powerless servants. A young Israelite girl, Naaman’s wife, his own servants, and the prophet Elisha—the only one who is named in the story—and even he remains in the background, as God’s word brings life, health, and wholeness to Naaman.
Few of us are, I suppose, as self-important as Naaman, so arrogant as he. Not many of us are so prone to temper tantrums when our egos are offended. None of us may be a great military hero. But like him we wear heavy protective gear: power, position, prestigious address—and, if we’re lucky, money—the Kevlar shield. It seems a prudent way to live in this world. But when there’s a chink in that armor—death or disease, a fractured family or financial failure—then there is created a thin spot, a place where we are vulnerable to the authority of God’s word, seeping in through the cracks in our shells, working its way into our hearts, coaxing us, step by baby step to trust the One who alone has power to save, power to heal, power to make whole. The shells with which we cover ourselves are no help—like Naaman’s cartloads of gold and silver, his kingly letter of introduction—nor are they necessary.
Ancient iconography depicts newborn Christians naked and small, as if in affirmative answer to Nicodemus’ question, “Can a [person] enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
For us, too, healing is offered in the word of God: We are washed clean & given new life in the river of Baptism. For us, too, restoration and well-being comes in obedience to simple, grace-filled commands: Take, eat. Take, drink. My body, my blood, for you. Amen.
