The following is a sermon preached at Campus Chapel in Ann Arbor on August 25. The sermon is less exegetical and more of an interaction with the text of 2 Kings 5. It started with a rumination on 2 Kings 5:13 (“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’?””) and then moved gradually into exploring how God enters into our lives.
If we were asked to do something hard,
I think most of us would do it with conviction.
Especially if it meant saving someone’s life.
Yet, when this all started back in March,
we were asked to wash our hands umpteen times a day.
Singing a song so we would wash long enough.
And then we were told to stay home to stay safe.
Where are the heroics in that?
It seemed so little.
And even almost cowardly.
As if we were afraid of illness and death.
At first, it seemed so little,
And so I didn’t understand why I chafed,
Why was I protesting so strongly?
Why do I want to turn away in anger, like Naaman in 2 Kings 5?
If I had been commanded something difficult,
would I not have done it?
How much more then, when only this little is being asked of me?
Wash, be clean, keep others clean.
And then the protests started.
Protesting masks. Protesting injustice.
And I understood that the words, wash and be clean.
Actually meant so much more:
Wash away your ideas of control
Let go of your life as it used to be.
For Naaman, the command was an invitation.
Humble yourself,
wash yourself in the river of this other country,
follow the strange commands of this prophet and his God.
Let go of your life as it used to be.
Recognize that all your best efforts cannot save you.
God alone does the impossible.
And we, we are invited to wash our hands,
Let go of our plans.
Recognize how little control we have over the future.
Deny ourselves
Trusting that God can use our small efforts to save lives.
Be baptized by the water
That washed away our sins
And also washes away our good desires
That sometimes grow
As unhealthy as the disease that covered Naaman’s skin.
Naaman returns to the prophet healed.
Deeply thankful,
ready to make a great sacrifice.
Except he is not allowed to pay for the gift he received.
A reminder again
that no matter how mighty we are
God does not need our help.
But instead God invites us to keep asking.
On top of the healing,
Naaman asks for dirt.
Something to take with him
So that he can serve the God of Israel
While not needing to give up everything in his life.
An ancient prototype of technology, you could say
Allowing Naaman to remain with those he cared about.
While continuing to be reminded of God’s gift
And so live in thankfulness for the gift he received.
Our gifts today are internet and zoom,
Social distancing and masks,
Keeping us connected to those we love
Allowing us to keep coming together.
As we live into the rearrangement of our lives
That began with a focus on washing our hands.
And as hard as this time has been,
The story of Naaman speaks
to how God enters into our lives.
Challenging and shaping us.
Inviting us to wash ourselves
Opening ourselves up to God cleansing
And healing us.
Naaman’s cleansing began with a stranger.
A foreign captive in Naaman’s house.
Who spoke up and was heard
Who brought words of hope
A promise of the impossible.
In a time when distancing makes helping hard
When every other person I interact with
could be a potential threat
And even those I love
Are disrupting the order of my life.
How does one keep loving and listening?
When I’ve spent so much of the last months
With barely enough energy left over,
How do I care for those who are part of my communities?
my next door neighbors?
Let alone the foreigner and stranger
All the potential threats.
How do I not become contaminated by this illness
that spreads through being connected?
How does my physical distance
Not become emotional and spiritual distance?
How do I not become like the king who tore his robes:
How dare you expect me to do something?
I cannot heal others.
But to ask that is to blind myself to the truth
That God is the one who heals.
God who has entered into our lives.
God among us - Immanuel
Jesus who healed so many during his time on earth
And then conquered death
Before returning where he reigns on high
God the Spirit who is with us
This God is the one who heals.
This God can do the impossible:
This God can renew our earth and climate;
Heal the polarization in this land
Enact changes to end structural racism.
And this same God invites us,
Like the servant girl,
To be part of that healing.
Not because our efforts will change the world.
But because sometimes,
Like the servant girl,
our words are heard.
And we become part of God’s
Entering into the world.
The servant girl spoke.
Naaman listened.
Elisha intervened.
God acted.
And so the impossible happened.
But, oh we so want to claim
That it was our voice that changed things.
Or get some kind of reward
For what we have done.
Or perhaps simply we are tired
And just want something to make life a little easier.
What was Gehazi thinking?
The request –
The slight distortion of truth
Just 2 sets of clothes
And some silver
How could that be a big deal?
As a child, I couldn’t believe Gehazi’s greed!
How dare he!
And as an adult,
I see in him myself.
That longing to be rewarded
For all that I have done.
To be compensated
For that all I have given up.
And God enters the story here,
Just not perhaps the way we’d like.
Elisha confronts Gehazi.
And Gehazi is punished harshly.
Probably not so much for his greed
As for how he has distorted God’s image.
What picture of God is shown
When Naaman is able to ‘pay’ for his miracle
When instead of radical grace
His healing has shifted into a transaction
Especially if that transaction comes from Gehazi’s desire
To take advantage of their enemies.
Instead of trusting that God does provide.
And so God enters anew into Gehazi’s life
Through sickness
And what has often felt, to me,
a harsh punishment.
But Gehazi’s story does not end here
He shows up again in chapter 8
In the courts of the king, of all places!
He is advocating for the Shunammite woman.
Reminding the king of Elisha’s great deeds
Of raising her dead boy to life again
While also advocating that the king
Give back to the Shunammite woman
The land that she had left
And, even more, giving her back all the income
That her land produced in the time she was gone.
Radical provision.
A story of God providing
And so I wonder,
if the story might have more grace than we first might see.
If God’s interruption of Gehazi’s life
Was a catalyst for something new.
Something good.
Being open for God’s intervention
Washing ourselves in the Jordan.
It sounds simple.
Yet, just like with Naaman, it asks so much more of us.
It sounds like nothing heroic,
Except to speak up with courage when needed
and allow God to throw our whole lives into chaos
Rearrange our schedules again and again.
Confronted by how little control we have,
And invited to offer our whole lives up to God.
This invitation, as hard as it is, is also a gift.
Let go of our efforts.
Trust in those of God.
And perhaps we will,
just like in the stories of Elijah and Elisha,
Be a witness to God showing up.
Be a witness to the impossible.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Amen.
