Costly Compassion 6 Epiphany Pastor Peg's Sermon on 2 Kings 5:1-14 & Mark 1:40-45  February 12, 2006

When Reg and I left two weeks ago for the Head of Staff Conference it was raining here in Chico .  (By the way, it was one of the best conferences I’ve attended and we are very grateful to have been able to take it in!)  When we returned less than a week later there were blossoms on the trees here that were not there a week earlier.  How could God do all that in one week?  I thought it was going to be more like in the Dear God children’s prayer: “Dear God, I keep waiting for spring, but it never comes yet.  Don’t forget.”  I know more rain is coming, but the blossoms say spring is coming too!

But as to how God could do all that in one week, the scriptures before us this morning show us a God who does all kinds of wonders – though often in ways and by means we don’t expect and sometimes we don’t even like.

In today’s II Kings reading unexpected people carry the story forward.  A young slave girl has hope in a situation of grave hopelessness.  Though Naaman, the commander of the Aramean Army has had great victories, he now faces something all the horses and chariots and wealth in the world cannot command.  He has the dreaded skin disease, leprosy.  And for all the rank he can pull, he holds no rank over this disease.

But the story doesn’t end as would seem inevitable.  Naaman does not go off and die separated from his people.  Instead, the story links him to people he’d never imagine being liked to and the story ends in surprise.  An Israelite girl who had been taken captive by the Arameans is used by God in an enormously surprising way. 

This young girl serves as maid to Naaman’s wife, so in essence she is in enemy hands.  But that does not keep her from seeing the human need.  She sees the possibility of healing for Naaman and doesn’t withhold what she knows. The girl’s compassion is costly because had she held her tongue, Naaman, who was the one who enslaved her, might have remained crippled with leprosy and disempowered.

But the girl risked compassion and says to her mistress, “If only my Lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria !  He would cure him of his leprosy.”  And Naaman’s wife listens to her maid and tells Naaman.  And Naaman, in desperation sends a letter to the King of Israel, his enemy, and asks to be healed. But when the King got the letter he was beside himself and interpreted it as a plot to trap him. Who was he to cure leprosy?  He didn’t know what the girl knew – that there was a prophet who spoke God’s word of healing.  But when the prophet, Elisha, the successor of Elijah, heard of the King’s distress he said to the King, “Let Naaman come to me.”

And so Naaman came with all his entourage loaded down with silver and gold and beautiful Aramean garments and horses and chariots.  But Elisha wasn’t impressed by all that and just sends a messenger to meet him.  And Naaman is incensed.  He knew himself to be an important person and Elisha does not even take the time to come himself and wave hands over him and cure him in a grand fashion. 

And the messenger who Elisha sends makes things worse for Naaman because he tells Naaman to simply dip seven times in the Jordan River .  How outrageous!  The Jordon River !  There are better rivers in his own country of Damascus !  And then, do something as simple as dip your body into some ordinary water!  Naaman was prepared to do something difficult, costly, even risky in order to gain his health and all Naaman is told to do is get wet.  But not just get wet. 

As you may know, the number seven in the Hebrew Scriptures means more than just the number.  The number seven means infinity, endless, on and on.  In other words, Naaman is being told not to just dip himself; not to just get wet seven times.  He’s being told to do this endlessly.  He’s being told to live wet.  The story is a story about transformation.

Leprosy was a life threatening disease, but it was also a socially threatening reality.  To have leprosy was to be banned from human community.  It was to wear a label naming you unclean. There was no cure in those days.  There was no hope.

Martin Luther identifies Naaman’s dilemma with our efforts of works righteousness, our efforts to save ourselves from the predicaments that enslave us – physically, emotionally, spiritually, or mentally.  No matter how brilliant of a commander Naaman was, or how many riches he had, or how much clout he enjoyed he could not save himself. 

There are realities in our lives that we too have no power over.  Some people are struggling with life threatening diseases.  Others are buried under the weight of guilt and fear.  Still others are struggling just to make ends meet. Day-to-day life itself can be overwhelming.  Others find themselves saddened by the way things are in their family, or community, or in the world.  They do not see how to get around what overwhelm them.

Luther regards Naaman’s eventual willingness to dip in the Jordan River as a prototype of our acceptance of the gift of baptism.  Humbly living wet is what is asked of us in light of the realities that overwhelm us.  We do not have to be on the right side of things.  Naaman was an enemy of the Chosen People.  We do not have to have extra-ordinary means.  Naaman’s means did him no good whatsoever.  We do not have to be able to come up with a remedy for our problems out of our own ingenuity.  Naaman had no idea how to cure himself.  A little slave girl carried the story, not Naaman, by pointing him to one who spoke the word of God.  And in the end, it took his servants to convince him to do the simple thing that was being asked.  But Naaman wanted the cure so badly that he finally he waded into the Jordan River in spite of himself, and was cured.

In the verses before us this morning from the Gospel of Mark we hear another story of leprosy.  This man in the Gospel story believes Jesus can cure him, but what Jesus has on his mind is not curing, but healing.  And there is a difference.  In this story, the man with leprosy is ostracized by his community.  As a leper he is supposed to live outside the city gates.  And if he comes near anyone he is required by law to shout “Unclean!” and mess his hair up so he stood out in the crowd.  (I think we should ask Reg to demonstrate!)

There were other Levitical laws as well.  If you touched someone with leprosy, you took on their lot.  You too became unclean simply by that close association.  Jesus had compassion for the man, but he also saw the larger implications of the cultural taboo related to leprosy.  Jesus did not have to touch the man to cure him.  Jesus is God who can turn the weather from rain to blossoms in a week if God chooses. 

And choose God does.  And the man said to Jesus, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”  And Jesus chose to do more than cure his temporary state. Jesus didn’t prevent the man from ever dying.  He would die someday, as we all will.  What Jesus had in mind was larger than curing and so Jesus stretched out his hand and touched this leprose man.

Jesus’ compassion was costly because by touching the man, Jesus traded places with him.  He took on his ailment.  Jesus became unclean in the eyes of the world.  But Jesus did not live into that label.  He knew something he had come to help the world see: those with leprosy are not unclean, rejected, condemned in the eyes of God.   Jesus now wore the label of “unclean” according to the law, but Jesus continued to preach, to teach, to love and care and serve.  He continued to gather children around him, to speak with women in public, to call people to lives of blessedness and compassion – even costly compassion. 

To be sure, he was affected by his new label.  He now could no longer go into a town openly, but had to stay out in the country, as today’s text tells us.  But Jesus carried on his ministry and people came to him still. 

Jesus came to show us that nothing can separate us from God.  Or even, if we take the promise seriously, from each other.  Not even incurable diseases that eventually take our lives.  We are still in the company of Jesus who takes our lot upon himself.  And, we are still in the company of the communion of saints.  Not even death can hold us from God or each other. This is a promise to hold close at heart every time we come to the Table.

At the Table of the Lord it is with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven that we feast.  That means with my mom and dad, your late relatives and those who will die too soon in life.  They remain a part of God’s forever family.  What is overwhelming is met by God’s love forever.  And if this promise extends to the ultimate overwhelming that death is, how much more so does it make sense for us to trust that it extends to the daily overwhelmings of our lives.

                                                                                   Amen.

+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Church, Chico, California