We live in a very complex world. Most of us don't need to be told that. We have come to expect that most every situation or problem we have to deal with will involve far more than we would expect. There is a billing error in a credit card bill we receive. The simple solution would be that you pick up the telephone and call the card company or maybe even just the store where you made the purchase and they make a correction to your bill. But you know what happens--first you call the customer service number on the incorrect bill and you encounter a barrage of telephone options that begin usually with the instructions, "If you are using a touch tone phone please press one now" and in so doing you have entered the maze of instructions that may ultimately lead you to a real human voice who will inform you that the correction needs to be made in billing, please hold while you are transferred--at which point you again encounter a maze of instructions that lead ultimately to the human voice that informs you to do the following--Well, you know where this is all leading. After literally hours on the phone and dozens of punched buttons I finally completed the rituals necessary for getting some remedy to my bill.
Technology, we would like to believe, it is making our lives easier. But even when we strive to make the solution more accessible we have our problems. Recently I had a difficulty with my broadband computer link--while I sat on hold waiting to talk to tech support I listened over and over to a recording that encouraged me for faster service to use my computer link to the company web site--which of course I could not access because the reason I was calling was that my computer link didn't work. Finding a solution to the problems of our lives is often a matter of looking in the right place for the answers--and then accepting the truth that we find--no matter how ultimately simple or obvious that truth might be. Such is the learning set forth for us in our Old Testament lesson for today--a story from Second Kings that some of you may remember from a Sunday school class but a story that is probably not among the top 10 favorite stories of the Bible. One reason why this story is so appropriate for us today is that it sets forth for us the all too human tendency to make complex that which is ultimately quite simple.
In Second Kings we find the story of Namaan, a general of the Syrian army--Syria was the country just north of Israel. For all his military skill and might Namaan has a problem--he has been stricken by the disease leprosy--which was one of the most feared diseases of the ancient world--but a small slave girl captured by the Syrians from Israel suggests that there is a prophet in Israel who can heal Namaan. We all know or have heard of people so desperate to find a cure or solution to a problem that they will do almost anything--including denying the very rational or even faith centers of their lives. We need to remember that in the ancient world the proof of the power of your God was demonstrated by the success of the nation--its king and its armies. The success of the Syrian armies and General Namaan was seen as a mark of God's favor and presence in Syria--Israel's God could not possibly be more powerful since Israel's armies were not more powerful. Yet Namaan's wife hears from a small Israelite slave girl that there is a prophet in Israel who can heal her husband. Namaan is a desperate man. He goes to his King and asks to be allowed to pursue this desperate dream.
There are times in our lives when we reach our limit--there appears to be nothing more we can do to make our lives right --when we are willing to try anything--even willing to consider the impossible--times when we turn to God making promises and deals because we have tried everything else--and when our god doesn't work we are even willing to try the other god's around us--other religions--other cures--other fixes. So the King of Syria sends word to the King of Israel that the powerful and trusted general Namaan is coming to Israel to be cured. Now the times of the great kings of Israel had long since passed--the days when a king like David stretched forth his armies as the arm of God making secure the people of Israel and kings like Solomon spoke with the very wisdom of God were no more.
The king had become just another political leader doing the best he could to keep the economy rolling and the people as safe and happy as was reasonably possible. When the king of Israel receives word of Namaan's coming he cries out, "Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me." As far as the king of Israel was concerned the whole situation was a set up for further invasions by the Syrian when the leprosy could not be cured. But God still dwelt in the land--It was just that the separation of church and state had shifted the power of God to the community of prophets--and the greatest of the prophets of that day was Elisha. Now prophets are not big on rituals and forms--they tend to be more interested in challenging people to meet their God in their daily lives--As Pastor Chris suggested last week--to hold up mirrors that reflect on our lives and faith. Could it be that our lives are so complex because that is how we expect them to be and what we look for? There was a time when you could lift the hood of your car and know exactly what you were looking at and how to fix it--now we know that the computer chips hidden within that engine will defy our best efforts and we better expect the worse when the engine won't start. But some times the question is not one of complexity--but the challenge to accept the possibility of the simple still having a place in our world.
Not long ago I had some difficulty with one of my cars--the engine would start sometimes but other times you would turn the key and nothing--then you let it sit a little--look at the engine under the hood--maybe bounce the car a little and voila--it would start right up. I finally took the car to my mechanic expecting problems with the starter--solenoid-spark plugs--some unknown computer chip--only to have the service department call to inform me that one of the battery cables had come loose so the connection was poor--seems slamming the hood and bouncing the car would sometimes cause the cable to shift and make a better connection--they tightened the clamp and everything was just fine. The prophet Elisha told the King of Israel to send Namaan to him--So Namaan with his great retinue of chariots and horses arrived at the door to Elisha's house--And Elisha sends a messenger out to Namaan telling him to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times--Namaan is a bit taken aback--He is a Syrian general--and Elisha sends a messenger--and the message involves no special prayers--no magic potions--no dramatic rituals--just go and wash in the waters of some muddy nothing little river that doesn't even begin to compare to the great rivers of Syria--the Des Plaines River compared to the Mississippi--Namaan basically says, "Who is this prophet kidding?" and he departs in a rage. But Namaan's servants are also desperate for their master and they plead with him, "If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?" Mythology, legend and history is filled with the stories of great exploits to achieve a certain goal--quests for golden fleece and holy grails. In more recent times the search for miracle drugs and mighty weapons--but the prophet said simply wash and be clean. The simple solutions to our complex lives. Doctors tell us that if most people drank twice as much water and half as much caffeine (in coffee and in soft drinks) they would be far healthier. Some things are too simple--We know that the divorce rate among couples who spend one hour in worship together at least once each month is 11 times lower than those who take that same hour to sleep in or hit the golf course or go to the cabin--one hour a month--too simple. The Search Institute has done extensive studies on why some teens succeed in school and life and has identified 40 developmental assets that are the building blocks for healthy, caring and responsible young people. Seems the more assets a young person has in their lives the more likely they are to be the kind of young people and adults we want our children to be. Interestingly, some assets seem to be a bit more important than others. Many of our area school systems and our Christian Education program here at Holy Spirit are based on providing for our young people as many of these assets as possible. There are no magic rituals or special programs that will guarantee success in our complex world but we are increasingly aware that there are some very simple things that mean far more to the well-being and development of our children and ourselves than we ever realized. Search Institute tells us that one of the most important assets is identified as: "Religious community--Young people spend one or more hours per week in activities in a religious institution"--one hour--how could one hour make any difference--it is too simple--we schedule our young people up with more important activities--more popular activities. One hour--too simple. We have all heard the story of the patient--who comes to the doctor and complains that every time he makes a certain motion with his arm it hurts and he asks the doctor what he should do to make it stop hurting. The doctors reply is simple, "Don't do that."
Our world is so complex and yet the solutions
are in one sense so simple--the people are killing each other
in Israel and Palestine--the solution is actually quite simple.
Don't do that. In our personal lives it is no different--the doctor
tells me my cholesterol is too high--Every time I eat unhealthy
or fail to exercise I should hear a little voice in my head saying--"Don't
do that." In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus sends out
the 70--but his mission instructions are keep it simple-keep it
simple in what you take with you and what you say and what you
do and what you expect in return. And the seventy returned with
joy at all that they had seen and done. In the new play at the
Goodman Theatre "Blue Surge" by Rebecca Gilman a police
detective in the play bemoans his reassignment to the burglary
unit because he says he is tired of getting calls to people's
homes that are so filled with stuff that the people only know
their house was broken into and something was taken but they have
so much stuff they can't figure out what's missing--they have
so much stuff they don't know what was stolen. Our lives get so
cluttered that relationships are stolen from us but we don't even
miss them--time is lost but we are too busy to miss it--meaning
and purpose in our lives disappears in the complexity of commitments
to new more popular causes. Jesus cautioned his disciples to not
focus on their power or skills but to rejoice instead in the simple
truth that they had a place in God's kingdom--their lives had
meaning in their knowledge of God--they lived in witness to God's
grace and God's love.Our ministry to those around us is a gift
from God--a simple gift of faith that invites us to know the world
not in its complexity but in its core of simplicity--the unifying
center points of all life--moments of birth and death--moments
of love and caring--moments of grace and sharing. Sometimes the
solution to our complex world is to pause--to do the simple thin--to
wash and be clean--immerse ourselves in the waters of grace-drink
deep of the spirit of God's presence.
Amen.