Sixth Epiphany
2 Kings 5:1-14
There is an old maxim from Poor Richard's almanac that goes--For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost for want of a horse the rider was lost for want of a rider the battle was lost, for want of the battle the war was lost all for the loss of a horse shoe nail. It's a goofy little maxim but it does remind us of how important seemingly insignificant, mundane ordinary things can be.
Our Old Testament lesson for this morning would call our attention to just such a point--The story of Namaan--a great general--a man of importance, prestige, earned stature. General Namaan comes down with one of the most dreaded diseases of his day--leprosy--A disease that would rot the flesh--destroy the body and make a person less than human. The disease meant not only an end to his career but would soon turn him into an outcast. He would become one of the unclean. No one would come near him. No one would touch him.
Little wonder that Namaan faced with such a future would become desperate--Desperate enough, in fact, to take the advice of a foreign slave girl--an insignificant little prisoner of some military conquest--Namaan listens to someone who is the lowest of the low, a foreigner, a slave and a girl. Truly he was desperate.
Now this slave girl directs him to Samaria where she says there is a prophet Elisha who will be able to heal him.
But Namaan is a great general, a very important person-- Namaan's own king actually writes the letters of introduction for Namaan to carry with him. He also carries with him more than adequate payment for the service requested. Namaan was a very important person and expected to pay great sums to be healed--money was clearly no object.
Namaan played his political cards astutely. It's all in who you know. So with all due ceremony and ritual and honor he appears before the King. Surely the King will be impressed and smile upon him, ordering his subject Elisha to come before him and do the healing.
But the reaction is somewhat unexpected. The king thinks it's a ploy to begin a quarrel and rants, Am I God to kill and to make alive?" Thankfully the prophet Elisha intervenes and sends word that the king should send Namaan on to him. So the great general Namaan, with full retinue and honors stands before the door of lowly Elisha's house.
Elisha does not even deign to meet him. Elisha sends a messenger. Go wash in the Jordan seven times and you will be clean. Namaan can hardly believe his eyes and his ears-- A messenger indeed and what kind of advice is this to wash in some muddy local stream? No magic words, no expensive potions. No prolonged and complicated treatments.
Wash in the Jordan. Cattle washed in the Jordan--laundry wasn't even washed there--certainly the rivers of his homeland had to be as good as this local puddle. Surely such a simple treatment was meant to humiliate him. The prophet was making sport of him. Namaan is angry, he is enraged. Had he been asked to go through months of prolonged treatment that would have been reasonable--Had the prophet performed extensive gyrations and gestures that would have been reasonable. Had all the assembled retinue been asked to perform sacrifices to this Israelite God that would have made sense--but simply to wash himself in the Jordan; well that was beneath his dignity and pride.
At heart Namaan must have been a very good man--his servants certainly cared an awful lot about him. Again God uses the insignificant to move Namaan. It takes these servants appeals to convince him that if he would willingly do the great things wouldn't he even try the simple things required to be healed?
And we are told Namaan went and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times according to the word of the prophet and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child and he was made clean.
I love this story. I love it because it captures an attitude that is so typically human. How often we are willing to take on the big challenges, to do the most difficult tasks, the most demanding activities, pay the big bucks and yet we are not willing to participate in those life giving actions that are simple and ordinary and yes even mundane.
We will debate on an intellectual level how close a relative would have to be before we would decide to give them a kidney for a transplant but every day we have the opportunity to sustain life. Early on in our blood drives here at Holy Spirit I remember talking to Jeannie Larson. Jeannie had at one time worked in the lab at Lutheran General. She told me about times when doctors would call down from the operating room in the midst of surgeries for more blood and there was no blood to send up. It was all gone. ...Apparently when Life Source calls to tell us supplies are low they actually are low. We have the opportunity, regularly, to take an hour of our time, which by the way can be spent very pleasantly socializing with other Holy Spirit members, to do a very simple ordinary life giving activity. But like Namaan we expect to be asked for great heroic tasks, not simple ordinary ones.
We often assume that the activity that gets covered by the media with splash and dash is more important than a behind the scenes activity that might not get noticed.
We are entranced with all the expensive dietary supplements at the nutrition store but forget to eat breakfast and drink water.
How often have we said "I should contact my congressman about that but then because it seems like a small thing let it slide.
How often have we felt that it would be nice to stop by and visit Aunt Emma but just never gotten around to it. These are not big important things. We'll never get credit for them in the newspapers. We'll never win an award we'll never get thanked by special committee action but that's not why we're doing it.
God does not call many of us to extra-ordinary tasks--but God calls all of us to be faithful and obedient servants.
In a like way, how often do we look for the big, the important, the exciting events in life to prove God and yet we ignore the every day constant presence of our lord.
A lot of people believe that a healing that takes place under the glare of klieg lights and the television eye, that is surrounded by a rousing sermon and an emotional confession of faith is a miracle of God. And yet many of those same people will not accept that a pill taken daily to keep blood pressure down or the day in day out work of therapy that gets a person walking again is more a miracle of healing from God.
Namaan could understand a God demanding special treatment. Namaan could understand a God expecting flourish and expense. And because of that, for Namaan, God almost got lost. After the King got angry, after Elisha's snub he almost threw in the towel and gave up. But God was working. God spoke to Namaan, not through a professional spokesperson quaffed and made up very precisely but thru a slave girl and some servants. These were God's agents to cause Namaan to accept the healing that was being offered.
God speaks to us today. Often through the most unlikely folk. Maybe through our children asking us that simple but probing question that makes us reexamine our thinking. God speaks to people in the most unlikely ways; maybe God speaks to others through us. Maybe that will never happen if we don't take seriously the mundane activity of reaching out to a friend or neighbor.
God speaks to us in the ordinary things of life. Quite probably we will not have visions or be struck over the head with divine encounters. We will instead allow God to find us through the Word--through the Bible, through faithfully reading and studying with an open mind and heart the words of scripture. By allowing ourselves to be both challenged and comforted.
The Bible---and the sacraments. We tend to think of the sacraments as something exotic and extraordinary. And yet we miss the point of them if we do not recognize that the extraordinary thing about them is that God uses the most ordinary of materials---water, bread wine to indicate that God's touch comes through the ordinary stuff of life.
God works through the ordinary, the average, the every day processes of life. We are called to be servants in this. We are not called to be spectators enjoying the show. We are not often called to save Kingdoms, to fight wars and battles but we are called on to take care of the nails. For the kingdom rises and falls---all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Amen