Strange Healing

“Strange Healing”
 Message @ Jericho Ridge–Sunday, Aug 12, 2018
Text: 2 Kings 5  // Series: Stranger Kings 2

Good morning & Welcome to Jericho.  My name is Brad, I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge. As you can see from that intro video, we are going through the book of 2 Kings this summer here at Jericho and today we are exploring the story of Naaman from 2 Kings 5.  It is kind of like a play in three acts…  We are going to look at three people, drawn together by strange circumstances beyond their control unite for a journey that will change them all. I love the poetic way in which Katherine Hawker sets up this strange play in her work Liturgies Outside…

a little girl

an army commander

a religious zealot

for one brief moment

difference suspended

doubt superseded

ordinary water

simple ritual

extraordinary presence

Will we have the courage of the child

to reach out to even the powerful.

Will we have the wisdom of Naaman

to ask for help when we are lost.

Will we have the faithfulness of Elisha

to love outside the lines? 

These are the questions we’ll be asking ourselves as we move through this story.  So if you have your Bibles or phones, turn with me to 2 Kings 5. We’ll start with Act 1.  Now, Act 1 is really a tragedy.  On multiple fronts.  This is a time in history when it was extremely dangerous to be alive.  Local nation states were all vying for power and control and they had armies that would occasionally conduct raids into neighbouring nations.  So one day, raiders came from the nation of Aram to the nation of Israel. And these raiders plundered a local village, they killed men and women and they took young girls back to Aram and sold them as slaves to the highest bidder.  It’s human trafficking for the purpose of economic and military supremacy.  I think it is hard for some of us today to imagine the impact that this kind of event would certainly have on this young girl in our story.  But she is placed in a home that is socially and politically powerful – this young girl (verse 2 says) has been given to Naaman’s wife as a maid.”

Now, Naaman, we learn in 2 Kings 5:1 is the commander of the Army of Aram.  He is amazing warrior, highly skilled and successful in battle and greatly respected by the king and his troops.  But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy.  Leprosy isn’t something that we are accustomed to seeing in our world today but it was much more common in the ancient world.  Leprosy was a kind of skin disease that was incurable, contagious, and usually resulted in parts of your body falling off.  Not something that you would wish on your worst enemy!  This is the tamest photo I could find.

But here’s the first interesting plot twist in our story…  “One day the girl said to her mistress, “I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy.” 

When I first read this story, I did NOT see that coming.  Think about this for a moment.  This young girl has had her home and family and everything she knows in her young life ripped violently away from her. By the Aramean army. She now works as a slave in the household of the head of that army.  If I’m her, I’m plotting revenge.  I’m thinking of how I can poison this Naaman guys’ food.  I’m scheming how I can pay him back for the horrible losses inflicted in me in my life.  Yet this young girl wants Naaman to be healed.  She wants to pay back evil with good. 

Jesus instructs us to love our enemies and to do good to those who persecute us.  But friends, let’s be honest with one another… This is incredibly hard work!  Our natural inculcation in situations where someone has wronged us, has cheated us in a business transaction, has hurt us deeply in a personal relationship or has betrayed or abandoned us is to want to take that anger and rage and weaponize it.  To lash out and hurt people around us – intentionally or unintentionally.  But this little girl chooses and different pathway.  She models a path of healing and forgiveness and love in the face of all of the evil and wrong that has been done to her. 

So I want to pause here for a moment and ask you and I to reflect & respond: is there someone who has hurt you?  Jesus invites & empowers us to practice RADICAL LOVE for our ENEMIES

• “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.” (Jesus in Luke 6:27-28)

?) Can you bless those who hate you?    [story}?   

Well Act 2 of our tale gets even more strange!  After some consultation with the king, Naaman sets out to visit the prophet Elisha whom this young servant girl has told him can cure him of his leprosy.  And this Naaman guy does NOT travel lightly.  He takes with him as gifts to offer to prophet 750 pounds of silver.  Now, I don’t have 750 lbs of silver, if I did that would be worth around $168,326 and it would be very Heavy to carry on a trip.  So we’re going to have this road case represent the silver for us that Naaman is carrying.  On top of that, the guy takes 150 pounds of gold with him that is worth around $181,200.  We’ll have this big green suitcase represent Naaman’s gold transport unit.  AND he takes 10 sets of clothing!  Do you think we can fit 10 sets of clothes into this suitcase? 

[helper – how are you at packing?]  Airlines care a LOT about how much luggage you take on.  This has to do mostly with fuel costs and how heavy planes are. Fun Fact: “The Federal Aviation Administration sets an average weight per traveler and carry-on luggage to estimate how much weight planes will carry. According to "The New York Times," the average weight assigned to each passenger by the FAA is 200 pounds for men, 179 pounds for women and 76 pounds for children under 13. These estimates include 16 pounds per person of carry-on luggage and averages in the weight of winter and summer clothing”

OK – so we are ready for a journey.  Naaman sets off to find out if there is a true God in Israel.  He is going to go and see the important spiritual person, the prophet Elisha who probably wave some magic wand over him and BAM he’ll be healed of his leprosy.  Let’s pick up the story in verse 9 of 2 Kings 5:

So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and waited at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 But Elisha sent a messenger out to him with this message: “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River. Then your skin will be restored, and you will be healed of your leprosy”

Wait a minute.  I come all this way, with my 750 pounds of silver, 150 of gold, my 10 outfits to give you, prophet dude, and you don’t even dignify me by showing your face!  You send a servant out with a message about taking a bath in some stinky local waterway!  No way!   But Naaman became angry and stalked away. “I thought he would certainly come out to meet me!” he said. “I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and heal me! 12 Aren’t the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than any of the rivers of Israel? Why shouldn’t I wash in them and be healed?” So Naaman turned and went away in a rage.

To be fair to Naaman, whatever image you have in your mind of the Jordan River, and some of you have been.  It’s no mountain brook!  At some places, its really nothing more than a muddy drainage ditch.  So the idea that you could bathe in it and get clean is a little absurd.  Let alone take a dip in it 7 times and come out cured from an incurable disease.  So in his anger and confusion, Naaman takes his luggage turns back and starts for home.  Trip is a bust!   

But his officers tried to reason with him and said, “Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply, ‘Go and wash and be cured!’” 14 So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him. And his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child, and he was healed!”

Make no mistake about it, friends.  This is a strange healing.  A man dips in muddy water 7 times and on the 7^th time, God does the impossible and grants healing to a foreign army commander who is searching for something that is real.  For healing spiritually as well as physically.  And by God’s grace and God’s spirit, healing comes to Naaman that day.  And his life is forever changed. 

So he responds in the only way he knows how.  He takes his gifts and heads to Elisha’s house. Then Naaman and his entire party went back to find the man of God. They stood before him, and Naaman said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”  Elisha says “I serve the Lord, thank you, and so “Keep calm, carry on and no gifts”. 

Just to be clear, the reason Elisha does this is that he doesn’t Naaman’s gifts is that he doesn’t want Naaman to feel like he bought his healing from the Lord.  Elisha wants it to be 100% clear that this was God’s grace at work in the life of a man who was willing to take a trust risk and travel a long way with a lot of baggage to find out for himself that God was real.  That reminds me about the journey that each and every person takes to faith… You see, we live in a world where we are told things like there’s no free rides.  And we equate the value of the relationship with the value of a gift necessary to open the door to that relationship.  And this can leave some of us feeling that we need to earn God’s love.  That surely we can do something flashy and impressive to make God pay attention to us.  Maybe showing up a church or putting a couple of bucks in the offering.  Or maybe saying a prayer now and again or more often.  Maybe that Project 3:45 bible reading plan the pastor is always on about.  If I do that maybe that will prove to God that I am worthy of His love and mercy. Listen to the word of the Lord, which is altogether true and is given to us in love:

• “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Naaman brought with him $349,526 and ten really nice sets of clothes to buy his healing.  But God gave it to him for free.  Why? Because God is reckless and lavishly generous like that.  God’s grace and His love are given FREELY and without cost. But you have to receive them.  God is not a bully who forces things onto people they don’t want.  Have you received His grace?  So many of the songs we sing as a community remind us of this priceless gift and call us to places of gratitude and celebration. 

It is important to note here that is grace while free, came at an incredible personal cost to God. Jesus offered up His life freely as an act of love so you and I might live and experience the healing and reconciliation God provides.  Don’t miss out on that chance.  Naaman almost walked away because his pride was hurt.  Because he didn’t get greeted the way he liked.  Because he got asked to do something that wasn’t difficult but it was strange to him.  Don’t miss what God has for you because you are too stubborn to listen!  The way you respond to God’s invitation is in prayer – simply saying “yes” to Jesus and admitting need.  At the end of our gathering, if you have never done that, we have people who would love to guide you through that process of receiving your healing. 

OK, remember I told you we had 3 acts.  Act 3 gets a bit crazy because it involves someone we met last week in Pastor Mike’s sermon – Elisha’s servant Gehazi.  And it involves greed and the consequences of pursuing it.  Let’s keep reading in 2 Kings 5:20-27 and following [4 slides]    150 lbs silver & 2 sets clothing (transfer to carry on bag). 

Yet another plot twist!  Instead of seeing God’s amazing generosity at work, Gehazi sees a missed financial opportunity.  He thinks to himself: “That guy was ready to off-load a half a million dollars and we said NO?!!  What is going on? Elisha must be out of his mind.  I’m going to get what is coming to me.  I’ll chase Naaman down and I won’t ask for all of it, I’ll just take a bit.”  So he does.    

But remember, God wanted to demonstrate God’s love freely and generously to Naaman.  And Gehazi undercuts that process.  He essentially steals that which does not belong to him and he lies in order to get it.  And it’s here that we see our 3^rd and final principle for reflection and application: 

Nothing is hidden from God… Least of all the financial aspects of our lives!  Greed kills.     

Greed and dishonesty have a way of sneaking in the back door of our lives if we leave it unguarded.  This is not to say that having money or nice things is wrong. But we are continually reminded in the Scriptures to keep our lives free from greed – the love of money, not money itself, is the root of many kinds of evil. 

The book of Proverbs paints vivid pictures of this for us when it says 

• “Such is the fate of all who are greedy for money; it robs them of life.” (Proverbs 1:19) Greed is serious – not an acceptable sin!
• “Some people are always greedy for more, but the godly love to give!” (Proverbs 21:26)

?) Are there areas of your life where greed and dishonesty are setting in?  (Antidote: generosity)  Do you find yourself hiding credit card statements from your spouse lest they see your sending habits?  Do you find yourself saying ‘yes’ to things without considering if you can afford them? Do you want what the boat or the car or the fancy holidays that your friends or neighbours have?  Watch out.  Greed might be trying to sneak in to your life.  Be on your guard against it.

One of the most powerful ways to guard against greed is to practice generosity.  Giving breaks the stranglehold of greed on your heart because you are taking an action that says “God has provided for all of my needs.  I trust God.”  2 Corinthians 9:7 says that you should not give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”  This is hard work but it is also why one of our core values is generous living.  Because we are firmly convinced that God is a generous giver and when we give generously, we are reflecting and living out the heart of God for this world. 

I am going to invite our ushering team, Sandy & Muriel, up this morning and our worship in song team & prayer team members (Pastor Wally, Ann Marie, Constance, myself).  And I’m going to pray for us that we would be known as a generous people.  As those who stand against the tide of our culture and who refuse to let greed take root in our lives.  Let’s pray together… 

God of mercy and grace,

We declare your sovereign rule over all aspects of our lives and your church. 

You are generous and so we desire to be generous. 

You give freely and so desire to do so as well. 

We come to you this day with our offerings. 

You have blessed us financially and so we desire to be a blessing to the world. 

O God of compassion,

through the witness of a captive maidservant

you healed Naaman in the waters of the Jordan.

Through Jesus you healed the lepers.

Heal us so that we may follow Christ with joy,

giving thanks and practicing generosity with all our being. Amen.

~ from Revised Common Lectionary Prayers

Benediction (by Richard Bott):  

You invite us into many strange places, God.

You invite us into relationships,
you invite us into conversation,
you invite us into action.

When the invitation is difficult to accept,
give us strength, and wonder, and hope.

When the invitation is to an easy way –
help us to accept and walk on!

In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.
~ written by Richard Bott, and posted on Sharing Liturgy.