C, Post-Pentecost 4, Proper 9 - 2 Kings 5:1-14 "The Problem of Being Parochial"

So [Naaman] went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.  (2 Kings 5: 14 ESV)

There’s not a better feeling being clean after one has endured in the stench of a filthy body for some time.  Even better is the peace and tranquillity of health after the churning and trauma of illness.  Picture Naaman standing clean in health after he had suffered at the hand of skin disease.  No more sores, no more oozing, no more itching and stinging, the smell of failing flesh is gone, and so too is the social stigma of being a carrier of leprosy.

But there’s a stigma that’s even worse than the physical ailment seen by all; it’s one not seen by the naked eye of humanity.  Yet it’s more debilitating, and every one of us are long sufferers and loathers of this stigma we bear in the being of our flesh every day.  This is the oozing, rancid, reality of sin.  Like Naaman all of us have a deep-down desperate desire to be rid of the sickly stench of our sinfulness.

However, it’s surprising Naaman even had the opportunity to be cleansed, let alone the cleansing once he was given the advice which would free him from the foulness of his flesh.  We hear…

…Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house.  And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.”  But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.  Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.  (2 Kings 5:9-12)

Now it’s easy for us to understand Naaman’s anger.  Why?  Because each of us bear the same pride as that of Naaman.  This pride manifests itself in his parochial attitude; the same parochial short sightedness as all of us bear.

A little test will demonstrate our bias.  Are you a cat person or a dog person?  What about Ford or Holden?   After all we all know Fords are “Found On Rubbish Dumps”, and Holdens are Holes, Oil Leaks, Dents & Engine Noise.  Perhaps you’re a lover of the green John Deere over the mighty Red of the Case or blue of the New Holland.  How about your political alliance; that always causes the hackles to flair!  And when it comes to the footy, surely we all stand as one!  Dare I even mention the other code and how they hold and kick a football! 

The point of this little, perhaps humorous, exercise demonstrates how our pride leads us away from listening, into opinions which are more or less built on emotive judgments.  It’s more than coincidence when a “one eyed supporter” evokes a war of words, always with another who’s just as opinionated it seems!  Pride always rubs pride up the wrong way!

Naaman expected big things from Elisha.  And Elisha surely delivered, but not as the military man had expected.  No pomp and ceremony, not even a face-to-face meeting, and washing in the waters of the Jordan, that’s just laughable; ludicrous!  Like Naaman, being parochial causes us problems.

But how did Naaman come to the point where he was commanded to wash in the Jordan seven times?  These are a string of events that break the parochial single mindedness of the most powerful people, and they all start with the capture of a little child.  In the scheme of earthly things, this young girl is a nobody; she amounts to nothing in the big picture of Syro-Israeli relations.  We can be quite confident there wasn’t talk of her capture in the halls of power at Damascus or Samaria.

Yet this is from whom the whole even unfolds!  A captured child of Israel speaks to her mistress, the wife of Naaman, about what Elisha, the prophet in Israel would do.  This little child speaks and cuts through layers of protocol and parochial etiquette.  She could be mistaken as obnoxious for speaking out of turn; after all she is a slave.  But against pride and protocol the wife listens to her, then Naaman listens to his wife, and then the king in Damascus listens to his leprous military leader, and sends word to his enemy, the king of Israel.

And it gets a hostile parochial reception from the Israelite king.  As it would from any of us!  After all this is the enemy king, requesting for his unclean military commander, one who has been very successful in leading battle against Israel, to be healed of an incurable disease.  What would the Israelite king have thought, when confronted with a leprous, Gentile, warlord, breaking all the boundaries of parochial protocol?  Surely, he’s picking a fight with this request!

“Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.” (2 Kings 5: 7)  Is the king’s conclusion!  The irony in his words names God yet exposes his lack of trust in God but rather trust in his own parochial godliness.

How often do we listen to the parochial god within rather than trust the eternal Father in heaven whose desire it is to free us from the longsuffering stigma of sin which kills and causes our narrow-mindedness?  How quick do we depart from the word of God and trusting in our own limited understanding lose sight of the cross?  And when the going gets tough, how habitually do we fall into the mindset that the tough must get going rather than allowing the Holy Spirit access into our being so we can pray and ponder God’s word, therefore glorifying all that has been done for us?

Like Naaman we get angry; like the king we tear at ourselves fearing the worst and unlike the little Israelite slave girl we hang onto our parochial ways to the detriment of grace, mercy and peace.

 After he is encouraged to listen to the command, I imagine Naaman went down into the Jordan, just to prove a point.  “I’ll show them all how ridiculous is bathing in the Jordan!”  Defiantly he doesn’t even wash, but just dips in the river seven times and is healed.  Now Naaman, the mighty military man from Syria is released from his scourge and like the little slave girl through whom God began the whole process now too carries the same innocent clean smoothness of her flesh and faith.

Surely the events recounting Naaman’s healing are a reminder to us Gentiles to return to Word of God.  To repent and daily trust in the actions of God in his Word, and what he has done for you having been baptised into Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Having had the old parochial sinful self, buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col 2:12)

Let the Holy Spirit continue leading you from the stigma of all your sin, into the promised peace and holiness of your heavenly home, together with God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son, your Lord and Saviour.  Amen.

C, Post-Pentecost 18 Proper 23 - Luke 17:11-19, 2 Kings 5:1–3, 7–15c, Psalm 111, 2 Timothy 2:8-15 "Remember, Endure, Remind, and Give Thanks"

 Remember, endure, remind, and give thanks. 

We remember what our parents taught us, we continue in their practices teaching them to  our children, then over and over again we remind them of what we have taught them.

Say, “please”.  Say, “thankyou”.  We teach our children good manners just as we were taught by our parents.  And we repeat this over and over again in our saying please and thankyou by way of example to our children, as well as reminding them to do the same and discipline them when they fail to follow what we’ve taught.

Imagine that having been taught to say please and thankyou by your parents you teach your children to do the same, but in practise you never say please and thankyou to your children or in front of your children with others!  What do you think they will learn?

This “do as I say and not as I do” lesson will be seen with all the hypocrisy it deserves by the young learners.  And they might just ignore the lessons from your lips, in favour of the practice of not saying please and thankyou.

The readings today focus us on thanksgiving — giving thanks.  Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army, after initially ridiculing Elisha for his direction to dip himself in the Jordan seven times, is convinced to put his anger aside and do as commanded.

We hear, “Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him.  And Naaman said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” (2 Kings 5:15a-c ESV)

Saint Paul calls Timothy to remember Jesus Christ, the gospel of promise that, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”  (2 Timothy 2:11-13 ESV)

Here Paul encourages Timothy in the Christian life cycle of death and resurrection — remembering, enduring, reminding, and giving thanks. 

When we die with him, we live with him.  Daily dying to self, letting the pride die, to confess sin, to serve sinners with the love of Christ, bearing the cross that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have set aside for you to bear, even before this world was created.

By enduring in this “death and resurrection cycle”, comes the promise of reigning with Jesus Christ.  When we are reminded of Jesus’ covenant made through his death and resurrection, we remember the many big and small deaths and resurrections we face in this life is a preparation for the great day of resurrection that awaits our final death.  This final death reminds us and causes us to remember our first death and resurrection, when we were baptised into Jesus’ death and resurrection outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

Paul then says, “if we deny Jesus, he will also deny us”.  Denial here is a refusal to endure, a rejection of remembrance, and stopping all means of being reminded.  It’s here we look at the ten lepers. 

Lepers are ritually unclean.  They cannot come into the presence of God in the temple until they are made clean (Lev 14:1-32).  Jesus sends the lepers to the priests after they say, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” (Luke 17:13 ESV)  They say, “please”.  But only one returns to say, “thankyou!”

This thankful healed leper is a Samaritan.  The other nine are assumed to be Jews.  Can you hear the levels of irony here? 

For the cleansing of leprosy, the priest goes to the leper, but here the lepers are sent to the priests by Jesus.  They plead for mercy and Jesus commands them to go.  Did the other nine realise they were healed on the way?  We are not told.  We are only told of one Samaritan who returns having been healed and is called by Jesus to, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:19 ESV)

To where would he rise and go?  Jesus is going to Jerusalem, he has sent the other nine there as well, to the priests in the temple.  This cleansed Samaritan is told by Jesus, “go your way.”  This is the way of faith.

One would  hope after the nine went to the priests in Jerusalem, they would have witnessed Jesus’ death and resurrection and with the Samaritan would have acknowledged Jesus as Lord.  In this way they would die with Jesus and be raised to life.  They then having died to self would have been strengthened to confess Jesus Christ in the face of denial, rejection, and death at the cross.

However, we know Jesus had no support at the cross.  All denied him.  But having been raised from death we now are one with him in his death and resurrection.  Denying him now, puts us on slippery ground knowing he has been raised.  Continuous denial of Jesus Christ is serious stuff, especially when we hinder the Holy Spirit’s work of our death and resurrection in Jesus Christ.

Saint Paul warns Timothy of the seriousness of denying Jesus’ death and resurrection having died to sin and enduring in our resurrection through him.  But even in the face of denial, Paul tells Timothy of Jesus’ faithfulness.

While we are alive, while we remain in the death and resurrection of our baptism, Jesus will continue to be faithful to us despite our faithlessness.  This is good news, as the way of death and resurrection always remains open for us, to be returned to our baptism into Jesus Christ, and the Christian cycle of death and resurrection.  This return is enacted by the Holy Spirit also because of  Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We are reminded here we are always remembered by Jesus Christ; he is faithful to us despite our forgetfulness and faithlessness.  This is why he sends the Holy Spirit as our helper, our reminder, the one who endures with us, setting up events, bringing lepers into our lives to remind us of Jesus’ love and faithfulness, despite the leprosy of our sin.

We are tempted to deny Christ, deny our sinfulness, and deny our subsequent salvation in these times.  Ridicule, being treated with contempt for revealing sin in others through our confession of Christ, being despised and mocked for our faith, tempts us to deny Jesus Christ.  We say, “please save us”, but find it difficult to say, “thank you Lord”, especially before others and the world.

Like Naaman, the leper, and the Samaritan leper, we are reminded of the leprosy of our sin and caused to remember our healing in Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit calls us out of denial and unfaithfulness into remembrance, reminding, and endurance. 

Jesus has healed you and says to you, Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.  We are reminded that our faith is faith given to us in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We remember his promise that the Holy Spirit will guide us on our way through death to eternal resurrection.  This way causes us to give thanks and praise.

Like Naaman and the Samaritan leper we who see our healing and the way of death and resurrection are faithfully given words by which we too can say, thankyou God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, for reminding me of your faithfulness and remembrance of me, despite my sin. 

Therefore, let us daily thank him for his daily faithfulness to us in our death and resurrection in the words of Psalm 111…

Praise the LORD!  I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.  Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.  Full of splendour and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.  He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and merciful.  He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.  He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations.  The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.  He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever.  Holy and awesome is his name!  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.  His praise endures forever!  (Psalm 111 ESV)

Amen.