St. Andrew’s Pictou, February 12, 2006

 

Drawing Power

 

2 Kings 5:1-14

Mark 1:40-45

 

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a great prophet. His name was Elisha. He was known as “a man of God.” People were drawn to him so that they could understand the wisdom of God from his sage advice, and some of them even received a kind of healing in their lives. Elisha believed in a healing God.

 

Everyone in the land of Israel knew who Elisha was and they knew that he was a man of God. As people were drawn by him, his fame spread throughout the land.

 

There was a young girl, we don’t know her name. She believed in God, and she knew about the prophet. She knew that Elisha was a man of God, and that he knew God’s secrets about the universe and that he was willing to share all that he had with any who were in need of knowing about God.

 

Times back then were dangerous. There were wars, people got hurt, families lost loved ones. It was scary. Enemy soldieries carried out raids and you could lose all that you had: property, friends, family and possessions.

 

One day, a terrible raid was carried out by soldiers from Aram lead by their great leader, Naaman. They took everything that they wanted.

 

They kidnapped the young girl who believed in God, physically seized her and took her back to Aram and gave her a job of being a servant to the wife of their great leader and warrior, Naaman.

 

The young girl was not happy being torn from her home and family, but she did not whine and complain, because she had her faith to sustain her. In spite of her captivity and any pain and suffering she experienced, she continued to live her life as the beloved of God and to be kind and thoughtful of others.

 

On the other hand, in spite of all his power and success, Naaman, (who was even a good friend of the King of Aram) was unhappy, unfulfilled and unsettled.

 

He had a problem. He had a dirty, shameful, disgusting, debilitating, problem. His problem was not an addiction to drugs, alcohol, or sex, but it was a problem that was bigger than all of his successes. As much as his problem that made him an outcast on one hand, the same problem was also the driving force to be a successful warrior on the other.

 

“The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.”

 

Then the grace of God intervened.

 

The young girl, even though she had been going through rough times, had compassion on her boss’s husband. Being a believer in God, she had the ability to see beyond the leprosy, she could see the scared man hiding behind the soldier’s armour, and she had compassion for his wounded and shamed sense of well-being. Because she knew God in her heart, she wanted to bring God’s peace and serenity to the endless struggle and pain of this man so that he could have peace and be himself.”

 

So she spoke words of truth to her mistress: “If only my lord were with the prophet in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

 

Such powerful healing words from the heart of God, resonated with the wounded heart of the warrior, so “cap in hand” so to speak, he went to the king, swallowed his pride and passed on the humble words of a slave girl to the high and exulted King of Aram.

 

At this point in the story, the simple healing words and intentions of God got all mixed up with the politics and confusion of political power.

 

The best of intentions turned into a mess: the King of Aram sent a letter to the King of Samaria, along with gold, silver, and fine clothes and asked him to heal his great warrior, Naaman, even though the slave girl had explicitly said that he should go to the prophet Elisha; she had not even mentioned the King, but Kings see themselves in the mirror.

 

The mess got worse: The King of Samaria thought that this was all a trick and was expecting war.

 

Then the grace of God intervened.

 

Elisha (the man of God who knew what was really going on) got word of the problem and told the King, “…send him to me.”

 

Everyone thought that the problem was solved, but power politics got in the way again.

 

Naaman, being such a big powerful guy was enraged that the prophet did two things:

-he didn’t answer the door himself when Naaman arrived there with his retinue in tow, (Elisha just had a servant answer the door!) and

-this idea of washing in the Jordan River seven times to get his skin cleansed was a total unmitigated insult to the fine rivers of his home country.

 

Then the grace of God intervened yet again:

 

Naaman’s servants had to humour the big guy:

“Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was ‘Wash and be clean.’”

 

At this point history changed:

-something happened that never had happened before.

-the grace of God moved from a spiritual reality to a physical reality.

 

At the urging of his buddies, Naaman the great warrior did the very thing that every single man avoids with ever ounce of his being: he exposed his vulnerability to a group of other men. (They had to be standing there at the riverbank with all of their chariots, swords, spears, and wide open eyes!)

 

Naaman took off his armour! (The great warrior stripped down in front of his men.)

 

Naaman took off his armour and exposed the lesions of his leprosy to the light of day in front of his soldiers, in front of his underlings, and he got into the water and washed away his guilt, his shame, his fear, his self-hatred, his pretense to power, his nasty, dirty, little secret. Naaman’s denial was obliterated.

 

He had to get into the water and wash SEVEN times because Naaman had to get rid of all of the things that separated him from God, himself, and all other people.

 

Naaman became the man that his slave girl could see behind “the armour of success,” behind the fear that had held great warrior in its’ clasp. “…his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”

 

Don’t we all want to be clean? Are we not all drawn to what will make us clean?

 

A thousand years later, long after the list of characters in our story were dead, another man wanted to be clean.

 

As the young girl in our last story was drawn to the man of God, Elisha and put her master on the path to his healing, we have another man, name unknown who also suffered from leprosy who also wanted to be clean.

 

He was drawn to Jesus… kneeling… begging.

 

“If you chose, you can make me clean,” He said.

 

As we can assume that the man was drawn to Jesus for healing, we also read that Jesus was “Moved with pity.” So Jesus was also drawn to him.

 

“Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’”

 

The rules of the day were clear: You don’t dare touch anyone with leprosy because it makes you as contaminated as they are and you immediately become an outcast yourself.

 

But in this case, Jesus healed the man by touching him, so the process worked in REVERSE. Instead of Jesus becoming contaminated by the man, the man was healed and became whole as Jesus was healthy.

 

The man didn’t keep the secret as Jesus asked and told everyone about his miracle which changed Jesus’ reputation in the areas such that, “Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.”

 

Many people were motivated in many different directions in these stories:

-the King of Aram and his Warrior Naaman were motivated for power, control, goods and riches,

-Naaman was motivated to be clean,

-the slave girl was motivated to help and to heal,

-the prophet Elisha was motivated to bring God’s Good news to those in need,

-the man with leprosy as motivated to be healed, as was Jesus to heal him,

-the people of the time sought Jesus out, people “from every quarter.”

 

Yet there was a drawing power that brought all of these people together. There was a power that drew them together to places of healing restoration, places of peace?

 

What was that power that drew them?

 

There are two powers: good and evil.

 

Evil destroys, corrupts, shames, wounds, separates, alienates, and causes pain.

 

Good creates, heals, unites, creates intimacy, and reduces pain.

 

We could say that God creates, unites, creates, brings together and reduces pain, or we could say that Love does all of these things.

 

Since the Bible tells us that “God is love,” then the power of God is what drew these people together to healing solutions, healing people, and healing places, where they were restored and made well.

 

We could use these words as a definition of a church. What is a church? A church is a place where these two and three thousand year old stories are enacted with modern day characters like you and me experience the Good News of God for our lives.

 

Let us pray to God that we draw by the power of our love, the Naaman’s and the “nay women’s” to our church for the healing experience that God intends for the healing and wholeness for which they so long desire to own in their lives.

 

AMEN                        Rev. Alan Stewart