From the Rector

My dear family in Christ,
 
Alleluia!  He is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!
 
We are now well into the great Fifty Days of Easter, and despite some fits and starts (and stops, and restarts), it appears, at least as of today, that we might even be on the verge of Spring.  Alleluia, indeed!
 
In the previous column, we considered the shape the disciples were in when the risen Jesus Christ appeared to them after the devastation of the crucifixion.  In particular, we looked at their need for recover and healing before they could take up their new vocation as apostles.  I mentioned that there were two stories from Scripture that have been on my mind of late:  the first was from John’s Gospel, the story of the man by the pool of Beth-zatha whom Jesus asked, “Do you want to be made well?”; the second, our subject for this column, is from the Second Book of Kings,  the story of Naaman of Aram and his encounter with Elisha the Prophet.
 
“Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from a skin disease. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his skin disease.’ So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, ‘Go, then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.’
 
“He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, ‘When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his skin disease.’ When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his skin disease? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’
 
“But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’ So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.’ But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, ‘I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease! 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?’ He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, ‘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”?’ So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.” (2 Kings 5:1-14)
 
This passage offers a contrast to the one from John’s Gospel.  Unlike the man at the pool of Beth-zatha, Naaman is not physically hindered or prevented from accessing the healing he seeks.  Indeed, he is not only given permission from his king to go to a foreign country to be healed, but he is also given a royal letter to give to the king of that foreign country, formally requesting that he be healed.  In view of the length of his journey and the size of the retinue he brings with him, Naaman does not need to be asked whether he wishes to be made well.  He is not in despair or on the brink of giving up.  In fact, circumstances seem to be conspiring in his favor:  the Prophet Elisha himself actually sends for Naaman to come see him so that he may be healed (and so he will “learn that there is a prophet in Israel”).
 
No, Naaman has a different problem.  His difficulty is not gaining access to healing; his difficulty is trust.  When Elisha tells him ~ indirectly, through his servant ~ simply to go to the Jordan River and wash seven times, Naaman cannot accept it.  But his reaction goes beyond mere disbelief … he gets angry.  In his anger, he inadvertently reveals what is keeping him from trusting Elisha. 
 
He first rants that he had thought that, for him, the prophet himself would have come out to do the healing himself.  After all, Naaman was an Important Person, the commander of the army of Aram, in Israel with the blessing of his king.  And Elisha doesn’t even deign to come out of the house, but sends a messenger, a servant, to tell Naaman what to do?  How insulting!
 
Furthermore, he’s astonished that the prescription is just to dip into the Jordan a few times.  There are rivers in Aram that are perfectly good ~ far better, in fact, than any in Israel!  Why should he have had to come all this way when he could have just as well gone swimming at home (in those better rivers)?  And how could something so simply and easy possibly cure such a serious illness as his?
 
So it’s not just a lack of trust, and it’s not just disbelief.  It’s also ego.  It’s also pride.  Elisha has not shown him the deference that Naaman believes he’s due.  Nor has Elisha taken his illness as seriously as Naaman thinks the prophet should have; if he had, he would have prescribed a more intricate and demanding ritual to make him clean.
 
But that’s not how healing works.  To seek healing is to be called to a place of humility.  It is to put our trust, to put ourselves, into the hands of another.  It is to relinquish our illusions of being in control.  And when the healing we seek is to come from God, it is to accept that we are no more (or less) important than anyone else.  Interesting, then, that it is Naaman’s servants and underlings who manage to convince him to go back and trust the prophet, to humble himself and submit to the instructions Elisha gave him.  Naaman does so and is healed.
 
The man at the pool of Beth-zatha was neither prideful nor arrogant.  The obstacles that had kept him from receiving healing were different than those of Naaman.  But the two figures do share something in common:  the healing they each experienced came to them in forms that neither man had imagined.  At Beth-zatha, Jesus healed the man without his putting so much as a toe into the healing waters that he’d been trying to reach forever.  Naaman expected Elisha to come out and make a show of calling on the name of God and placing his prophetic hand upon the wound to heal it.  For the man who could not walk, simply standing up seemed a preposterous notion, as merely dunking himself a few times in the Jordan did to Naaman.
 
Can we, today, find a way to accept that the healing God has in store for us will come to us in ways and shapes and forms and experiences that seem equally preposterous?  Could we go beyond merely accepting that?  Could we perhaps learn to expect it?
 
My dear friends, I think we should expect it!  We are here because we are followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  All of Scripture, and the whole history of the faith, demonstrates again and again that God’s people must expect two things:  1) God’s gonna show up in the most unexpected places, at the most unexpected times, and in the most unexpected ways; and 2) God’s gonna keep God’s promises, no matter how preposterous or crazy or impossible that may seem to us. 
 
We’ve been through a lot as a parish these past four years and change, and y’all had already been through a lot when I first got here.  We need some healing.  Let us seek healing with the diligence of Naaman, and let us respond to Jesus with the faith of the man at Beth-zatha.  And let us continue to expect God to show up, right here, and do great things!
 
Peace & blessings,
C+

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