 |
||
|
The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany Almighty God, the breeze of your love and grace is ever blowing; may we set our sails to capture that breeze, and may it inspire these words and those who hear them. Amen. Many years ago I read a wonderful novel called The Clowns of God. The plot centered on a pope driven out of office after having a powerful apocalyptic vision, a man caught in a cosmic struggle of good and evil, of power and might, of change versus the status quo, a man called as modern day prophet. It was a story filled with drama and intrigue and unexpected plot twists, but what I remember most about it is this: This former pope, this priest who once moved in the circles of highest power, in the most holy of places, and who is now himself an outcast, encounters God in the most unexpected people, and in the simplest of things. Poignantly, at the close of the story he feels the power of God’s love for the world, and for him in a group of disabled children, innocent and unaware of the world around them, the most unlikely source of power of any kind. Like the priest in The Clowns of God, Naaman in our OT reading, and the unnamed leper in our gospel also find the power of God in the simple and the unexpected. Naaman is a military man, used to the trappings of power. Naaman just has one problem—he suffers from leprosy, a devastating skin disease that ate away at the flesh of its sufferers, and it marked its victims as outcasts, separate from society, unclean, unapproachable. There were no known cures for this malady. No amount of money or power or influence could affect the course of this disease. In many ways, lepers were the walking dead. In Naaman’s household there happened to be a servant girl from the kingdom of Israel, captured in one of Naaman’s military exploits. The serving girl, perhaps understanding the anguish caused by Naaman’s disease, tells Naaman’s wife that she knows of a prophet in her own land who could do the unimaginable—cure this awful disease. When Naaman hears this, instead of seeking the prophet himself, he goes straight to his king, who like any powerful king would do, sends Naaman off to see the king of Israel, bearing exquisite and expensive gifts to ease his way. The king of Israel, understanding the dynamics of the situation, and perhaps fearing reprisal, becomes distraught. How in the world would HE manage to cure this man? Fortunately the prophet Elisha hears of this and tells the king, “Just send him to me—I’ll take care of everything.” So off Naaman goes with his entourage, but when he arrives, he’s met not with the pomp worthy of his status, not even by the prophet himself, but rather by a messenger from Elisha, who tells Naaman to go wash himself in the Jordan seven times. Naaman is beside himself…what good would THAT do? He hadn’t come all that way to wash in that pitiful little river—he could’ve washed in far more powerful rivers at home! Surely the prophet should come out and call on the Lord for a man like him! He rages and roars and threatens to just turn around and go home, when a small quiet voice prevails asking him what he has to lose by just doing this one simple thing. What indeed? So Naaman goes to that small insignificant river and he washes himself not once, not twice, but seven times just as Elisha has said, and wonder of wonders, he is healed—his skin is no longer scaly, his flesh is not longer being eaten away. Rather than looking like one of the dead, he is as fresh and new as an infant. Naaman has encountered the power of God; he’s received a new life through unexpected channels, but the irony is that he almost misses it! As a man accustomed to earthly power, Naaman expects that it will take some grand act by someone with all the outward trappings of power to heal him and when healing is offered in another, unexpected way he almost refuses to go along what is asked of him—not because it’s too hard, but because it’s too easy! Familiar as we are with stories of Jesus’ healing, it’s easy for us to miss the impact of what has happened here. There was no cure for leprosy. None. In all of scripture to only one who ever healed anyone of leprosy before Jesus was Elisha. To ask to be cleansed, to be cured was to ask for something truly miraculous. And to ask Jesus to do this—Jesus the itinerant preacher, this peasant from nowhere still in the early days of his ministry—was truly to look for the power of God in an unexpected place. But in fact, the power of God doesn’t depend on earthly trappings. As Jesus showed us both in his person and in his teaching and preaching, God’s power is often found in the most simple of things—the water that washed Naaman clean, the word and touch of Jesus that restored the leper. God’s power transcends our expectations and is manifest in the absurd, the unexpected, the simple; God’s power lurks for us around every corner, in every nook and cranny. It’s there when we least expect it. Like Naaman, like the leper in our gospel reading we often find ourselves estranged, cut off from family and friends, cut off from the better parts of ourselves, even cut off from God. Like Naaman and the unnamed leper we find ourselves in need of being scrubbed clean, set free of the things that bind us. And like Naaman and the leper we too might encounter the healing power of God in the most unlikely of places. Perhaps we’ll find it in a quiet moment of prayer or a walk on the beach; maybe we’ll experience it in the kind word of a stranger, or in an unexpected call from friend. Maybe we’ll sense it as we feed the homeless or make a hospital visit, or just reach out to someone we’ve been missing. And surely we’ll find it in the sacraments. God’s power is always available for us there, beckoning us, washing over us with the wonderful simplicity of the waters of baptism, nourishing us with the humble ordinariness of the bread and wine in the Eucharist. In the water of baptism God’s power moves as we are fully incorporated into the body of Christ and then the bread and wine, the blessed body and blood of the Eucharist fill us and nourish us as we are sent back out into the world. [Today we have the privilege of welcoming two new souls into our family, into the body of Christ as we baptize Matthew and Emma, bathing them in that most simple of things, the water of baptism. I hope that for these precious children today is just the beginning of many rich encounters with the power and the grace that we find in God. I hope, too, that as we renew our baptismal covenant together, as we witness this baptism, and then come together at the altar to be fed, we might feel God’s presence here with us, and we might be made ready to look for God’s power in the simple things around us.] Let us pray. O God, the power of your Word comes to us in the simplest of ways—through water and bread and wine. Feed us, Lord, fill us, nourish and strengthen us, we pray, with that power, so that those cracks and crevices of pain and inadequacy in our lives may be healed, and that we may be so transformed by your grace that we might be bearers of your love and mercy in the world. This we pray in the name of your son, our redeemer, Jesus Christ. AMEN. |
||