Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Today, in our reading from Second Kings, Naaman, commander of the Aramean
army, is trying to find healing from his leprosy. One of his servants, being from
Israel, suggests a prophet from her home land who can help. This prophet, we
later learn, is the prophet Elisha, who learned from the prophet Elijah, the great
prophet swept away in a chariot of fire.
So Naaman travels to Israel in search for Elisha. Hearing he is a great prophet, Naaman decides to go to the obvious place to find a country's great prophet. He goes to the palace.
But when he sends his messengers to the King of Israel, The King panics. Naaman hasn't found healing so far. What makes him think that Israel, a tiny country in the region, will be able to provide anything different? And so the King comes to the conclusion that most politically savvy people would make. Naaman is trying to pick a fight with Israel. A fight Israel cannot win. This is, in the King's mind, the beginning of the end.
Fortunately for him, God is a work. And word of what is going on somehow reaches Elisha out in the expanse of Samaria, quite a ways north of Jerusalem. And so he asks the king "Why are you freaking out? Just send him to me."
And Naaman gets an unexpected reception. Unlike what he would expect from a prophet being visited by a foreign general, Elisha doesn't come out to meet him in person. He sends someone else to meet him.
And this is all he says to do: "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean."
And Naaman gets angry. And to understand why you have to understand something about the River Jordan. It's not that big. At all.
In my journey to, Israel we were told, when crossing a bridge over it, if you blink you will miss the River Jordan. Which is accurate. It took two passes before I even got a picture of it. And it wasn't that great of one either!
And then when we actually went to the river to perform a Baptism, well, it is even more obvious how tiny this river is. Not only can you clearly see to the other side, I'm pretty sure if I leaped in, I could make it more than halfway to the other side. So a person, like a general, on horseback could easily cross from one side to the other in less than a minute.
So it's not a great river. As holy as it is, particularly to the various people of the book, I can definitely say "I've seen bigger." In fact, I rowed in a creek in college that was wider!
So this is the reason Naaman is upset. Of all the rivers Elisha could have him go to, why this one? It's so dinky. Why not something with a little more pizazz? With a little more importance?
And one of Naaman's servants points out, "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?'" And fortunately Naaman realizes that his servant is right. So he goes and washes in this tiny river.
And of course, Naaman is made clean. And he returns to Elisha and makes his confession. That the God of Israel must be the only God. And as we learn in the passage after this reading, he repents, that is turns back, and does all in his power to give proper thanks to God.
What has happened in this story is of the upmost importance. Not because Naaman was healed, but because of how he was healed.
As our patron saint, Paul, says in 2 Corinthians, "God's power is made perfect in weakness." And that is what we see here, in this reading today.
God doesn't work out of what we would expect. He doesn't work through the royal court. He works through a man living alone in the desert. And a rough, mountainous, isolated part of the country.
And in all of this, God doesn't work through pomp and ceremony. Elisha does not great this general as someone special, but as a normal person coming to see him. And he doesn't send Naaman to a great and mighty river, but to a small, humble one.
And without any great ceremony, God still works on Naaman. He still heals him. Without a great and mighty river. Without any other sorts of ceremonial trappings, God does what He says He will do through Elisha.
And that is why Naaman worships God as the one true God. Because no one else could possibly perform what He did. No one else could take what is weak and ordinary and make it great and powerful.
And that is exactly what we see in our own faith through Jesus Christ. Here is the son of humble parents who causes even the great King Herod to fear. Here is a man who, in the course of His ministry is not triumphant, but instead is killed in the most horrific and humiliating way possible. And through this man, God works the salvation of the entire world.
God rarely works in the way we would expect. Because we expect something great and grand. But thankfully we have the most powerful of all possible gods. A God who is willing to humble Himself in Jesus by becoming one of us. A God who can work the greatest of miracles in what seems simple and ordinary. And for that power, made perfect in weakness, we can say, Thanks be to God!