06 Epiphany B 09
February 15, 2009

2 Kings 5:1-14
1 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 leprosy. 2 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. 3 She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." 4 So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5 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. 6 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 leprosy." 7 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 leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me."

8 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." 9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha's house. 10 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." 11 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 leprosy! 12 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. 13 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'?" 14 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.

Psalm 30
1 I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up,
and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
2 O LORD my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.
3 O LORD, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
4 Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment;
his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
6 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
"I shall never be moved."
7 By your favor, O LORD,
you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face;
I was dismayed.
8 To you, O LORD, I cried,
and to the LORD I made supplication:
9 "What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me!
O LORD, be my helper!"
11 You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
24 Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. 25 Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. 26 So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; 27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

Mark 1:40-45
40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." 41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" 42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44 saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." 45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Saved From Below

How many of you heard about the robbery at the Tall Chief last week?
It seems that the store clerk was held up at gunpoint by a man. Some of us who have scanners heard the call to the Rescue Squad for the poor clerk, who apparently was so traumatized by the experience she required medical attention. I can sympathize with her.

I was the victim of an armed robbery. I know how it feels. It changes you forever. It imprints on your psyche the strange and terrible fact that it is quite possible for another human being to suddenly decide to threaten and perhaps even take your life, that it is possible that someone might somehow find a way to dehumanize you, to rationalize in their mind that whatever it is they must have is more important than your life. They will not think about the fact that you might be someone’s father or mother, someone’s sister or brother, someone’s son or daughter. They will completely put out of their mind that you might be the image of God.

Our concern is for the victim. Our compassion goes out to her. This is a beautiful thing, this compassion. The story we heard about Jesus and the leper describes Jesus as filled with pity. The compassion we feel for someone who has been so dehumanized comes from God.

And yet this concern for the victim quickly changes to anger and outrage at the perpetrators. And our society, and most civilized societies in the world have devised ways of protecting the innocent and the weak by arresting and detaining such perpetrators and in some cases punishing them.

How many of you read the newspaper account of the arrests made in connection with the robbery? The faces of the alleged culprits looked out at us from the pages of the Sentinel. One of them was a particular woman. I’m not sure what she is supposed to have to do with the robbery, but I know something about her history.

I know she came to the county about three and a half years ago with a man she said had rescued her from an abusive relationship. She suffers from a various birth defects that has badly deformed her hands and this, along with a number of internal deformities requiring a lot of medication, has undermined her capacity to find work. She and her boyfriend fled a state up north, leaving behind her two children, whom she hoped eventually to send for when they found work and had settled into a home. They had first gone to Virginia Beach where she apparently was arrested several times for prostitution. She then came here with her man who tried to find work in the area. About a year later, he left her.

I know all this because she worshiped with us here at Philippi. She sat right over there. She was the one who was covered with tattoos and body piercings. My impression when I got to know her was of a person who was consumed with fear and desperation, overwhelmed with the stress of too many problems. I certainly got the impression that she would lie to me and perhaps take advantage of me if she could, and I suppose that sense rather scared me, particularly because I was newly installed as a pastor and really didn’t have enough connections and relationships to be able to help her in any meaningful way. I’d have to admit I was glad when she disappeared, and I didn’t work too hard at keeping track of her.

But our society has a way of forgetting all these things. When someone threatens our security, we consider our security more important than her humanity. We dehumanize her in careful and orderly and what we call “legitimate” ways. We do not think about the fact that she is someone’s daughter, someone’s mother, someone’s sister, perhaps even the image of God. She is a mugshot of a bloated, tattooed woman with beady eyes.

Of course, I am not saying we should set her free. I am not saying we should forget that she may be responsible for badly violating a human being who had done nothing to her. I am saying that to dehumanize her in response is not sane. The good news here is that we in Middlesex have a rather exceptional security facility that believes very much in rehabilitation. If one of our female elders would like to visit this woman, she could. It would in fact be encouraged by the warden.

But the situation gives rise also to other thoughts. Who in our community, who around the world, are being dehumanized, marginalized, deprived? And how long will it take for them to become so desperate that they turn to violence and destruction to get what they need? And what kinds of systems are causing this?

We are the people of God. God has chosen us, and millions like us all around the world, to bring a new approach to the brokenness and misery that so many in our world suffer. It is the way of healing love and compassion.

The great secret of AA and the twelve-step fellowships, the heart of their success, was borrowed from the Christian tradition, though many members of those fellowships don’t know that.

I heard a group of recovering alcoholics talking about faith. One said he had trouble believing in the Christian God as he understood it. Others said they were spiritual and not religious. And then one spoke up and said, “I believe in the suffering alcoholic.”

They all turned to him with perplexed looks. He said, “Look. This fellowship’s primary purpose is to help the suffering alcoholic. When I’m doing that, when I’m working with the fellowship to help that suffering alcoholic, I’m healed. I believe in the suffering alcoholic. He’s the one that is saving me.”

Tommie Sue Anthony, one of our preaching students, noticed a fascinating truth about the story of Naaman. Did you notice that the people that made the difference for Naaman were the servants? One of them was a Jew, one captured as a slave in a raid. The Jews of course had been slaves in Egypt, a fact God has never let them forget. In the story of Naaman, the servants coax him toward humility. The oppressed save the oppressor.

Conversely, the readiness for healing grace begins with the complete abandonment of trust in any earthly power. I’m not talking about medicine. I’m talking about the worldly powers of money and violence and dominance. The leper in the story of Mark is begging. He has no other hope but Christ. Neither Herod nor Caesar nor the priests of the temple can help him and he knows it. To come to such a place either happens to you, as it does to many who are sick or poor or mentally deranged, or it is something people gently help your toward, as did the servants for old Naaman, or it is something toward which you strive. Paul talks about that very striving, the striving not toward greatness, but toward humility, in his letter to the Corinthians.

Jesus tried to keep the healed leper from making his healing about Jesus. His purpose in life was not to become famous or powerful or well-respected or successful. His purpose was to give his body over to God for God’s use. His purpose was to heal the leper, because it was God’s purpose.

Our healing is in touching the one that disgusts us. Our healing is in loving the one who hates us. Our healing is in respecting the one who doesn’t respect us. Our healing is insisting on everyone’s rights, but giving up our own. Our healing is in embracing the stranger as our own child, the enemy as our mother and father. Just as the one who wants to recover from alcoholism sees the path to that recovery in helping the suffering alcoholic, so I believe my salvation is in my loving service to the suffering Christ, as I encounter him in the insane, the possessed, the jailed, the lost, the violent, the proud, the dying, the diseased and especially the poor.

As far as I know, that doesn’t leave anyone out.

Amen.