A Higher Level of Healing
a sermon by Rev. Rebecca Segers
2 Kings 5:1-14
Mark 1:40-45
All of us are broken. Every person in this room; every person outside this room; every person on this planet is broken. We may be broken physically; have physical ailments that keep us from being whole. We may be broken mentally; have difficulty with our thought processes or putting things together. We may be broken emotionally; have hurt places inside us that make it difficult for us to trust or easy for us to lash out in anger. We may, and actually probably are, broken in a combination of ways. Big ways and little ones. Places where we need healing and wholeness. Places where we wish that God would come in and make a difference in our lives. No matter who we are, no matter what we do, no matter where we are on our life’s journey, every single one of us could use healing in some area.
Naaman is the Aramaian commander in chief. He is the most powerful person in the whole country of Aram, which was Hebrew for Syria, next to the king. Syria was the United States of its day, the country with the military might and the resources to impose their will upon others. They were also as successful as they were largely because of Naaman’s prowess as a military leader. He has got absolutely everything going for him as far as career is concerned. But there’s one thing that is missing in his life – physical health.
Naaman is a leper. Leprosy is a specific disease in our day in time. It’s actually not called leprosy anymore, but the disease, as many are, is named after the man who isolated the bacterium that causes it, Dr. Hansen. Hansen’s disease is actually relatively easily treated and most adults are immune to it. But back in Naaman’s day, basically any and all skin diseases were called “leprosy”. We don’t actually know what it is that Naaman is suffering from, but it would have definitely been a skin disease that affected his appearance. And if it was truly Hansen’s disease, then he would have had it since he was a young child. You see, Hansen’s disease generally attacks young people and then takes around four years for the inward symptoms to appear which are tubercular in type and another four for the outward signs of the disease to manifest. If his disease has gotten ugly enough for others to notice it, as the young maiden in the story does, then he’s probably had it for fifteen or twenty years. Imagine: 20 years of coughing, 20 years of itching, flaking skin, 20 years of embarrassment and shame.
Meanwhile, his position as a military leader gives him the power to have the social life he would otherwise have lacked. We know he has a wife; perhaps he also has children. From the way the king treats him later on in the story, it is clear he has at least one friend, a very powerful friend and that has probably insured that he has more. It has also given him numerous other perqs including enabling him to amass slaves from the raids on which he’s gone.
Among those slaves is this little Israelite girl I mentioned before. She has been captured and impressed into service with Naaman’s wife. This young maiden sees Naaman and recognizes that he is ill. All it takes is looking at him to know that something is very wrong. She also knows of someone who can heal him. She doesn’t seem to know Elisha’s name, but simply knows him as the prophet of God in her home country or region.
Apparently, Naaman’s wife is kind and giving, for the young woman likes her enough to say to her, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” This is a sweet irony – that the unimportant, powerless female slave not only has the power to change the circumstances of the rich and powerful commander in chief of the army, but that she feels pity for her master, and perhaps for her mistress, too, for having to be married to him. Pity enough to whisper the opportunity for change in her mistress’s ear.
Now Samaria and Judah were side by side in the territory of Israel, which was south and west of Aram or Syria, a huge country that encompassed modern day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq and Southeastern Turkey. Naaman is familiar with this territory for he has battled there and has taken slaves such as the young woman that is attending his wife from that area. He is so desperate to be healed, that as soon as he hears this information, he goes to his boss, the king, and tells him of the servant girl’s comment.
The king values Naaman so much that he tells him to go at once; that he will send a letter of introduction to the king of Israel on Naaman’s behalf. He also sends him off with tens talents of silver, six thousand gold pieces and ten fancy robes. Now we don’t know the value of the robes, but the cash alone amounted to the equivalent of more than $80,000. More than $80,000! $80,000 in around 850 B.C. That’s 850 years before Jesus was born… If you take inflation into consideration, that is even more astronomical than it sounds. Can you imagine the pressure that the king of Israel, a piddly little country with no resources to speak of that’s already paying Syria tribute, feels when Naaman shows up at his doorstep to be healed?
Even worse, the king is so out of touch with the people that he doesn’t even know who Naaman is talking about! He has absolutely no idea who this prophet is, where to find him, and he is in a panic. He rends his clothes, tearing them as a sign of mourning because he thinks that his country is on the brink of disaster, for when Naaman finds out that he can’t help him, what else will he do but fight?
We don’t know how the message gets to Elisha that the king has rent his clothes over this letter, but it does. I guess gossip could travel just as fast back then as it can today, but it’s interesting that once again it is the people who supposedly have no power, they’re not named or even mentioned, who are the ones to save the day. Because when Elisha finds out that the king and the country are in danger, he sends a messenger to tell the king not to worry, but to send Naaman to him.
The king, heaving a great sigh of relief, promptly does so, for Naaman shows up at Elisha’s door in the very next verse. He shows up with all his horses and his chariots, clearly a man of power and influence at the door of what was probably a mud hut. He is grander than anything Elisha’s village has ever seen before, or at least he is sure of that fact. He stands triumphantly outside the house, waiting for Elisha to come out, bow down to him and perform great magic clearing up his illness.
But Elisha doesn’t do that at all. He doesn’t even come out of the house. Elisha merely sends a messenger out to him who tells Naaman to bathe in the River Jordan seven times.
Now Naaman is furious! How dare this supposed prophet treat him this way?! He is one of the most important men of his age and Elisha doesn’t even show his face to him. On top of that, he wants him to go and bathe in the teensiest, piddliest little stream that doesn’t even bear calling a river. A stream that even though it flows with speed is always muddy looking and ugly. Doesn’t Elisha know that Naaman comes from the land of Syria, the land of the mighty Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the rivers that feed bounteous green harvests, the birthplace of humankind? How dare he! Naaman turns and stomps off in anger. His pride is hurt and he is unwilling to submit to what he perceives of as indignity.
How many of us are the same? After all, we live in the land of “Have it your way”. The country that tells us that anything we want is at our beck and call. That love and beauty and success are there for the taking if we will simply buy the products as they are touted on television and radio and billboards. We live in the metaphorical land of the mighty rivers. Why on earth should we step outside our societal norms when everything we want or need is available to us?
Even the sermon title today is taken from a commercial product: Neosporin, a higher level of healing. Now I have to tell you, I love Neosporin. I think it’s a great antibiotic ointment and I would use it any time I thought I needed it, or my daughter, Grace, needed it. But is it truly “a higher level of healing”? Doesn’t a true higher level of healing come from somewhere else?
In our second story today, Jesus is out on a preaching tour. A leper comes up to him and says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Leprosy was an even bigger deal to the Jews of Jesus’ time than it was to Naaman eight hundred years before. There is no way a Jew with leprosy could have risen to be the commander of the army. A Jew with leprosy was considered ritually impure. Not only that, but people afflicted with leprosy or a disease thought of as leprous could further contaminate others and make them impure. They weren’t allowed to touch anyone else and no one was allowed to touch them. They were supposed to wear torn clothing so that people could tell by looking that they were unclean and if anyone kept coming, they had to shout out and warn them not to come too close.
The leper that comes to Jesus violates this last rule. He comes up to Jesus and kneels, begging Jesus to help him. And Jesus does. He reaches out his hand and says, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Now Jesus’ gesture of touching the leper break the chains imposed by those concerned with ritual purity. And it’s not the only time that Jesus touches someone who by touching them he should be made unclean. But it is the first time in Mark’s gospel.
What does it mean? Is Jesus made unclean as others would have been? It doesn’t seem so. There is no mention in any of the gospels that after performing a miracle through touching someone that Jesus “shouldn’t” that he honors the ritual bathing and isolation required in order to become pure in God’s eyes again. So not only does this gesture cleanse the individual of illness, but it also represents the power that Jesus possesses as the “Holy One of God.” Human beings can be contaminated by ritual impurities, but God’s holiness cannot be made impure. Now that’s a higher level of healing!
One more thing. In the first story, Naaman chooses to follow the directions that are given to him by Elisha and he becomes clean. Granted, once again, he would not have done so if his comparatively powerless servants hadn’t come up to him and soothed his ruffled feathers. They remind him gently that it’s really not that much that is being asked of him. They explain that it may not be something he feels inclined to do, but it’s really not that big a deal to go and dip himself in the Jordan seven times. So Naaman does it and he is made clean, made well, made whole again.
In the second story, the leper tells Jesus that if he chooses, the leper might be made clean. Jesus then does choose to make him clean, and acknowledges that it is his choice. Jesus doesn’t arbitrarily heal a leper who happens to be in his path by chance. The leper goes against the societal norms of his day, comes up to Jesus, kneels and requests his intervention. There is a partnership going on here. It is not Jesus alone who heals, but the one who needs healing has to ask.
This is big news. It is another way in which both stories are similar, but a more subtle one. You see, both people are healed through the power of the Holy Spirit, but they are also healed because they take action. We have agency in our own healing. It is not simply God who chooses to heal us, but we who choose to take actions toward our own healing. It is not enough for God to want to heal us, for God to choose to heal us. We must be willing to step out in faith and take the actions to be healed. We must seek out ways to help ourselves even as we are blessed to know that God is able to help us.
You see, healing is more than just being cured of cancer, or recovering from alcoholism, or having knee replacement surgery. Healing is more than dealing with a painful childhood, or learning to read at age forty, or taking Adult Education classes to keep up mental acuity. Healing is a three-fold operation.
Healing is not complete until we’re fully functioning in body, mind and spirit. That higher level of healing is accomplished when we’re operating on all cylinders, when our spirits are in balance with the rest of us. And it is available. The healing that makes us whole in spirit as well as physically and mentally. The healing that brings us closer to God and to God’s purpose for us. But we must be invested in the process.
We must do the things necessary to bring us toward it. Just as we must go to doctors, to therapists, physical or mental, professionals for healing in areas of our lives where they can be helpful, we must go to the Authority for spiritual aid. And no, I’m not talking about me, although I’m happy to help if I can. I’m talking about going to your Bible and reading it. I’m talking about attending Bible Study classes – we’ve got another six-week session starting up next Sunday – speak to me if you plan to attend and I will make sure that you get the curriculum and the details. I’m talking about coming to church and worshipping God and sharing in fellowship with other Christians on a regular basis. I’m talking about taking a CD and listening to the sermon when you can if you haven’t been able to make it to church. Or maybe listening again if you have. I’m talking about spending time in prayer and meditation listening to the One whose Spirit governs us all, even when we are unwilling to follow it. I’m talking about spending time with Christian friends whom you admire and seriously taking their advice. I’m talking about building a life around the biblical principles of service and justice, sharing your skills as a Sunday School teacher or an officer in the church community or preparing the food and drink for our fellowship time after worship or singing in the choir or knitting shawls for the Prayer Shawl Ministry sharing comfort and joy with those who need it or working in the community at a Community Food Kitchen or Meals on Wheels or as a hospital volunteer. There are so many ways to get in touch with the One who provides that higher level of healing – these I’ve mentioned and many others that I’ve not – if we’re just willing to step out in faith and do it.
We are all broken. But we are all able to be healed. Oh, there might be scars left. We will certainly never be perfect, but we can be taken to a higher level of healing. We are Naaman. We are the unnamed leper. We have the agency to request healing and we have the ability to respond as well. We can be on the path to becoming the people that God intends us to be. We can step out in faith, saying, “You can heal me” to our God and listening to the messages we are given in response, and following the directions, even when they may not feel like exactly what we’d like. We can live lives of righteousness and justice, of mercy and love, with the help of the One who came to love and forgive us all.
It’s up to you. It’s up to us. Individually and as a group. Do you want to be healed? All you have to do is ask. And listen. And respond. But I warn you: if you do, your life will never be the same. Amen.