LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY

II Kings 5:1-14

Union Avenue

111 million viewers watched the 2012 Super Bowl last Sunday evening.  It has been claimed the most watched TV program in history – more than the final episode of Mash or Ed Sullivan’s presentation of The Beatles.

The Super Bowl viewers were football fans – not just Patriots and Giants fans.  They were people charmed by great athletes and quarterbacks – Eli Manning and Tom Brady.  The viewers, however, were also intrigued by the commercials that would be spun out.  And of course, large numbers of folks wanted to see what Madonna would do for a half-time show.  Added to all those categories of people were those who merely love to get together for a party with their friends.

No question about it – the Super Bowl is a spectacular event and a huge portion of the American population is drawn to be a part of it.  This summer a large portion of the world’s population will be drawn to the spectacle of the Olympic Games.  Again, it is not just avid sports fans who tune in for those events.  Classical music lovers were probably some of the non-viewers last Sunday evening.  But they, too, are energized by the fullness of grand symphonies that incorporate hundreds of instruments or operas with choruses that take away the breath.

The charge and energy of the spectacular ignites us – touches something quite powerful within us … and this has spanned the history of civilization.  It is no surprise that we expect God – the source of all power, the creator of all that is, the energy within all that is good – to show off and be seen as spectacularly as anything we can create with our minds and hands!

Our faith stories and scriptures, unfortunately, mislead us in this ‘spectacular fix’, if we insist on reading them differently than we read novels or watch movies or even remember our own lives. Give us the highpoints, please!  Capture our imaginations with the big, the deep, the highs and lows!  And we forget all the ordinary, in-between everyday times.

We fall into the very same hole as Naaman …hearing about Elisha (man of God) and that he would act/has to act with great fanfare…with instantaneous and spectacular grandeur.

Another misinterpretation of God’s ways by Naaman was confusion about command and control.  Naaman was military …and not just a part of the system.  He was a general …he was top of the heap.  Expectations he had – because of the world in which he lived – were that people would carry out orders – his orders.  There were right ways of doing things and Naaman presumed (because of his own management style) this carried over into other realms …especially the realm of God, the omnipotent general of all generals.

We don’t have to be military to be susceptible to this confusion.  Most of us live and work in some sort of system with expected outcomes because of specific inputs.  We like managed life …and because that’s the way it works best for us, of course God would work that way as well.

The third confusion Naaman has about God came with the help of his king.  Together they thought silver, gold and beautiful garments could buy his healing.  Buying God’s favor isn’t often claimed as crassly as ‘the more money you give, the more God will love you’ …and yet, that message is often made politically correct, softened with innuendos, and even taken out of financial terms so that we hear God will act on our behalf if we behave … if we do what we are supposed to do … if we keep certain rules … if we pray hard and long enough … if – you fill in the blank.

 General Naaman projected his ways of command, control, management onto God …and we often do the same – whether we are even close to having the same power or prestige as our scripture character.  We also want things to happen – now – immediately.  Scientific and particularly medical advancements have increased this dilemma.  Amazing surgical procedures, medicinal remedies, and therapeutic improvements add to our expectations that the healing process has sped up (when humans are in charge) …so certainly God could/should speed up as well!?

What did happen in this story of Naaman and Elisha?  And are there important truths about us, about God, about our own healing that can be gleaned?

‘Go wash in the Jordan seven times’.  The Jordan was and is considered a murky, muddy river.  When I was quite young my folks bought a summer home in Michigan on Crystal Lake.  The lake is aptly named.  There are few living creatures in it (not good for fishing) and you can see everything down to the sandy bottom of the lake until you get to the deepest center.  It is crystal clear, the purest of the pure, coldest of the cold, bluest of the blue, and cleanest of the clean.  It is where I learned to swim, ski, enjoy water.

Then I went to church camp in Indiana.  Indiana lakes (like Missouri lakes) are brown.  The bottoms of the lakes are mud – not sand.  They are filled with creatures – and because you cannot see through the muddy brown, you have no idea what is nibbling on your ankles.  Then when you see the occasional snake sliding across the top of the lake, you can only imagine what might be nipping at your ankles.  I creatively developed all sorts of excuses to avoid swim time at church camp. I empathize with Naaman.

Prophet Elisha, rather than putting on a Super Bowl celebration for this incredibly powerful and successful army commander … rather than setting up a management system that would have orders ripple down for an expected outcome …rather than being awed by the gifts that had been brought to buy this product of healing …Elisha simply said – go get in the muddiest river known. Oh, and do it seven times!

How many times of getting in that dirty, yucky river would it take before Naaman lost the sense that he was in control and merely needed God to tend to the little piece of life that was seemingly not in his control?

How many times of getting in that muddy river after he had gotten out of the river would it take before Naaman realized that life is not all spectacle … but actually mundane, often dirty, and filled with creatures and aspects that cannot even be seen, much less managed?

How many times of getting in the Jordon did it take for Naaman to understand the presence of God is everywhere, with everyone, but takes a humble spirit to recognize?

And how many times of getting in and out of those waters did it take for Naaman to understand that life was not on his schedule?

When (during those multiple immersions in the river) did Naaman realize that his healing came because of a variety of people helping:  a young girl that was serving his wife, two kings of major prominence in the world, the famous prophet, and a set of other servants who finally helped him take the prophet’s advice?  It took a community of people!  However, the most helpful – beyond the prophet …were his own servants and his wife’s servant.  Power, prestige, intellect, knowing how to command, knowing how to win are not the characteristics of those who will understand the ways of God.  In fact, all of those characteristics often get in the way when they are seen as the means to know God, to understand God, to live with and be loved by God.

How many times getting in those muddy waters would it take each of us to accept the healing power of God within our own lives …that is always present, always available, never determined by our demand, our buying power, or our intrigue with the spectacular.  How many times?  How many times will it take?  God waits…. for us!

CATCH-22

 

I Cor. 9:16-23

Union Avenue

Most of us – and most of our parents – who have worked for school systems, universities, corporations, city/state/national government, hospitals, medical or law firms, and even some small businesses have dealt with personnel departments preceding and during our employment.  Questions about benefit packages are always on the table.  This is a modern and post-modern reality…. which undoubtedly would make our great grandparents just scratch their heads even though they had other considerations for benefits.

Today with more people developing home businesses, working from their own computers, their own vehicles  … the issue of benefits is altered a bit.  Their benefits don’t come packaged but are identified in terms of balancing other portions of their lives, freedom of time and location, and a whole series of other financial caveats.

Weighing the benefits of any job – whether we are avant-garde, modern or post-modern, a century or two old, or even 2,000 years old – seems to be a natural, human thought pattern.

It is the question the Apostle Paul raises in this rather convoluted passage we have as scripture for the morning.  Bluntly and crudely put – what do I get if I accept this call …challenge …experience …job of being a Christian and proclaiming the good news of God?

Paul claims there is no ‘specialness’ that will come.  There is no potential for advancement.  There are no extra benefits not offered to everyone else.  And – if we do NOT choose to accept this challenge, we are – in fact – endangering ourselves!

The bookends – the Catch-22 – then – according to Paul …are 1) the warning that we better accept this life of proclaiming the Gospel and 2) we dare not expect any special treatment or adulation when we do!

The benefits seem to be of a completely different nature than what we can attribute to our working lives – whenever those might have happened.

The first benefit when we accept the commission of being a Christian is in the discovery to whom we belong and, in fact that we belong.  Though every one of us is unique, every human creature on this earth is the same in that we have one creator and we are all beloved fully by that creator.  The wonder of that discovery is humbling – if fundamentally we need to be better than, more important than, smarter than, achieve more, accrue more, be acclaimed more than others.  The wonder of that discovery is freeing – because it helps us see every person we encounter, engage with, talk to, serve, be served by, be in relationship with as a brother or sister – equal in one family.

The secondary benefit when we accept the commission of being a Christian is learning how we do what we do with our lives.  The benefit then becomes our challenging but rewarding work.  When we accept the amazing grace of belonging to a God who not only has loved the creation into being, but sustains every creature every day within it …our response it to encounter each other on an absolutely equal basis and thus be in true relationship with others.

How!!?  Paul gives his examples of being a Jew to Jews, living under the law, living outside the law, being weak.  He makes it sound easy – and I don’t think it is. Let’s try a few other examples, raise some questions and dig a bit deeper.

Even though many of us have lived through tough economic times in our lives, not many of us (in this room) have experienced homelessness …especially to have had the responsibility of children and no place we could call home.  How then is it possible to fathom the terror of not knowing where we might sleep, what we might eat, and how we will protect our children every moment of every day?  Our inability to do so does not have to de-sensitize us to others’ reality …in fact, it could and hopefully should open us to a deeper compassion and awe for those who – for whatever reason – are thrust into such a life.

Even though many of us have experienced discrimination, being passed over for a myriad of reasons, set aside or disqualified … no one of my skin color can absolutely know what it means to be looked at, judged, treated as other, merely because their skin is dark.  All the disappointment of discrimination based on achievement will never compare to every morning awaking to know skin color sets one aside as different and subject to another standard in much of our society. Again – just because we cannot live inside another person, our compassion for others who are summarily looked on as different can and should be an increasing part of our own life – when we remember we are one family.

If when we were coming of age and realized that our God-given sexual orientation is not that of the acceptable social mainstream there were decisions and huge burdens.  Unlike skin color, orientation can often be and has often been hidden…. and what does that do to one’s inner being?  Along with the hiding has come the Church’s incredibly hurtful teaching that orientation is NOT God-given, but choice …so the church has too often taught that individuals can and should learn to choose better.  Those of us who are not gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered have no real way of understanding all of the internal turmoil or external condemnation with which our brothers and sisters live. …and yet, knowing and believing we are one family of God can and should build our compassion and sensitivity toward those who are dealing with such outrageous pain.

We encounter people every day who are angry, moody, depressed, compulsive, arrogant, rude, selfish, overbearing.  Their behavior often makes us respond in kind, walk away in disgust, or avoid them altogether …because of course, we have NEVER been angry, moody, depressed, compulsive, arrogant, rude, selfish or overbearing.  Yet, when we remember that yes we have felt and exhibited all of that at some time and then remembered why and how we got to those unfortunate places of behavior and attitude … we should be able to be more compassionate, tolerant and understanding of others when they get there.

We cannot fully comprehend life from the inside of another – even if we have had similar experiences, even if we have had the same turmoils and discriminations, even if we have had the same disappointments. That is not the expectation placed upon us.

The image of being brothers and sisters in one family is even a stretch.  Those of us who have siblings likely have felt ‘Mother loves my brother more than me; Dad has always been more supportive of my sister.’  We have no human system to adequately compare to how God can and does love – fully and completely – each one of us.

But when we receive and believe the great news of God that we all live because of that love and grace of God, this reality is a truth we will want to share to our best ability and experience with as many others as we can.  And this is our call from Jesus Christ.

It is not as much of a catch 22 as it first seems.  The benefit of understanding why we live and that we are called children of one God is enough (in and of itself) to encourage us to share it with whomever we encounter.  Our life as Christians is a proclamation, best seen through the example and teaching of Jesus. The proclamation is understanding that our differences – whether they are a part of our very nature, part of our experience, or a part of learned behavior – can never separate us from the love of God, and therefore should never separate us from each other.

Christian proclamation is much, much more about listening than it is about speaking.  It is much more about affirming than it is about distinguishing differences.   It is more about widening appreciations more than narrowing fields of expertise.

Christian proclamation is never about us …it is always about God – because of whom we are related to all of God’s children.