The Lessons 2 Kings 5:1-15ab

Transcription

1 Touched When Mark and Alex Roosa brought Olivia home and appeared at Christmas Eve services, we all rejoiced. Big sister, Bronwyn is so proud of her baby sister that it can only make you smile. I noted that mother Alex was looking very happy, but a bit tired. She explained that Olivia, who had been in an orphanage in Viet Nam, had discovered that if she cried in the night, mom or dad would show up to hold her. Alex said that as she or Mark would enter Olivia s room she would be standing up in the crib, smiling and excited that she would, wonder of wonders, be held, sung to, loved, touched. With a cry, Olivia could summon a loving touch. Today s Psalm reflects that deepest of human needs, to be touched and our collective cry rings out through the Psalms. As the deer longs for the water-brooks, so longs my soul for you O God. My soul is a thirst for God, a thirst for the living God. Our deepest desire as creatures of our Creator is to be touched and loved, is as pressing and powerful as hunger and thirst. We all long to be touched. When my mom was in the nursing home I realized that when I would hold her hand, stroke her brow, massage her shoulders, she would, even through the fog of Alzheimer s, smile and relax. Those who work with the elderly will tell you that like children in orphanages, our elders are often touch deprived, and because of that depravation, both these wee ones and our treasured elders can become withdrawn and unhealthy. My son in law, Wade, was advised by his physician uncle, go into dermatology-no hospital calls, your patients seldom die, but never fully recover from their skin disease- the perfect patients! In the time from which today s lesson from 2Kings took place, as well as in the time of Jesus, no differentiation was made between skin diseases. The stringent Jewish laws lumped all skin eruptions, from bad acne to leprosy in the same categorytovah, unclean. It restricted Jewish sufferers with any skin disease from entering the Temple. In many Gentile communities as well, those with skin problems we ostracized, their skin eruptions being seen as caused by their sins. In fact, the Book of Leviticus commands those with skin diseases to wear torn clothes and let their hair be disheveled; and to cry out unclean, unclean when anyone comes close. And they shall live alone and his dwelling be outside the camp and be unclean as long as he has the disease.

2 The point of both lessons, I think, is that many were excluded from polite society as a matter of course. Elisha, unleasing the power of the Hebrew God, cures Naaman, a powerful general of Syria. Syria and Israel had frequently clashes, and slaves were often taken. These slaves were treated fairly well, because both Syrian and Jew knew that they could be taken into slavery next. But remember how the healing of General Naaman takes place. A Jewish slave in his house urged him to go to Elisha. Imagine, the Jewish slave reaching across ethnicity, nationality, status and gender, to help her master be healed. I wonder how many of us would dare to go into South Central to reach out to a gang member with AIDs? Perhaps that would be a rough parallel in our time of the strength and risk this Hebrew slave took. Had the healing failed, who knows what her punishment might have been. But she had a deep and abiding faith in God, and chose to be a part of Naaman s healing. Jesus too, was always expanding the boundaries of his love and healing to those who were the untouchables of his day-and they were many. Jesus was called a drunkard and a glutton by the Temple leaders because he touched and ate with the wrong people. The Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes were very comfortable with the exclusion of a large portion of their community. It was, after all, in the Law. Jesus was not content with the status quo. Jesus touches people who are not supposed to be touched. He touched lepers, as we know. He took a man who could not hear or speak aside and put his fingers in the man s ears and spat on his hands and touched the man s tongue. With touch, the man was healed. Another time a blind man was brought to him and the man begged Jesus to simply touch him. And Jesus DID touch him. Jesus took dirt, his own saliva and place the mud on the man s eyes and he was healed. Perhaps one of the most powerful healing stories in the Gospels is the one we read today in Mark. The leper, like the Hebrew slave of Naaman didn t even consider the idea that God COULD heal. But asks Jesus, do you choose to. And thanks be to God for us, Jesus does choose to. This lesson is early in Mark s gospel, and following it are a series of times when Jesus chooses to-to heal, to challenge the unfair status quo, to not flee from Gethsemane, but to go meekly to the cross. Jesus CHOOSES to. Each touch of Jesus must have sent shivers up the spine of the righteous and holy. Can t you just hear them saying eeuuuuwwww. But think of it. I have for years contended, being influenced by the earthiness of Christ s healing stories, that an additional well, sort of a sacrament, needs to be

3 acknowledged. Mother s spit. How many of you, while sitting in church with a mother or grandmother, had the laying on of spit? You know, you have gotten candy or the sugar or frosting from a donut all around your mouth, and out comes the hanky, Like Jesus, there is the application of the holy saliva, and your messy face is now clean as Naaman the Syrian s skin after he bathed in the Jordan. To be touched by another is to be honored, to be taken seriously, to be held in high regard by those who touch you. The tragic death of our own Nick Rosser gave me, a member of this St. Matthew s community for only six months, a lesson in healing and touch. When we had gathered at the Rosser home upon hearing the dreadful news of Nick s death, I watched neighbors, St. Matthew s members, teenage friends of Nick and his sister Ali all gather. It was a ritual of love and touch, at a time when words simply do not work. Tears shared. Hugs given. The most poignant examples of touch Richard sitting knee to knee with his daughter Ali. Knee to knee, heart to heart, grief overwhelming them, with the potential of isolating them, but touch uniting father and daughter. And Stacy, Nick s mom, holding herself as every mother whom I have ever been with as they have lost a child, across her midsection, her womb, where the precious child now lost once grew, surrounded by friends who had no words, only healing tears and warming touch. It is in this way that the declaration of scripture becomes real. Not even death can separate us from the love of God. These friends and neighbors chose to touch, to risk touching the unspeakable pain of those to whom they were linked in friendship. Who are these Christians anyway asked the Second Century Roman philosopher, Celsus? Christianity attracts the sick, the fools, and the sinners. He goes on to say that no self-respecting god would even want to have anything to do with these halt, lame and leporous Christians. Except our God, CHOSE to take on human flesh in Jesus. It is still true today. The writer and Episcopalian, Madeleine L Engle once said Christians have given Christianity a bad name. And we have a cottage industry in mocking religious nut cases. The new atheist books by writers like Christopher Hutchins and Bill Maher s movie Religulous do point out and lampoon the more ridiculous and vile aspects of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other religions whose extreme expressions can lead to religious and sectarian violence. But a recent Gallup poll showed that it was the highly spiritually committed Americans who CHOSE to touch the poor, the sick, the lonely and the homeless. The survey also found that the one if four Americans who

4 attend worship weekly, gave over half of all the philanthropic giving in the nation. Wonder of wonders, many of us Christians are actually choosing to follow Jesus. The Temple authorities wanted to keep their God in the Temple, away from the unsightly and the unpleasant. They wanted a tame, domesticated God that would do what they felt was decent and in order. Jesus, however, was the incarnation in flesh, of a God who would break down any barriers that we humans would construct, to love us, to touch us. If it took a Hebrew slave to offer healing to the one who enslaved her-consider it done! If it took a leper to call out to Jesus, or in yet another healing parable to simply touch the garment of Jesus, even the busy Jesus going about his world-saving ministry, was forced to stop. Stop. Choose to stop and touch, and to be touched. Dear Ones, this week I watched you choose to stop and touch. Don t stop choosing. And begin to look for those in need of touch, or recognition, or acknowledgement. I remember the look on the faces of the homeless who made up the congregation of Street Church. My wife, Linda, helped lead this ministry, and when the homeless were given name tags and hugs at the peace in the Eucharist held in the park where the Washington, D.C. homeless congregated, there was visible healing. Their faces glowed. Their humanity affirmed. The untouchables had been touched. The members of Epiphany Episcopal Church had chosen to touch and be touched. Those of you who have been impacted by this dreadful few weeks of loss and death-you knew what to do. To show up- with hugs, with food, with tears, even, I suspect, a bit of mother and father spit. It is as simple as that. Touch those who need the healing touch of Christ. For we are the only hands Christ has now in this world, and whether we touch those whom we love like the Rosser family, or the Massey family, or the touch is giving food to the Westside Foodbank, or serving meals to the homeless, we are doing Christ s work. And that is all it takes to be a healer- the willingness to touch with love those whom the world fears to touch. But you must choose. The Lessons 2 Kings 5:1-15ab

5 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. 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. She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 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. 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." 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." 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." So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha's house. 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." 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! 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. 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'?" 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. Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel."

6 The Epistle 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 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. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified. The Gospel Mark 1:40-45 A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 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." 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.