The Spirit in the Simple

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on 2 Kings 5:1-14. Click here to listen to an audio version of this sermon. 

Naaman, war leader of Aram, was in an intolerable situation. In our First Testament reading today, Naaman is a person of great importance. He has the favor of the king, he gives orders to thousands of troops who trust his strategies and obey his commands without question, he wins great victories and inspires fear and respect in his enemies. Naaman is a person of consequence in the world as he perceives it.

And Naaman apparently is accustomed to being a person of consequence. He expects the people around him to show him the proper respect and deference and fear. He is used to giving orders and having them obeyed. In the game of posturing and posing and throwing one’s weight around that was a staple of politics in Naaman’s day – and in ours, too – in the art of being important, Naaman is pretty darn good. And he expects everyone around him to recognize that he is pretty darn good.

But – Naaman has leprosy. Now the biblical word we translate “leprosy” here was in fact used to name several different skin diseases, not just the Hansen’s disease we today name “leprosy”; so we can’t be entirely sure just what kind of skin condition Naaman has. Nevertheless, in the ancient world skin diseases were very bad news: whether Hansen’s disease or not, “leprosy” was considered highly contagious and difficult to treat: which meant that people who had it were typically isolated, quarantined, outcast, and they could look forward to a long, painful, lonely deterioration and death. Naaman doesn’t seem to be at that stage yet: he’s been allowed to keep his wife, and his household, and his servants, and his job – so he’s not yet a total social outcast. But I imagine Naaman is not very welcome at the royal court; the king and the nobles probably don’t want to be too close to someone they think is contagious; people might respect him but I doubt they want to be near him; all of which means Naaman probably does not get to enjoy the perks and prestige that are properly due his position. And for a man of Naaman’s pride and self-importance, that must hurt a lot. And he knows it’s only going to get worse. For all Naaman’s power, here is something he can’t control; for all Naaman’s ability to defeat the enemy on the battlefield, here is an enemy he can’t overcome; for all Naaman’s expectations of heroic consequence, here is something that cares not a bit for his stature and his prestige and his self-importance. Naaman, war leader of Aram, finds this an intolerable situation.

And it is into this intolerable situation that God sends healing grace. A slave taken on a raid into Israel tells Naaman about a prophet, a mighty man of God, a wonderworker, who is to be found in Samaria (at that time the capital of Israel), and who could certainly cure Naaman of his leprosy. So Naaman goes to his king, and gets a letter of introduction to the king of Israel, and puts together an entourage befitting a dignitary of his importance, and brings a gift of gold and silver and festive garments – the lavishness of the gift being another sign of his prestige – and Naaman goes off to Israel to be healed. He expects to arrive at the royal palace, and have the king come out to meet him, and summon forth the wonderworker, who will lead a ceremony of great pomp and circumstance, and call upon his God, and wave his hand over the infected spot, and cure Naaman in the sight of all the people – thus proving once again that God gives Naaman great victories, that even disease cannot become Naaman’s enemy and survive.

But of course that’s not what happens. When Naaman arrives in Samaria, the king there has no idea what’s going on – he thinks the whole thing is a pretext to pick a quarrel, an excuse for starting a war. Elisha, the miracle-worker, isn’t even there – he’s not at the palace, he’s at his own house. And when Elisha gets word of what’s going on, he doesn’t rush to the palace himself, but he sends a messenger to say “Send Naaman to my place, and I’ll see him.” And when Naaman gets to Elisha’s house – presumably a place far less important and far less consequential than the palace – Elisha doesn’t even come out in person, but sends a servant to tell Naaman to go wash in the Jordan River seven times. Wash. No ceremony, no pomp, no circumstance, no waving of hands, no public miracle. Take a bath. And in the Jordan: a small, unimpressive mud-ditch of a river, nowhere near as magnificent as the Abana and the Pharpar rivers Naaman knows in Damascus. If all Naaman has to do is take a bath, he might as well have stayed at home. This is certainly not what Naaman had expected. This treatment by Elisha only adds insult to the injury of his leprosy. It’s more than Naaman can take! So, in a fit of pique, Naaman turns on his heel and is about to leave for home, writing off the whole stupid journey as a bad idea.

And that’s when one of Naaman’s servants, perhaps a foot soldier, speaks up and addresses his commander in a way he might never have dared before: “If the prophet had asked you to do something hard and difficult and heroic,” he says, “you wouldn’t have hesitated. Why not do something simple, and see if it works?” And for once in his life, Naaman puts aside his pride and his privilege and his grandiose expectations – and he goes to the Jordan, and he washes, and he is made clean.

The thing I love about our First Testament story today is the way it shows God using very ordinary means to accomplish extraordinary ends. Something so simple as washing in a river becomes the channel through which God’s creating and re-creating and healing energy can enter Naaman’s life. Things so simple as the ordinary, everyday activities of living can be the openings for God’s grace to come into our lives. But at the same time, this story shows how we have to be ready to perceive God’s grace, how we have to be open to recognize God’s extraordinary presence in the midst of ordinary things. Naaman has to cut through his pride and his self-importance and his expectations before he can receive healing in the simple act of washing. And we often have to set aside our sense of privilege, and our conviction of our own importance, and our expectations – our grandiose or our anxious expectations – if we are to be open to God’s healing and shalom and well-being offered to us in the simple gift of each present moment.

And that ability to set aside our sense of busy-ness or importance or expectation in order to attend to God in the present moment – that’s something that can be learned. It’s not just a talent of the spiritually advanced, but it is a skill, a discipline, a practice of faith that you and I and anyone can begin and develop and grow in with experience. So I invite you to do precisely that; I invite you to adopt and develop that practice in this coming week. Every day this week – maybe even several times a day – take a moment when you’re right in the middle of something and pause, mentally step back from whatever it is you’re doing, disengage from the sense of urgency or busy-ness or attachment that the moment seems to demand, and just ask yourself “What is God doing right here, right now? What movement or energy or inspiration is the Spirit drawing forth from me in this particular action? What moment of love or healing or justice or compassion or joy is God creating with me right now?” Try this spiritual exercise: in the middle of doing some ordinary thing, put your expectations aside and be open to the extraordinary grace God is giving you just then. If you make that a practice of prayer, I can bear witness it will release some amazing energy into your soul.

When Lee and I were in Wisconsin last week, we stopped for a couple of hours at the International Crane Foundation outside of Baraboo. The Crane Foundation is not a very big place; but they house there individuals from all fifteen crane species in the world, some of them quite endangered; and they are doing remarkable work to restore a migrating population of Whooping Cranes in North America. As we were walking around the crane enclosures, we came to some Blue Cranes, which I’d never seen before. Blue Cranes come from southern Africa, and they are smaller and more delicate than most cranes, and they have long tail feathers that give them a dignified and elegant look. It was fascinating to watch them as they moved about their enclosure, looking for food, observing the humans observing them. They weren’t in a hurry, they moved with a kind of simple slowness – and as I watched them, I could feel my mind slowing down, too. The stress of driving through traffic and rain that morning, the urgency about getting to our B&B by the time we’d said we’d be there – all that kind of faded away, and I was just there, watching the Blue Cranes. And in that moment, in that extended now, I felt a great gratitude, a deep joy that such beautiful creatures and such beautiful moments could be. I became aware of the gift God was giving me, and that awareness changed the rest of the day.

That was the moment of God I found when I looked for it. What will you be looking for? What moments will you take to set aside expectations and to attend to God? What ordinary actions will open up for you into extraordinary grace? And if we practice such attentiveness this week, what practice might we grow into in the weeks to come?

Naaman, war leader of Aram, found healing by cutting through his expectations and attending to the extraordinary energy of God flowing through ordinary human action. The Good News for us today is that we can do that too, we can make that a pattern of our prayer, we can make that a practice of our faith, we can let that be healing for our lives. Amen.