A Sermon preached by Dr. Rev Dawn Berry on Feb. 12, 2006.

 

2 Kings 5:1-14

Mark 1:40-45

 

When Healing Comes

 

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?’”  2Kgs.5:13

 

There is a rabbinic story about a student who went to a famous old rabbi and said, “Master, in the old days there were people who could see God.  Why is it that nobody sees God nowadays?”

 

The old rabbi replied, “My child, nowadays nobody can stoop so low.”

 

Nobody can stoop so low, it is about humility, just what Naaman, the commander, lacked.  A man of great wealth, military prowess, and influence, Naaman seemed to have everything for getting what he wanted, except his health. Naaman suffered from leprosy.  He had not been banished to a leper colony probably because of his value to the King of Syria. 

 

In one of the attacks upon neighboring Israel, a young girl was taken captive to serve Naaman’s wife.  The girl had no position or value in the culture, yet in his desperation, when Naaman overheard her tell his wife that there was a prophet in Israel who could heal him, he acts. 

 

Receiving a letter of introduction from the King of Syria to the King of Israel, Naaman set out with a heap of money to be cured.  (Sounds like the healthcare system in the United States.) Notice, he did not seek out the prophet; rather, he sought out the king, the one worthy of receiving Naaman.  Instead of welcoming the gift of money or the letter of introduction, the King of Israel despaired thinking that the King of Syria was trying to start a fight. The King of Israel knew he did not have the power to cure Naaman of his disease.

 

Hearing what had happened, the Prophet Elisha sent for Naaman.  Now, in his position, Naaman is accustomed to personal audiences and VIP treatment, so you can imagine his outrage when he is told by a messenger of Elisha, not Elisha, to wash seven times in Israel’s River Jordan and he will be clean. What an insult!  The cure was too simple to be trusted.

 

Again, it is those stooped low by life, servants, who really see and intervene with Naaman.  They remind him that he would have readily accepted a cure that involved some difficult formula, some complicated action by which Naaman could demonstrate his superior skill and endurance, thus proving his worthiness of cure. But, Naaman would have to stoop low.  It wasn’t about his power. Reconsidering, Naaman washed in the River Jordan, and what happened was more than a cure.  Naaman is healed. The biblical story continues with Naaman saying, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”  Cure relieves the disease; healing brings forth faith.  One can be cured, but not necessarily healed, and one can be healed without necessarily being cured.  In my twenty-three years of pastoral ministry, I have heard of and seen healing where there may or may not be a cure.  Someone is cured of their disease, but they live life in the same self-centered or resentful way; cured, but not healed.  Whereas, others can be on their death beds, not cured, but their healing is evident in the faith and gratitude they demonstrate at life’s end.  Their focus is on sharing love.  Many times I have heard someone say when death is near, I am thankful for my life, for you, God has been good.

 

When healing comes there is humility, gratitude, faith, and relationship to community.  “A Christian community,” wrote Henri Nouwen, “is therefore a healing community not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision.  Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength.”[1]

 

Now, you (addressing the four youth and advisor commissioned for the Honduras mission trip) will see poverty that you have not imagined.  Children will come up to you asking for things, and you will feel guilty because you have so much and they so little.  You will be tempted to alleviate their immediate need, to fix and cure their distress by giving them something.  I want you to resist and to remember that the best gift you have to give is yourselves.  Be authentic with them, share your faith with them, stoop low enough to really be in relationship with them and let them also teach you about their faith and life. See that they can be, and are happy, without IPods and all the other conveniences and trappings of our materialistic culture.  Keep it simple.  In this there is healing for both of you.  When healing comes, your spirits will soar, relationships form, gratitude is felt, and God is recognized among us!


[1] Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.,1972, p.96.