Naaman Has to Go Home

When I hear how a man with leprosy came to Elisha and demanded to be healed, I picture in my mind an escaped prisoner bursting into a doctor's office and demanding first aid, or a drug addict breaking into a pharmacy -- or someone infected with the ebola virus who ignores the quarantine and demands care.  The man who came to Elisha was doubly dangerous.  Not only contagious, this Naaman was also the army commander of the hostile neighboring nation of Syria. That Elisha chooses to help this dangerous, contagious, ritually unclean foreigner is remarkable.

What is even more interesting is to see how this dangerous foreigner changes as he goes through the process of receiving healing.

First, this important person chooses to take advice from a very lowly person -- his wife's maid, a prisoner of war and go visit in Israel. Second, Naaman takes the risk of asking for and receiving a safe-conduct from two suspicious governments -- the king of Syria and the frightened king of Israel. Third, Naaman travels to the Hebrew healer instead of summoning the healer to him. Then Naaman goes though the indignity of receiving such a tawdry prescription -- no words of power or secret techniques, just the unimpressive direction, "Go wash in the Jordan River." Finally, to Naaman's amazement, after he swallows his indignation and follows the prescription, he comes out of the Jordan River with his rotting skin now smooth and firm like a baby's.

But the most remarkable part of Naaman's story is the trouble he finds when it is time to go back home after his healing.

Even if we have met God and feel new and clean, even if we discover for ourselves where real power lies, there still comes a time when we all have to go home.

It may have been a lovely, renewing trip to Florida, but now we are home.

We may have been uplifted by glorious worship on Sunday morning, but now it's Monday. A couple may have had a wonderful Valentine's getaway, but now they're back to talking about household expenses and facing the things that didn't change.

 Naaman has to go home.  Naaman has to go back work and live up to the expectations of the troops he commands, and of the king who sponsored him.  He has to conform to the requirements of honor in the Syrian social order.  He has to take his place in the rituals owed to Syria's god Rimmon. Naaman has to get along to get ahead, or even just to keep his head.

And yet Naaman know in his heart who made him clean and whole.  He knows now where the real power in this world is found. He has blurted it out to the prophet Elisha:  "Now I know there is no god in the whole world but the God of Israel."

Naaman has discovered what we have discovered. Or what we may yet discover. Discovery may perhaps come to us after we have fallen into addiction, caused terrible damage, and somehow come to ourselves and realized that without God's healing we would be dead.  The discovery may come to us when, having considered ourselves worthless, God touches us while we were unable to raise a finger and lets us know he values us. We may have learned in the beauty of holiness that there is no other God in the whole world but the God of Israel. Or we might have learned it in the horror of mob violence or jail time.  However it comes, we may arrive at a moment when we say with Naaman, "There is no god except the God of Israel. He is my help. I put my trust in this God who has brought me through."

How is Naaman going to stay sane, now that he livesin two worlds? How is Naaman going to live with himself, now that he has felt the healing power of the one true God, and yet there remain other powers that he must reckon with.  He has to reckon with the god Rimmon, if only because the people that he will be dealing with every day are reckoning with the god Rimmon.

We are Naaman.  We have been washed in baptism and made Christ's own forever.  But a lot of other people still claims us:  our children and grandchildren need us; our parents and coaches and teachers expect things; certainly our bosses and peers and inspectors have standards. We can't ignore these claims if we want to enjoy a salary and pension, if we want recognition and acceptance, if we want to enjoy the comforts of a complicated economy.  Even God-lovers who separate themselves to live in a commune in the mountains or a monastic community in a poor neighborhood still have to reckon with getting food, with selling their artisanal wares, and with avoiding massacre at the hands of violent neighbors.

How can we do the things the world expects from us and still not allow the old powers of the world to own us? Can we give Rimmon the respect and obedience he demands, and still give our wholehearted thanks to the God of Israel who has made us whole?

Like Naaman, we will go home. We will on most occasions honor the duties that our place in society demands. If our family and friends keep the Vietnamese New Year, we will join them in the fun and hopefulness of new clothes, of special foods, and of auspicious visits. 

But if there is no god in all the world except the God of Israel, then we will not believe that our wellbeing in the coming twelve months depends on the planets above the earth, or the stars, or on the wealth or the importance of the person who first pays us a visit at Tet.  We know the deeper source of our wellbeing.  We know there is no real god in the world except the God of Israel.

Valentine's Day may have come and gone. We have feelings for our friends, for our boyfriends and girlfriends, for the partner to whom we have committed our most intimate life.

But if the romantic getaway did not happen, of if I did not receive as many Valentines cards as someone else, that does not mean I am not loved. Because I know that the love of God comes before and after, the love of God lies deeper and rises higher, than any human love. Because I have known the healing power of the love of the God of Israel, I will not be ruined even if human love disappoints.

I may be due for an achievement test at school, or a performance review at work, or a physical examination for admission to a retirement home. The outcome of these tests matters, because I need to earn a living. I need reliable shelter.  And yet I remember that no human institution is fail-proof, no job is forever, and my correct value is not set by any god so small as the Educational Testing Service.  My correct score is the score calculated by the God of Israel. This God, through the prophets in old times and through his sent Son Jesus now in these last days, has chosen by his power to make me acceptable and clean.

What will keep us strong in remembering that we have met the God of Israel, the only real god in the world?

Naaman thought he would need two mule loads of earth from the land of Israel. He proposed to carry home this earth from the place where he had bathed and been healed. He would plant his feet on the same earth where he had felt the power of God, maybe touch this earth with his forehead. By this act Naaman hoped that he could stay in touch and continue to honor the one true God of the whole world.

What would help you, when you are back among the old, little gods, to remember the one true God?

I can think of at least two small mule loads of earth that might help us stay in touch, and remember, and continue to honor the one and only true God. One load is for remembering. The other load is for anticipating.

It may help us remember if we keep in touch with some souvenir of whatever past personal experience we have had of the power of God to heal and restore. It is worth remembering the place, the time, maybe the smell of our experience of being made clean.

 Some American soldiers used to wear on a chain around their neck a round medal with a cross in the center, and around the outer edge they could read and remember, "Christ died for you." Reading those words while holding the medal with their fingers, or feeling that medal against their chest, calling to mind that Christ's dying was not for nothing but for a healing purpose, a scared soldier might be able to get up and do what needed to be done. A wounded or dying soldier might remember that someone has gone before him to death and defeated death. That medal around the neck is as good as having your feet planted on a load of earth from the place where God made himself known.

Some people may find their footing in a short prayer, so short you can say it in your mind when you are feeling the tension silently building up inside your body, when you are asking, "Do I really have to comply, when I know it is not what the God of Israel intends for my wholeness, or for the wholeness of people who will be affected by my choice?"  The short prayer is, "When I am afraid, O God, I put my trust in you."

If your wallet or your home screen holds photographs of people who are important to you, can you find and add some image of the invisible God of Israel, some token, some personal symbol, that reminds you of Jesus, the healer who followed the pattern of Elisha, who lost his life and gained for us the life that death can't steal? What reminder would help you if you found it in your pocket the moment you go to send a text or reach for a pen or pull out some money to make a commitment?

Taking time to come to this house of God on Sunday is a powerful way to remember who is the real God who allows all the jobs and authorities and wealth of this world to keep going. We see the baptismal font, and we remember, "God made me clean.  He adopted me.  I belong to the God of Israel." We see this table, and we remember, "Eating this bread, this body of the healing Christ, I will never starve. Right now I am in the presence of the God of the whole earth."

One load of earth could help Naaman recall what he had learned of the power of the one real God.

But Naaman asked for two mule loads of earth to take home with him.  Memory is not the only way we recall the power of God to make and keep us whole.  The other load of earth is for us to push off from and reach, not only backward into memory, but also forward into new encounters.

What Naaman still had to learn, we have already learned from Jesus the healer who allowed himself to be killed and afterward was raised from the dead. The risen Jesus told his followers, "I'm going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see me there."

 The power of God that healed Naaman was flowing through Jesus centuries later when Jesus healed the leper.  The power of God that flowed through Jesus the healer flowed again when God raised Jesus out of death and hell into to a new quality of life. That power of God flows again when you discover that, in spite of all the pressures and all the failures, you have been made -- by a power not your own -- clean, safe, and whole. 

That power of the God of Israel will flow again when we reach out or speak out to let God heal others through us.  When you greet a person who doesn't have anyone to talk to, the Spirit of God helps you and works through your words and your gestures. When you trouble yourself to send help to Ebola victims in Liberia before people around you have heard about a faraway epidemic, the God of Israel has awakened your determination. When we say to someone who is laying on us one job too many, "No, I'm sorry, I can't do that"  -- then the power of God will be acting to make his world know he is God, and not some little would-be god.

This ongoing, missionary work of the Church is the second load of earth we stand on to remain in touch with the God of Israel.  What he did for Naaman through Elisha, what he did for the leper through Jesus, God stands ready to do again through you and through me.  By inconveniencing ourselves to allow God to show his power one more time, we become conduits of the same power that has healed us and shaped us.

Planting one foot on the earth of our past experience, and planting the other foot on the earth of what the living God will still do, we are giving God the honor he deserves. And we are helping God's world know where the real power lies.

THANKS BE TO GOD.