Based on 2 Kings 5:1-14 – The Healing of Naaman from Leprosy
Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.
2 Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. 5 “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. 6 The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
7 As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”
8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
May the hearing of our ears and eyes and the meaning of the words on our minds and hearts be pleasing and acceptable to God.
This story is the ones surrounding it are fraught with experiences of injustice, anger, nationalism and cooperation and God’s mutuality and love. We are here today to remind ourselves of our interdependence as a core value of being a part of Springhouse Ministry Center and Lyndale United Church of Christ.
Before we move into the Naaman story I want to ask a couple of questions about the music we have used to set the tone for worship. What do the words and tunes of our story songs say to us today? From the opening to the centering music to the opening hymn to the Psalm. What is resonating for you?
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Thank you for sharing. The Naaman story also reminds us of a story of Interdependence. The King of Aram commands a large army, but one of his commander’s is sick and cannot lead if his leprosy is not healed. This servant from Israel speaks of a prophet of God would could heal this disease. Naaman crosses into Israel with monies and gifts and chariots armed for battle just in case. The king of Israel is perplexed and tears his robes at the thought of a commander on the way. Elisha intervenes and the story unfolds. In the end, God acts, not as transactional, but as generous and loving. The Interdependence in the story honors the faith of the servant taken as a slave and honors the messenger of the prophet just as it honors the army commander and the kings. We witness a level playing field of healing and hope. It takes some vulnerability to experience this level of healing. It often takes an experience of suffering to really understand interdependence. It is why mutual aid communities are mostly made up of poor and oppressed people. The challenge for us is to do this work as people who come mostly with education and some degree of wealth. How does this story of interdependence call you to listen and receive God’s grace and healing?
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Richard Rohr teaches that a deeper understanding of freedom and liberation are needed today:
Richard uses the word “emancipation” to describe the kinds of freedom and liberation that are needed today. Instead of focusing on personal freedoms only, emancipation directs our attention to a systemic level of freedom. With the exception of a very few who are fully emancipated, we each live inside our own smaller security systems of culture, era, political opinion, and even some quiet, subtle agreements of which we may not even be aware.
Political and economic liberties such as free speech, free markets, and the freedom to be secure and defend ourselves can only offer us as much freedom as we ourselves have earned from the inside. If we haven’t achieved the inner freedom to love, we are totally dependent on outer systems which, paradoxically, can never fully deliver the very freedoms they promise. Our inability to recognize this has made our so-called freedoms very selective, class-based, often dishonest, and open to bias.
Simone Campbell, a Catholic sister and activist, describes what drives her work for economic emancipation:
Touching the real pain of all is at the heart of the movement toward emancipation. But it can’t stop there. There is a second component to this journey toward freedom: fight! Too often we think of fighting as “fighting against.” I have learned that when you “fight against” someone or some policy, that person or policy may actually be reinforced. Rather, in this spiritual journey toward emancipation, we are called to fight for a vision that can be shared. We fight for a world that is inclusive of all creation. We fight for an economy of inclusion….
It is my experience that we realize emancipation when we combine radical acceptance with fighting for a vision. Embracing all with care and fighting for an economy that benefits the 100% will liberate us from the shackles of polarization and division. In my experience, these events become like a communal fire. There is a flaming-up of community dedicated to the good of all. It is fire in the warmth of the care we share with each other and in the commitment to make a difference. It is a fire that frees us from fear, judgment, and isolation, and opens us to the freedom of an abundant universe….
In our time of being shackled by income and wealth disparity, we are called to let God flame up in our lives. Emancipation happens when our contemplative journey takes us beyond ourselves into care for all and fighting for a vision that benefits the 100%…. The emancipation proclamation of our day is that together we must end the shackles of income and wealth disparity in our nation and around the world. This one body of creation is in a single great struggle….
Our commitments to economic, environmental, queer and immigration justice are advanced if can find out some way to be “FOR” the emancipation and liberation for “EVERYONE”.
I wonder how we can do this for each other and then those we love and then wider and wider circles of healing and hope. I trust that God can heal us when we listen to her prophets. Hasn’t this always been the GOOD NEWS?
AMEN.
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