Wash and be clean

^{Sermon for Trinity 6}

^{2 Kings 5:14 -} The Healing of Naaman the Syrian Commander
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.

Humility leads us to salvation and wholeness.

Today we meet another big bible character who eventually came up against his limits, but through his limits, found God.

Last time we looked at Elijah and his big battle against the prophets of Baal, his fleeing from scary Jezebel into an exhausted, low state in which he wished to die, and couldn’t find God in the usual ways.

Until God surprised him with the still small voice.

Today we find a similar humbling in the OT reading.

We’re sadly quite used to hearing of Syria in connection with war and it seems it was no different in the times of the Kings, roughly 800 years before Christ.

Naaman was a commander in the army of the king of Aram – one of the traditional enemies of Israel.

So we note firstly that this story is not told from the point of view of one of God’s own people, but from that of a foreigner.

It’s a feature of both the Old and New testaments that God’s loving purposes are entirely inclusive: we think of Elijah and the widow of Zarapeth; the Centurion’s servant and the Syrophonecian woman’s daughter: all people who were outside the ‘in group’, ie. the group who would normally expect God to act for them, but not act for ‘the others’.

There’s a message here for us as we look around our community, and our world, and wonder how and where God is at work.

God is not bound by our group, but he graciously chooses to reveal himself to whoever is open…which can be a threatening thought sometimes…because our group is right (isn’t it?)

Back to Naaman.

He was a big, fearless, fighting figure: ‘a great man and in high favour with his master’, and used to victory: ‘by him the Lord had given victory to Aram’.

We sometimes see people like Naaman and we might well feel inferior.

Let’s imagine him as tall, and really rather good-looking.

His name means ‘pleasant’ so perhaps he was also a decent man, and popular.

He was certainly a war hero to the Syrians.

We’ve just remembered those who fell in war with the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme, and it’s natural to salute the men who felt they were doing their duty by standing up to an aggressor.

But it’s not so natural for us to focus our sympathies on the aggressor.

In this OT scenario, the Syrian army, championed by Naaman, is typically against God’s people and yet there’s apparently no biblical judgment on Naaman for this.

The story takes him entirely as one human individual with deep spiritual needs.

Can we so bold as to say that a long time before what we do, God is concerned with who we are?

In my childhood illustrated bible Naaman had enormous muscles, brown eyes and a brown beard.

He was definitely the hero of the story and you wanted things to come good for him.

Perhaps when people met Naaman the commander, the rather superior human being, they felt a bit like some have felt on meeting President Obama.

A US journalist who had one such meeting vividly describes the impression President Obama had on her (and she wasn’t a natural Democrat supporter).

She writes: ‘So there I was, happily sitting (she was waiting in the White House for a meeting)… and then behind me I heard a deep, "Hello, Everybody."

I spun around. President Obama walked past me and took a seat at the table.

First reaction: My jaw dropped. …

Then I came back to earth and remembered where I was and why. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss economic policy, rising gas prices, and the economic recovery. …Then I told myself: Hold on, you just met the President. This might not happen again in your lifetime. It's okay to be dazzled.

Obama shook all of our hands.

The man knows how to shake a hand! He gave great eye contact, with an enviable grip. Firm around the edges and soft in the middle, if that's even possible. And he doesn't appear to "shake" your hand, but it does move, in a soft sway...'

(http://www.businessinsider.com/meeting-president-obama-2011-6?IR=T)

Some people are just a bit dazzling.

Naaman was one of these.

But, and here’s the big BUT, he had a fatal flaw.

And we’re not even talking about the fact that he’s led men into war and doubtless has much blood on his hands.

His fatal flaw is not even a reference to the fact that during one of the raids he led, a young Israeli girl was carried off – kidnapped - and is now the slave girl of his own wife.

Which to our ears is perhaps like hearing that Boko Haram have carried off Nigerian schoolgirls and all the horror that entailed.

So, conscious of that struggle to make sense of some very brutal things that we encounter, in the bible as in life, we start the story with Naaman’s fatal flaw.

Naaman is sick.

He is a leper.

Leprosy is described in the New Testament as covering a number of infectious skin conditions that Naaman might have suffered from.

He would have been disfigured and in pain.

In addition, leprosy brought social stigma – in fact Naaman was known as Naaman the Leper.

It was his fatal flaw.

If it hadn’t been for this particular suffering of his, life would have been pretty perfect: military honours, second in command to the King; popular, good looking, nice wife, nice home.

The problem with a perfect life though is there’s no room for God.

Why would you need God if your life were perfect?

I expect you know lots of people who essentially feel like this.

What with the nice house, the nice children, grandchildren, pension, hobbies, charities, etc. there’s really not room at all for God…

The upside down nature of the gospel though is that when we are weak then we are strong.

In other words, weakness, failure, illness, disappointment; these are all things which give people a window to God.

Naaman’s window opens up via a little girl.

An old Ladybird book I had of this story was called ‘Naaman and the Little Maid.’

She served Naaman’s wife and, crucially, she knows where healing and salvation are to be found.

She knows something the Arameans don’t.

She knows there’s a prophet in Israel who serves the most High God, and that healing and salvation are found, not in might or strength or victory in battle, but in the gracious deliverance of a God who cares for individuals.

So the females get together to sort things out.

The little maid said to Naaman’s wife: “if only my Lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy!”’

Naaman gets to hear of her plea and spectacularly gets hold of the wrong end of the stick.

He doesn’t understand ‘prophet’: he only understands ‘king’ – the language of this world, not the next.

The language of hubris, not humility.

He goes to his king, and his king also spectacularly gets hold of the wrong end of the stick, sending a letter to king of Israel asking for him to heal Naaman and sending a load of material goods along to pay for it.

This is tantamount to a cheeky, verging on dangerous, provocation – even to war.

‘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”.’

Luckily the prophet Elisha hears of the rumpus.

He tells the king to redirect Naaman to him.

‘Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’

Interestingly, not ‘let him come to me that he might be healed’, but ‘that he might learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’

In other words, the healing is important, but what is of life changing spiritual significance, is that this is Naaman’s chance to humble himself and find God.

It’s like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkGTyndJC1w

in the test to pass safely through the whirling swords that cut off your head if you stand up straight, ‘only the penitent man will pass’.

The penitent man gets down on his knees (thus avoiding the whirling swords and continuing onwards towards the holy grail).

Only the penitent man will pass…

This is the hard, the universal lesson, that Naaman will learn.

Universal, because every human being on the earth will come up against this sooner, or later.

Only the penitent man…

Naaman learns it slowly.

He takes his riches and his worldly goods and offers them to Elisha the prophet: mistake number 1.

You cannot buy, or earn, or deserve salvation.

Elisha ignores all this of course, and sends a simple message: go and wash in the river seven times.

He could have said anything: it’s not about magic water, it’s about obedience.

The point is, can Naaman humble himself to receive God’s healing and salvation?

He cannot, at first.

Mistake number 2: he thinks he can dictate to God how his healing will be effected.

That’s the problem with us people who are used to the world going our way; who have money, resources, reputations, employees, followers.

It’s hard for us to exercise spiritual humility.

Blessed are the poor, the meek, the hungry – that wasn’t really Naaman, by habit.

But God is patient – you could even say God has a lovely gentle, patient sense of humour.

Here is Naaman (who has an anger problem as well) railing and ranting about how humiliating this whole healing thing is.

Elisha hasn’t even put in an appearance: ‘I thought at least he would come out an stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy?’

Perhaps Elisha looked out of the window and smiled ruefully and shook his head and said ‘these grand men – they’re so dramatic!’

He’s a diva, in fact.

He reckons the rivers in Syria are a better class than this grotty brown puddle.

He goes away in a rage.

He nearly, nearly misses the window, the opening of the way between the whirling swords – he so nearly misses the time of his salvation.

But thankfully, he has courageous, kind, firm and sensible friends.

‘If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said was “wash and be clean”?’

Wash and be clean.

The gospel message in a nutshell.

Wash and be clean.

The message of healing and wholeness in a nutshell.

Wash and be clean.

God’s done it all but we have to respond.

Wash and be clean.

It will cost us our pride.

That is why it is so hard for us to truly find God – but when we let go, embrace failure, bend the knee, practice penitence - salvation and wholeness will surely follow, and quickly.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

New Wine matures

What happens when a new movement of the Spirit enters middle age? 

I was left wondering this recently as we celebrated ten years of attending New Wine, the summer camp that has grown out of the evangelical charismatic wing of the C of E, with its origins in St. Andrew's Chorleywood, UK. From small beginnings in the late 80s, some Christian friends in a field, the movement has grown to number 24,000 attendees, all eager to pump some kingdom renewal and encouragement into their veins before returning to their churches and communities to make a difference.

Every stream of Christianity has its weak points and blind spots, and the charismatic movement is no exception. New Wine is on its third generation of leaders, people now more our less our age. What has changed, what has developed and what has felt like a growing up? Three things stood out this summer for me.

1. Diversity.

I'll be honest: New Wine hasn't always been the most affirming place for an aspiring woman bible teacher/preacher/leader. A plethora of male role models seems to have (at last) given way to something more diverse. For the first time this year I was obliged to choose between women speakers of an evening, across three different venues. I don't recall this happening before. From conversations about the circular problem of why there aren't many women bible teachers/speakers (women don't want to put themselves forward, therefore there aren't many women speaking; nothing can be done about this) we seem to have arrived at the happy position of having a really good number. Even my mornings were spent happily listening to a woman bring the bible to life, alongside a man: different approaches, different blessing. It meant that through the 6 days of morning and evening teaching, I listened to a total of 6 women and 7 men. To some this won't be an issue, but to me, just right now, it is still important. The women were always out there, of course; these things are often problems of imagination, as much as problems of reality. I was left thinking (happily) 'well that wasn't so difficult...'

2. Charismatic/contemplative worship.

The 'Acoustic' Venue (quite a departure from the big Arena norm) is my natural millieu. Here are no massive drum kits, electric guitars, people jumping up and down or famous Christian bands selling their CDs. Instead there are musicians whom no one has heard of, just doing their thing and getting out of the way when necessary. We experimented in worship with 'psalm surfing', i.e. singing the refrain of a psalm over and over, interspersed with short songs and tongues singing, but always coming back to the psalm, the effect of which was not unlike how I imagine the chanting at Taize, the Roman Catholic monastery in France. We sang lament, never far form the Psalmist's repertoire, because lament is the natural response of looking at injustice and crying out to God as to why he appears to be absent. As Richard Foster has pointed out in Streams of Living Water, joyously, the charismatic and the contemplative are not as far apart as one might imagine, and sometimes worship brings us eventually to silence (see an earlier post on 'either/or' spirituality

http://www.parttimepriest.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Charismatic)

3. Theologies of suffering alongside healing.

A third and major theological stumbling block for me within the charismatic movement (until recently) has been the insistence on miraculous physical healing, when for the most part my experience has been that good people, people you pray for, people who fill our churches, regularly get ill and die. I understand that when you are trying to redress the balance (the equally erroneous view that God is always silent on healing) you have to put the other side of the story forcefully, especially in the light of the example of Jesus. But in the past I have struggled with stories of miraculous healings of people who've slipped over in the shower on the campsite, etc. What about those who get cancer and die, like the person whose miraculous recovery from something terminal we all cried out for one year in the main meeting, fervently, ardently; all 6000 of us. I think she was married to one of the leaders. She died in the autumn. 

But the stories had more authenticity this year, resulting in me coming home (weirdly) with a stronger conviction than ever, that God does bring healing, in whatever way he wills, and wanting to take that into church and community. The stories were much more, yes, someone was prayed for; they appeared to get better but then the illness returned and they died. But the years had shown that the faithfulness of God had not failed - he had worked out his purposes in succeeding generations and prayer always made a difference. In other words, reality. 

In these three ways  - diversity, contemplation and balancing healing/suffering, I wonder if, alongside New Wine, now in its 26th year, I might be growing up, maturing, like good wine is supposed to....?

Love letter to the Body

<sup>Sermon for Trinity 7B.

Ephesians 2: 14</sup>For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 

^{Mark 6: 31}He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

⁵⁶And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Love Letter to the Body

Dear Body,

You know, don’t you, that if you’re saved at all, you’re saved in your body.

It started with a body, taking flesh, being born of a woman, coming in frailty, the ‘mewling and puking’; the growing; the growing up; the slow realisation that death would be, of course, bodily.

The Jews circumcise the body to mark themselves as separate, as superior to the uncircumcised Gentiles. It was always thus.

The humanity into which I came was a humanity bitterly divided.

Years of fighting over difference – a dividing wall of hostility.

‘We know God; you don’t’.

‘You’re crazy, we’re not.’

The Jews wanted me dead: the Gentiles carried it out.

But on that cross, the one that killed the body, slowly, painfully, in my flesh, the two became one household – Gentile and Jew welcomed into God’s family with open arms, the arms of my Father in heaven.

Because all who come to me are family.

And all who are in me are my Body.

That is why I long for you all – who does not love their own body, tending it, feeding it, grieving when it hurts and waiting for its final redemption?

Because of this, you must love the body.

Come to me when you’re weary, and I will give you rest.

Those early days of ministry, Peter, James and John and the others would dash about, breathless with excitement!

Everything was so good, so new, the life of the Son of Man, the teaching and healing, cooking and laughing under the stars.

The abundant life is so attractive; it draws people.

The abundant life of God can be difficult to handle though; it can be overwhelming.

(By the way, if you only know scarcity, you must have the wrong God!)

I urged them to rest, so many were coming and going, so much need.

Once you unstop the lid, out it all spills – hungers, pain, unforgiveness, illness, bereavement, feuding, envy, anger, lust. 

Out it comes, seeking healing, seeking reconciliation.

The clamouring for my presence, like sheep endlessly bleating in the green pasture, not really knowing one end of the pen from the other.

If you don’t rest you’ll burn up, like kindling on a hot day.

The pattern is there – work, rest, play.

So many evils come from abusing the pattern.

Too busy to pray, too greedy to stop, digestive problems, palpitations; the body will rebel.

It is a finely tuned instrument, like a lute.

Let me play its tune.

Treat it carefully, this temple of the Holy Spirit. I dwell there.

The body is good.

It thrives on good, honest, sweaty labour, like the labour of carving wood, shaving off the end of a beam, sawdust filtering down in the sunlit air, the fresh odour of sap released.

Your body craves water, fresh air, the great outdoors, sunshine on skin, long walks.

Listen to your body. Care for it. Tend it gently, love your body like a child; never harm it willingly, for you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

It is in the body that you are saved.

It is in resting that you remember you are not the Creator.

It is in eating that you remember man does not live by bread alone.

Don’t over-eat; don’t hide from yourself that you’re drinking too much.

Attend to where your hungers are coming from.

Did you know that eating is a sacrament?

A living sign of the goodness of God.

Food restores both body and soul. Eat together and be thankful.

Remember that in a world where some of my children go to bed and wake up hungry, the rich are often poor before God, and the poor rich, like Dives and Lazarus.

Remember the last time we eat together, last week, the week before….?

That is true fellowship, one with another.

Take, eat, this is my body, broken for you.

Take time. Notice every mouthful; eat with thankful hearts.

Never let it be true that you have no leisure even to eat.

Despite its glory, however, the body will let you down.

It is destined for a greater glory, so first it will wear itself out.

There will be times when you feel that your very being is dissolving, that you’re being poured out like dust.

There will be times when you’re so tired, three hours sleep will seem like a gift from heaven.

There will be times when you bless those who have spent years studying the infinite complexities of your insides and who can knit you back together, as far as is possible.

There will be times when death disrupts the order of things, a little one lost; a child before a parent; a parent before a grandparent.

This is dark, like Lazarus entombed, but not dark enough not to be redeemed, finally brought into the blinding light of day.

Unwrap them now!

All of creation groans to be delivered – your sufferings will seem like the pangs of childbirth, the cries of pain before deliverance.

Mary knew all about that.

So don’t curse the body that wears out; befriend it. Tend it.

Let others serve you. Let me serve you, let me tie a towel around my waist and wash your feet in the basin, wash away your tears.

Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

Reach out and touch the fringe of my cloak, like the sick who were brought to me in the market places, the farms, the fields.

When you reach out and touch me, I will know that power has gone out from me, but that is why I came - to destroy all the works of the evil one, to entrust my body to death, to rise with a resurrection body, a sign of what is to follow for you.

Just imagine those walks we’ll do on the new earth, on the new grass, sharper and greener and harder than diamond...

I cannot wait!

But I am waiting...

From your loving Saviour and Brother,

Jesus.