Preaching text: 2 Kings 5:1-14
So, how was everyone’s Fourth of July? Good times had by all, I hope. I’ve been hosting my parents all week long. They typically come up here to the USA’s “first capital” each year because this is a family festival as well as a national one; several family birthdays are celebrated in the first week of July, including my stepdaughter Emily who turned 16 yesterday.
Part of our celebration includes a memorial service each year at First Presby Downtown. Interred in their courtyard one Col. James Smith, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The local DAR chapter has a little ceremony to remember his life and contribution to our nation and given my wife’s family is heavily into DAR, it’s become family tradition to attend (and recent changes to my family haven’t changed that.)
During the ceremony, the Declaration is read in its entirety. And while most of us are familiar with the more famous portions of the text, typically the first paragraph or so, there are some lines later in the document that give pause to my 21st century ears. Particularly the ones where our Founding Fathers accuse the crown of inciting the “savages” against the colonies.
Thanks to my great great great grandmother, who was Cherokee, I have a smidgen of Native American blood in me, so I am aware that at least some of those so-called savages are my ancestors. It’s mildly disturbing to hear part of my personal heritage so vilified by our nation’s founding document.
Human beings are fundamentally tribal creatures and there’s nothing wrong in celebrating the history, heritage, and accomplishments of ones own tribe, however you may define it. Where we get into trouble is when we grow arrogant in our tribal identity and become convinced that we are superior to another because of our nation, skin color, language, or something else like that. This has become an increasing problem for many Americans as our society grows more and more divided along racial, gender, and political lines.
Our first lesson today is one of many texts from the Bible that refutes and even outright mocks that sort of arrogance. Naaman is a great general from Aram, modern day Syria. He’s had many great victories but he’s got a hefty problem: a bad case of leprosy. One of his slaves suggests he go see Elisha in Israel to be cured and so off he goes.
As was proper protocol, Naaman goes first to the court of the king, as any foreign emissary should to declare his intentions are peaceful. The king does not take well to Naaman’s reason for coming convinced as he is that Aram is looking for an excuse to attack. That part of the story should give us a clue to the humorous tone that’s to follow.
After the diplomatic stuff is sorted out, Naaman arrives at Elisha’s home. The prophet, apparently busy with other tasks, sends a servant with simple instructions, go bathe in the Jordan 7 times.
Naaman is furious. Doesn’t he know who I am? Doesn't he know where I’m from? Doesn't he know that the rivers of Aram are much more beautiful and clean than that stinking mud pit known as the Jordan River?
Do you hear the arrogance? The stuffed up sense of self superiority? This man, who comes all this way for a cure to his leprosy, now sticks his nose up in the air in disgust when a solution is offered him. It’s beneath someone of his stature, his origins, to debase himself so.
What an idiot.
One of his slaves, who appears to have some sense, finally convinces our stuffed-shirt general with the most elementary of arguments: This is easy. Just do it. So Naaman does and, lol and behold, he’s cured and begins to praise God.
Naaman learned to not let his prejudices and ego get in the way of God’s willingness to shower even one such as him with grace upon grace. Remember here that Naaman is not only a foreigner and a Gentile, but also an enemy. Aram is a vassal state of the Assyrian Empire, who is soon to consume the Northern Kingdom of Israel in an apocalyptic war. Despite that, God still shows Naaman favor.
Jesus would later use this very tale to call out the prejudices and arrogance of the Jews of Nazareth, reminding them that God’s love and grace are, in fact, universal and not confined to one group or another, no matter how self-important they might think themselves. They predictably got a mite upset with him.
Well, at this risk of the same reaction, I now wish to remind us of the same truth. God smiles upon those at our borders, desperately seeking a better life for themselves and their families. He loves our neighbors in our cities who speak differently, look different, love differently, or even worship differently than us. We, however, are constantly told by our culture, our leaders, our media, and our own sinful impulses to hate and fear them. And one of the lies that is used to justify that bigotry is “We are better than they.”
Because we’re Americans. Because we’re white. Because we’re Christian. Because we’re straight. Because we have money or a job or we speak English or whatever. God doesn’t care about any of that.
None of us chose where we were born. We did not choose our race, sex, or nationality. God did. That we were born with in a place of privilege in this world was a gift, one we were meant to use as Elisha did: to help those in need. Instead, we have twisted it into something barbaric and monstrous.
The Declaration calls some of my forebears “savages.” But what are we when give in to our worst impulses and hate God’s precious children if not savages? Time and again, our Scriptures show us stories like these, stories that tell us God’s love and favor is not limited to us alone. Naaman discovered his arrogance was misplaced and gained him nothing that he did not already have. What about us? When we fall to our own delusions of superiority, we make the same mistakes. We don’t have to earn God’s favor. We already have it and if that favor places us in a position of privilege in our world, that’s an opportunity not for ourselves but to make the world better for others.
Consider again our story. Elisha could have looked down on this enemy of his people but he knew the truth of God’s grace and instead healed Naaman’s leprosy. That’s how it’s done. That’s our model, one of many throughout Scripture. All telling us the same thing. Love your neighbor as yourself. Because God loves them as he does you.
In the end, we really are the same. All equally precious in God’s eyes. All equally loved. All worth the effort to send Jesus to live, die, and rise again for us. We cannot forget that in the face of all the hateful garbage spews into our minds all the time. God loves us. All of us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment