Sunday, July 7, 2019

To Heal and Be Healed

PROPERS:         PROPER 9, YEAR C    
TEXT:                 2 KINGS 5:1-14
PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, JULY 7, 2019.

ONE SENTENCE:        Proximity and insight to God may come through the most                                     unlikely of places.        
                                    

            Leprosy was considered a debilitating, unclean illness in biblical days.  The Book of Leviticus speaks to how a leper should be treated.

            Those of you who have seen the movieBen Hurknow the ostracism and isolation of lepers in those days.

            The biblical Hebrew uses the word tzar-athto label the affliction.  It was a condition which could afflict skin, hair, beard, cloth and wool, and even walls of buildings.  It was different from what we know as leprosy these days – Hansen’s Disease.  Hansen’s Disease is a bacterial infection which can greatly disfigure someone afflicted with the disease.

            In the first lesson, Naaman, a Syrian general, has the biblical version of leprosy.  His prominent position and his affluence – not to mention the Syrian culture, different from the Hebrew society and Jewish law – prevent his alienation.

            But, it is an issue, nonetheless.  One of his household servant girls – captured on a raid into Israel – advises the general – a goyimor gentile.  “You should go see the prophet in Israel; he can cure you.”

            After messages are passed between kings and some weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, Naaman goes to see Elisha.  The prophet is in his humble home and does not even come out.  He simply sends a message for Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River.

            As you heard, Naaman was both angry and resistant.  But, ultimately, after some prodding, he did just that – and he was healed.  His skin was made fresh like a young boy’s.

            This was such a remarkable story that Jesus’ recounted it 1,000 years later. It is recorded in the Gospel according to Luke:

“There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

            The remarkable thing on which Jesus was commenting is that God’s healing power was sent not to the covenant community, a Jew, but to a foreigner.

            You never know from whom or to whom the gentle touch of God’s grace will be given.

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            Some 30-years ago, I was serving a congregation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. During my time there, I encountered a man about my age who was clearly a rising star in the community.  He was publishing a local magazine and was movie-star handsome.  He had a beautiful wife, one child, and another on the way.

            He had the world by the tail.

            Until…

            In an effort to maintain his businesses and lifestyle, he began to kite checks.  It is a rather amateur and illegal way to keep the wolf away from the door – transferring non-existent funds from one account to another. It is also a federal crime.

            He was found out… arrested… and convicted by a federal court. The judge sentenced him to prison, and he was assigned to a federal facility in nearby Louisiana, on the banks of the Mississippi River, in Carville.

            This is where Neil White’s story gets interesting.  The facility was not only a federal prison, it was also the only Leper Colony in the United States.  Those afflicted with the modern version of leprosy – Hansen’s Disease – were kept there, away from society.

            Neil White, the rising young businessman from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, was now incarcerated in an institution set-aside for lepers – those cast-off by society.  His world had come crashing down upon him.

            Initially denying the reality and avoiding the patients, he slowly began to open himself to what was the truth in that situation.  Over his months of incarceration, he came to know the other convicts andthe lepers who lived there.  He fed them. He cared for them.  He talked with them.  He came to love them. He learned from them.

            His life began to be transformed.  He became lessof who had been, and moreof who he was called to be.

            The broken, the flawed, the wounded, the disfigured, the ostracized became the means by which he found new life.  Sadly, he lost his marriage during his imprisonment.  But he began a new journey, aware of God’s mercies, even from sources he and we might not anticipate.

            Neil is now married again, and living in Oxford, Mississippi.  His wife just completed a term as interim dean at the Ole Miss Law School.  He is a dedicated member of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church there, and participates in the diocesan camping program.

            He wrote an account of his journey.  It is a book named, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts.  I highly recommend it.  Neil’s story is a remarkable one.

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            The story about the healing of Naaman and the account of Neil White’s journey tell us that we can never restrict – no matter our predilections – who God will touch or from whom God’s grace will flow.

            In Naaman’s case, he was a gentile.  He was not one under the law; not part of the chosen people.  In fact, he was an enemy of the Hebrew people. Yet, he was cleansed and healed in the Jordan River. The same could be true for those outside the church community.

            With the story of Neil White, we see the broken life of aspiring young man being touched in a way that changed his direction.  Those who touched his life – who opened the way of transformative change – were the shunned, the wounded, the disfigured, those who were not a part of respectable society.

            A point is this:  We need to be very careful about placing limits on God’s movement.  Indeed, God does not change.  What changes is God’s use of unusual times, places and people to transfor

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