It's not all about us

Texts: 2 Kings: 5: 1-14; Psalm 30

What a great story we’re given today from the Second Book of Kings.  It’s a miracle story. But I’d like to suggest that while the healing of Naaman’ skin is a piece of it, the miracle lies even more so in the stream of people before we ever get to the scene at the river.

The story begins by introducing us to Naaman with one illustrious description piled on another and another! He’s the Commander of the king’s army. A great man. Highly esteemed. A Mighty warrior. You can’t miss it … the aura of power and stature around him. But then comes one blunt little phrase that reveals a whole other side of the story: “the man suffered from leprosy,” we’re told. As capable, and highly regarded as he is --an organizer, a strategist, competent in leading a nation’s army-- the man is as vulnerable as anyone to disease. For all his expertise, he’s unable to do anything about an affliction to his own skin.

From there, we’re introduced to a young girl. We’re told that on one of their raids into the land of Israel, Naaman’s army seized her and took her captive. She’s now a servant in Naaman’s house, serving his wife. Aware of Naaman’s affliction, this young girl remembers, from her homeland, the prophet Elisha. It comes to her that he could help. How perfectly ridiculous and potentially dangerous would that be … that the commander of the army that raided and plundered that land would return there, only this time to ask for healing?! How’s that going to go over? What might happen to her for even suggesting such a thing? But notice how she doesn’t let any of that finally interfere. Instead she gets out of the way, and simply conveys with passion the inspiration that came to her, saying to her mistress, “if only my master were with the prophet in Samaria! He would cure him of his disease.”

So now, in steps Naaman’s wife, who similarly gets out of the way, and passes the message to Naaman … who also gets out of the way and chooses to take the message from his Israelite servant girl to his King … who --that’s right!-- also gets out of the way, and sends his valued commander along with this bold absurd request to the King of Israel.

We’ve had 4 opportunities so far for the whole thing to be shut down.  But in every case, whether they understood it at the time or only in looking back, each person somehow allowed what was happening to finally not be about them in a way that placed all the responsibility on their shoulders … but rather they assume this role of servant in the service of something bigger and beyond themselves, ushering it along without standing in the way.

So now we come to the moment when the message of this young servant girl becomes a matter between kings! Naaman arrives at the palace of the King of Israel, presents the letter from the King of Aram requesting that Naaman be cured of his disease. Like someone feeling the burden of being asked too much, the King reacts with a kind of defeated anger: “who do you think I am? - God?” Without noticing, he names exactly what’s called for… this is indeed a matter for the Source of all life and help!

But somehow he doesn’t go there. All he hears is that it’s up to him, except it’s way beyond him. So where does he go? He goes instead to that place of fear and suspicion, where this genuine request gets twisted … heard as something else altogether. It’s a set up, he imagines, by the enemy King to humiliate him, to provoke another bitter battle. You can see it, can’t you … how fear takes and spins things … so that now this has become all about him!

It might have ended right there, this impetus for healing. But it didn’t.

Which I think says something … something about the Spirit’s capacity to uphold and make a way around and through the walls that are thrown up.

We’re not told how … just simply that Elisha the prophet gets wind of the King’s distress, and sends him a message. “Why are you despairing?” Elisha tells the king, “send him to me.” And so from the King’s palace, Naaman moves on to Elisha’s house, arriving there with this great entourage of chariots and horses! Somewhere in all of that is the leper in search of healing, though not surprisingly, it’s safer, easier, to show up as commander of the army.

From out of his humble abode, Elisha sends a messenger to Naaman … “go wash in the river.” Naaman can’t believe it! He had imagined something else altogether. Something grand … far more dramatic … like a healing would be. Not only that. There’s this ‘doesn’t he know who I am’ thing going on. “Nobody treats me like this! Surely for me, Elisha himself would come, instead of sending a servant!” Greatly offended, he storms off in a rage. It’s become all about him. And of course it is about him … except that it’s not just about him. More than anything it’s about what the renewing Spirit of God would be about in and through him.

Before long, a few other servants surface with the courage to speak a bold word of wisdom -- “think about it Naaman. If he had told you to do something great, something difficult, something only heroes could do, you would have done it. So why not, then, when it is as simple as bathing, right here?”

It’s the strangest thing isn’t it … how we can desire something with all our heart … give anything to get there, so we think … until we’re shown a way that just doesn’t fit with how we pictured it, and we resist even though it’s simpler than we imagined. Surely it’s got to be hard won. Surely there’s more to it than dipping 7 times in the ordinary, murky waters of the Jordon. Sometimes it takes someone else, another voice to remind us it’s not all about us, nor is it all up to us. Sometimes it takes someone else, another voice, to return us to our senses and to help us remember the promise of God’s desire for life for us … in God’s way, in God’s time.

I had a taste of this for myself last week. It was time for me to check in again with my spiritual director. In the course of that conversation on Wednesday, I was telling her about my experience last Sunday out at St John’s United Church where Bev has been minister for 20 years. Last Sunday marked the beginning of her retirement. So there was this great gathering up of those 20 years in pictures and stories. To see all that has transpired in that community --the remarkable growth in every dimension-- over those 20 years, from it’s tenuous state to the joyful, thriving, fruitful community that it is now, was beautiful to behold. Miraculous really!

At some point in the conversation with Mary, my spiritual director, I said something like “it’s easy for me, almost five years into my time with James Bay United where our life still feels pretty wobbly to question my capacity and to wonder if our life as a congregation will ever come into fullness.” And Mary, among, other things said to me, “Karen, it’s not about you! From what you described to me in our last conversation,” she said, “you were given a vision and were called to be part of the unfolding of that congregation before you ever arrived there. This is God’s work, in God’s time … and God’s time is always slower than our time … in God’s wisdom, things most often move more slowly than we would wish.”

“It’s not about you!” she said to me. What a hugely important and freeing reminder. Freeing, not because it let’s me off the hook, but freeing because it reminds me this is God’s dream, and my part is in serving that dream somehow … not accomplishing it … not making it happen … but having a hand in ushering it along.

So here’s what I wonder … this opportunity for us to have a student intern come to work with us, come to not only learn from us and with us, but by virtue of his presence and passion for building bridges between people and communities, is this something of the Spirit impetus for life, for renewal, making its way among us? I wonder.  A month ago we didn’t even know of the possibility! One month earlier we received a generous bequest. “What might we do with some of that money?” we wondered at the Board meeting when the news came!

God has a dream for this body, this congregation. It’s not all about us AND somehow in God’s wisdom, we have been called to have a hand in it’s unfolding. I wonder if this story of Naaman and company that is given to us this morning (not of my choosing) … I wonder if it comes to us as a timely word, alerting us to the delicate dance that is asked of servants who are in the service of God’s dream for renewed life and health … this dance that calls us to boldly take our place and play our part while at the same time getting ourselves out of the way! I wonder if this story given to us this very morning, is an expression of God with us, helping us in our discernment of God’s will in relation to this internship?

What if we trusted that it is true: that God is up to something beautiful … which means that it’s not all up to us … nor is it all about us … but that the Spirit is moving … working something out in and through us for the sake of some purpose, some dream beyond ourselves alone.

As we open ourselves to considering this internship, as absurd and dangerous and unexpected as it may be, you might spend a while with that young servant girl, her mistress, Naaman, the King of Aram, and even the King of Israel who has something to show us, and Elisha, his messenger, and those servants who surfaced at the last.  May they be for us companions in these next few weeks, as we discern if this internship opportunity is indeed something of the Spirit at work among us.

Miracles aren’t just what transpires at the end of the day … miracles take place all along the way.