Wash and Be Clean

Scripture Lessons: Galatians 6: 7-16 and 2 Kings 5: 1-14 Sermon title: “Wash and be clean” Preached on July 7, 2019 This Second Scripture Lesson is focused on a great and infamous man named Naaman who was healed by the power of God, but what nearly prevented him from being healed is what I’m most interested in this morning. There are things that get in the way of healing, especially when it comes to those who care a lot about what people think of them. You’ve heard of Wilt Chamberlain. According to some he was the greatest basketball player of all time having once scored 100 points by himself in a single game. That’s the most anyone has ever scored in a professional basketball game. It’s probably the most anyone will ever score in a professional basketball game, but what’s so interesting about this game that took place in Hershey, Pennsylvania in 1962, is that when he scored over 100 point by himself in this single game, Wilt Chamberlain made nearly all of his foul shots. Now why did he make nearly all of his foul shots in this game when he typically made less than half of them? It’s because for this season and only this season, Wilt Chamberlain shot his foul shots underhanded, using a technique I grew up calling “the granny shot.” From the foul line that night in Hersey, Pennsylvania Chamberlain made 28 out of 30 of his foul shots granny style when he normally made 12 or 13 out of 30 shooting them with his hands over his head. Now if Wilt Chamberlain, all 7 feet, 275 pounds of Wilt Chamberlain, could dramatically increase his ability to make foul shots by using the granny shot, why would he ever shoot foul shots any other way? According to Chamberlain himself, it was because he thought shooting underhanded made him look like ridiculous. In fact, in his autobiography Chamberlain wrote, “I felt silly, like a sissy, shooting underhanded. I know I was wrong. I know some of the best foul shooters in history shot that way... I just couldn't do it.” Generally speaking, one might say that there are two kinds of people in this world. The kind of person who can understand why Wilt Chamberlain went back to shooting foul shots the way that he did and the other kind of person who thinks he’s crazy to have cared so much about what other people thought. Which kind of person was Naaman? Right there at the beginning of our Second Scripture Lesson we read: “Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.” You wouldn’t call a man who suffered from leprosy vain, but a man like this has to spend a fair amount of time thinking about how he is perceived. A commander or a general must spend time thinking about how he is seen in the eyes of his troops. That was true of George Washington. Just after the 4th of July it’s good to be thinking of him, but let it be known that as a general he executed his own soldiers if they deserted their post. Why? Because no one who gives orders can risk appearing weak. That’s true of both generals and parents, so if I make the declaration that everyone must eat five bites of soup before they leave the table, no one can leave until they’ve done it. Why? Because once the children see weakness, they’ll take advantage of it. Imagine then, how it felt to Naaman, commander of the army of Aram, that when he came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of the Prophet Elisha’s house, and Elisha sent out a messenger. I expect that Naaman rode up with a proper procession of troops on horse-back and troops in chariots. Maybe it was something like the ancient world’s equivalent to the parade through Washington DC last Thursday with tanks on display and fly-overs. Only in this case, after the pomp and circumstance, the great commander, the giver of orders, a severe man who demanded respect and couldn’t stand to look silly in front of his troops, is left waiting outside the house of a prophet he’s never met because Elisha won’t even pay him the honor of a proper greeting. All the way there, as they rode on their chariots, surely people were shaking in their boots. Children were climbing into their mother’s arms and rushing inside, the King of Israel tore his clothes and cried out in a panic. However, then they stop at the house of the Prophet Elisha, the dust settles, the commander dismounts, and Elisha didn’t even come out to see about the commotion. Then, Elisha sent a messenger to him, with directions so simple the foreign commander surely wondered why he had traveled so far: “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” The commander of an army just can’t be disrespected that way. After seeing how the Prophet didn’t even come out to see him, Naaman’s power and authority were in question. So, understandably, “Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” I guess not, because sometimes the cure requires surrender. It could be that the cure even requires humiliation. Sometimes the cure requires that you and I address our vanity and stop worrying so much about what everyone else thinks to do finally what must be done. Now a statement like that assumes that people suffer from a level of vanity. I’m not trying to call anyone in particular vain this morning. I’m trying to call everyone vain this morning myself especially. Vanity is a problem because sometimes it’s vanity that keeps basketball players from being better basketball players, commanders of armies from being cured from their leprosy, sick people from getting better, aging people from aging gracefully, and sinners from being set free. Sometimes our Achilles heel is just so preventable. Sometimes we could all too easily do something about what ails us, but don’t. Why? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once declared that “our thinking is often anthropocentric rather than theocentric.” What he means is that “the question which is usually asked is, “What will my neighbor think…” or “what will my friends think...” Somehow [we] forget to ask the question, “What will God think.” And so [we] live in fear because [we] are bogged down on the horizontal plane with only a modicum of devotion to the vertical.” What does God require of Naaman the General, but to wash and be clean. And what kept him from it? Pride, vanity, and the maintenance of his own reputation. If the great preacher William Sloane Coffin was right in saying that “faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation” than it might be safe to conclude that Naaman’s struggle to get into the water of the Jordan River isn’t like the leap of faith where you walk on water. It’s not so radical or dramatic as that. It’s maybe more like the struggle of every boy who’s been invited onto the dance floor by a young girl but is afraid because he thinks he can’t dance. Should he bow to vanity? Should he listen to the jeers of his friends? Should Naaman risk forsaking the respect of his troops? Thinking this way, it’s easy to see that the maintenance of reputation can be a problem, for while we all long for approval, some long for the approval even of those who hold them back from doing what is best. In the same way, the soul of our nation is threatened by an evil that we are afraid to really talk about, for fear of how we’ll be perceived. On the boarder there are children separated from their parents, a father drowned with his child on his back, but in the age of partisan politics we must be careful about what we say about it or risk being called a liberal. A man was nearly sent to prison for giving an illegal immigrant water as he crossed the desert, but it was hard for many to pardon him for fear of appearing soft on the immigration issue. I don’t know how to tell you to think or how to tell you to vote, but as a preacher I can say that if we don’t spend less time worried about how our neighbors and our friends perceive us and more attention to how we are being judged by God we risk winning an election while continuing to suffer with spiritual leprosy. That’s how it was with Naaman. That’s how it often is with us. Last Monday I read the front page of the Marietta Daily Journal. (You know, it’s been so many weeks that I’ve quoted the Marietta Daily Journal they ought to give me a free subscription or something.) Last Monday on the front page were the top causes of preventable death in Cobb County. Here in Cobb County the top cause of preventable death is heart disease, which might be managed with medication and diet. The second is suicide. Suicide is preventable. However, it demands we get the help that we need, and that’s where it gets tricky. Going to a counselor isn’t bad at all, but parking in the lot where someone might see us, that’s where the struggle is. We must take a lesson from Naaman. To see that only a fool stands in the way of his own healing out of concern for how he’s being perceived. In our First Scripture Lesson, the Apostle Paul wrote with his own hand: “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world [with all its pride, expectations, rumors, vanity, and shame] has been crucified to me, and I to the world [for what they say and what they think], it’s all nothing. But a new creation, that is everything.” May it be so with you. May it be so with me. Amen.