February 12, 2006
(Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany)

Radical Restoring

by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer

2 Kings 5:1-15ab  •  Psalm 42 or 42:1-7  •  1 Corinthians 9:24-27  •  Mark 1:40-45
(From The Lectionary Page)

The last time the Sommer family flew from Midway Airport in Chicago to Kansas City International, we got hung up at security. Simply put, Rick kept setting off the alarm when he passed through the metal detector. He emptied his pockets, he took off his belt and his watch. No dice. They used the more sensitive metal-detecting wand. No dice. They patted him down. No contraband, but still no dice. This was alarming in more ways than one. Cady and I were safe, isolated on the other side of the bullet-proof Plexiglas wall. But we couldn’t get to him and he couldn’t get to us. As far as Air Traffic Safety personnel were concerned, Rick posed a threat, and as such had to be kept away from the safe, secure area.

Happy ending. Security finally figured out that Rick’s straw hatband contained a thin strand of wire which was the culprit. Thank God they discovered that because a strip search would have been next and I’m pretty sure Rick would draw the line there. I know I would.

I tell this all-too-familiar-to-travelers-everywhere story because unless we start from a mindset of security, we’ll miss the scandal of today’s gospel. We need to understand what kind of a threat the man with leprosy would have posed in his world. He was unclean, which meant not so much that he were contagious – that's a modern medical concept unknown in first century Israel – but that he was dangerous. The Holiness Code and the Purity Code in Leviticus that were central to life of Israel at this time, divided the world into that which was holy and that which was defiled. Clean, unclean. Of God, of chaos. Both the Holiness and Purity codes essentially looked for patterns as they found them in nature. Skin was supposed to be smooth. That was the norm. Ulcerated, scaly, or diseased skin? Doesn't fit the pattern. Must be unclean. Skin disorders of any type – and we’re talking anything from Hansen’s Disease all the way to the heartbreak of psoriasis -- therefore represented the forces of chaos. That which was holy, clean, and of God needed to be protected from that which was defiled, unclean, and representative of chaos. This is crucial to understand. God, and all that God represented, had to be safeguarded from danger, much as we today attempt to safeguard law-abiding citizens on airlines from potential terrorists. Hence the banishment of unclean persons from the life of the community.

In stretching out his arm to heal the man with leprosy, Jesus turned the world upside down. In daring to touch a man with leprosy, Jesus both broke the law AND preached a radical, new gospel. That which was of God was not in danger of being defiled by uncleanness. Rather, uncleanness was restored by God through Christ because God’s bias for creation is always, always restoration, wholeness, and health. That’s why Jesus told him to go show himself to the priest. Jesus wanted to serve notice to the religious authorities. Priests alone were authorized to pronounce that a formerly unclean person was made clean, but God alone through Jesus, had the power to heal, to restore. The healed man was supposed to serve a larger purpose. The Law, designed to provide a context for living in holiness and right relationship with God had devolved into a barrier – as impermeable as a Plexiglas wall in Midway airport. Jesus, by contrast, came to dismantle those barriers.

Sadly, the healed guy didn’t visit the priest as he was told. Instead, he blabbed to anyone with ears about his healing. We can sympathize, of course. The relief of being made clean must have been absolutely overwhelming and of course the man could hardly wait to return to his family, friends, and to his livelihood. Healing from leprosy wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence. How could you NOT talk about such a miraculous thing?

And yet. The healed man’s failure to be a sign to the authorities of God’s subversive power was, at the very least, a missed opportunity. Dean White spoke eloquently last Sunday about how healing should lead us to servanthood. Peter’s mother-in-law was healed of her fever and she responded by serving. The man with leprosy was healed, but more than that, he was restored to the fullness of relationship with God by God, but he failed to signify that to those who established and kept the barriers around God. He missed the larger import of his restoration. It wasn’t just for him. Infinitely precious though he was – as each of us is – in the sight of God, his restoration wasn’t just for him. There is a corporate dimension to a person being excluded from the community and there is a corporate dimension when that person is restored.

In a few moments we will baptize Albert and Mason. The prayers that will be offered include a petition that God will send them into the world in witness to God’s love. Something bigger than individual salvation happens at baptism. We forget that at our peril. When we are baptized we become part of the Body of Christ. We are commissioned for a larger purpose than individual holiness and the promise of eternal life. We are to be living signs of God’s healing, restoring, inclusive love for all creation. We are to proclaim by word AND example the Good News of God in Christ. We are to work to break down the barriers that separate us one from another. We are to recognize that God need not be shielded from persons whose health or economic status or sexual identity we find dangerous. Rather, we are to be agents of restoration, restoring all that God created to wholeness of body and spirit. Most of all, we are to put ourselves out there even when, especially when, that message of God’s all-inclusive love conflicts with the dominant messages of our culture.

Baptism is not about a promise of eternal security. Properly exercised, our baptismal vows decrease our security. As servants of Christ, we are called to make whole that which is broken; to restore that which is isolated. Daily we are confronted by those who are marginalized in our society. If we choose we can work to break down those barriers.

Will we?

Naaman’s Opera

By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

Father Herbert O’Driscoll writes: [The Word Among Us, Year B, vol 1, pp 93-6]:

"I wonder why composers in the 18th or 19th century failed to see an opera in the story of Naaman. I hear Naaman as the bass, the prophet Elisha as the tenor, and Naaman’s wife and her maids as the mezzo and the soprano.

“In the opening scene, the mighty victories of General Naaman are recounted with power, authority, and strength, but there is also a note of cynicism about Naaman’s triumphs. His success has depended upon military results – By him, the Lord had given victory to the King of Aram – but the message is clearly stated that the minute he fails to achieve a victory, Naaman will fall from the king’s favor. Thus, his position depends not on respect or relationship, but merely on performance. In any organization, whether ancient army or modern corporation, this is to guarantee stress. Is this why Naaman has developed leprosy? His sickness negates his power: the man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.

“In the next scene of the opera, we move from the battlefield to the boudoir. We meet a young woman who is a slave in Naaman’s vast household. As a captured slave and a woman, she is in her master’s eyes, worth less than a piece of furniture. It is a measure of Naaman‘s desperation that he listens to what the girl suggests: go see the prophet in Samaria.

“It must have taken courage for Naaman to go to the king, confess that he has leprosy, and ask for time off to go to Samaria to deal with his problem. The situation must have been both fearful and humiliating for him. In the face of his disease, Naaman’s strength and power are useless; he is no longer in control.

“The king is all cooperation, anxious to protect his investment in his highly skilled general. The king offers Naaman anything: money, bodyguards, even a personal letter to the king of Israel. How familiar does this sound: any problem can be fixed if you can find the right people and throw enough money at it -- ten talents of silver, and six thousand shekels of gold. All of this is a far, far cry from what the slave girl had suggested; go see the prophet in Samaria.

“Now the opera introduces some humor as Naaman arrives at the court of the King of Israel and presents the letter from his own King. In this letter, the king of Aram does not merely introduce Naaman, but demands that the King of Israel heal Naaman’s leprosy, which is of course, impossible. The king of Aram will then be able to justify going to war, because the King of Israel failed to heal one of his most trusted generals. Naaman finds that he has been used for political purposes, and the King of Israel refuses his request to visit Samaria.

“But at this very moment, comes word from Elisha: Let Naaman come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel. For when the king’s is powerless, there is still a greater power to seek.

“The opera moves toward the most important scene. Naaman and his entourage arrive at the house of Elisha. And surprise—Elisha doesn’t even go to the door, but sends a messenger, who says, literally: "Go jump in the river." More humor here: how many soldiers have yearned for the chance to tell a general to go jump in the lake?

“Naaman is insulted: "I thought for me – for me! – the prophet would come out himself to intercede on behalf, calling upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hands, and cure my leprosy." And with a dramatic flourish, Naaman stomps off.

“And just when it seems clear that he is heading back to the king, and will die from his leprosy, an anonymous servant, himself a very courageous man, with the support of others, persuades Naaman to reconsider. The servant is wise, he flatters his master to get his attention: Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult would you not have done it? Sure you would have. So when he commands you to do something as easy as, ‘Wash in the river and be clean,’ what can it hurt?

“We are now at the last scene. The curtain opens, and Naaman is standing waist high in the River Jordan, and seven times he drops beneath the surface. The water is cool, and Naaman himself cools down, his temper leaves him as his soul becomes peaceful. As he walks toward the riverbank, his eyes behold a healed body, his diseased skin is gone, and he now has the flesh of a youth. As the prophet promised: he is clean.

“This general, the embodiment of great authority and devastating power, has bowed his head to a greater and more mysterious authority. Pride has given way to humility as earthly power has revealed its own vulnerability. The cult of arrogance has been vanquished by humility found only in the presence of the Living God. Only then, was healing possible. Only then, could Naaman be healed.

“As the curtain closes: perhaps the greatest ovation we can give is silence, complete and utter awe for the truth of this story.”

Having used O’Driscoll’s image of seeing this story as an opera, it is tempting to make an obvious reference to a fat lady singing, the famous signal that the performance is about to end.

But, sadly, this is one play that never ends, in our personal lives, and in our world. Naaman’s leprosy is a real disease, and that leprosy also stands for disease and the absence of health which separate, marginalize, exclude, and quarantine people in order to make it easier to ignore them and dehumanize others.

In the movie Philadelphia, lawyer Andrew Becket, a rising star in the firm, who happens to be gay, begins to show the physical affects of AIDS, and shortly thereafter is fired. Becket, played by Tom Hanks, engages Joe Miller, played by Denzel Washington, to bring suit against the law firm.

Miller is not convinced that Becket has case. The two meet in a law library, where a weakened Becket shows Miller the basis of his action. Miller reads: The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against otherwise qualified handicapped persons who are able to perform the duties required by their employment. Although the ruling did not address the specific issue of HIV and AIDS discrimination...

And Becket finishes reading the citation: Subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a handicap under law, not only because of the physical limitations it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes the physical one.

Leprosy caused and still causes a social death before the actual physical death. So does AIDS. In addition to physical disease, diseases causing a social death include those born of prejudice based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, economic status, level of education, and access to political power.

Many claim that only God can take life, but a social death is not caused by God, it is caused by human beings. Mark places the healing of lepers in the first chapter of his gospel. Healing the outcasts of society, eradicating social death, is a priority of Jesus’ mission to reconcile all people to God and it is essential to our proclamation of the Good News of the Gospel.

Naaman’s search for healing and wholeness is our search today. Healing is only found in God. Healing between people, between nations, in cities and nations, will not be found in the flawed and vulnerable powers we tend to trust so readily. Justice, compassion, peace, generosity, a true common-wealth, requires our complete surrender to God’s vision.

Naaman listened to two insignificant voices: the servant girl who says “go see the prophet in Samaria,” and the other servant who persuades Naaman to listen to the prophet, and wash in the river. Without those insignificant voices, there would have been no healing.

Such voices are speaking clearly to us today. We can hear them. We know the message. We have no excuse to delay any longer. The social death of any of God’s children is incompatible with Christian doctrine. May our desire to be healed stir us to action.