Andy James

wandering the web since 1997

Presbyterian minister in Atlanta.
Music lover.
Found beer in seminary.

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It’s Easy to Be Martha

July 28, 2013 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 10:38-42
preached on July 28, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

I know lots of people like Mary and Martha. You know, those people who get along great in normal times but whose personalities simply clash when things get crazy. Stress rarely brings out the best in us, and even those who thrive under pressure end up having to deal with people who aren’t quite so composed when things get complicated.

Now we don’t know much about Mary and Martha’s relationship beyond what we hear in these five verses, but for me at least it’s incredibly easy to fill in all the gaps about both of them with the details that we are given. Martha is clearly the consummate hostess, always with fresh bread to share with guests, a clean house ready to welcome anyone who might stop by, and an industrious spirit that is focused on making sure all the work gets done. Her sister Mary is the more laid-back one, the one always reading a book or sharing a story with a friend, ready to talk to her sister’s guests and hang on their every word.

Even when we know just these few things, our reading from Luke this morning sets up Mary and Martha for trouble one day when Jesus stopped by. Martha had invited him into her home, surely intrigued by his new message about God’s love and justice, though I suspect she also was glad to have the honor of showing off her hospitality to a local celebrity. Like any guest, hosting Jesus would have required a great deal of preparation and care, for offering hospitality was a very important gesture in the Roman world and a big part of what this teacher was talking about as he journeyed through the countryside. Plus, this teacher had quite an entourage: even if his twelve core disciples provided for themselves—highly unlikely—the hostess would still need to offer them a welcome to her home, and there were surely others who were looking to spend more time with him, too, and might try to force their way in for dinner.

The way Luke tells the story, Martha was clearly counting on her sister Mary to help her out with all the hospitality and arrangements, but they each had a different idea of how they should be interacting with the guests, and based on this story, I bet they didn’t host parties together very often. Martha spent her time in the kitchen, preparing the food, offering all the guests something to drink, and making sure that everything was in order and  all the guests were comfortable. Now while Martha was working in the kitchen, Mary spent her time mingling with the guests, finally stopping to listen to Jesus for a while and to hear for herself his teachings that were causing such an uproar in the countryside. The scene seems easy to imagine even in our own time: Martha, darting in and out of the kitchen, worried about how to make her guests feel comfortable and welcome; and Mary, sitting over in the corner at Jesus’ feet, schmoozing with the guest of honor and hanging on his every word.

Martha was understandably frustrated. Mary, her most important helper and sister, disappeared from her side at the moment she needed her the most, leaving her with all the work to be done while Mary just sat and listened. Martha could not just abandon all the things to be done—Jesus had come to visit, and his miraculous powers weren’t terribly effective with matters of cleaning the house and serving dinner! However, the text says something more about Martha. She wasn’t just busy, focused on offering hospitality to Jesus and her other guests. Luke tells us that she “was distracted by her many tasks.”  While Mary sat and listened to what Jesus had to say, Martha was worried: about how the flowers looked, how the food tasted, and how the whole evening was going. She ended up ignoring the guest of honor even as she sought to provide for him. She let her tasks get in the way of the purpose of the visit.

So Martha was swamped, and Mary wasn’t helping her any. I suspect that we all have moment when we need some help and look to our closest friends only to find them outside playing, at home watching TV, or out and about doing things for themselves rather than being there for us when we need them to help out or just to be with us. As I think about moments like these in my life, I see three options for Martha. First, she could do all the work herself, grumbling a bit along the way in hopes that Mary would get the hint. Or she could directly ask Mary for help. She could even ask Jesus to help. None of these are perfect solutions, but they all seem perfectly reasonable.

However, Martha finds a fourth option: ask Jesus—her guest!—to reprimand her sister for not helping. What a strange request! I doubt that anyone would respond well to this sort of request to intervene in a family dispute. Listen again to what she asked Jesus to do:

Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.

Maybe Martha had asked Mary over and over again for help, but still, why would she ask Jesus to intervene in this way?

Jesus knew better than to respond as Martha requested. Instead, he turned to Martha and offered a different sort of advice:

Martha, Martha, calm down!

He never attacked the work that Martha was doing. He never said that her work didn’t need to be done. He simply said that Mary’s work of listening was equally important. Martha was doing important things, but her attitude toward them was distracting her from the bigger picture, keeping her from truly appreciating her guest for who he was and what he could offer his hosts. Through his actions here, Jesus calls Martha—and us too—to look at our work in a different way, not to leave it behind, approach it with little real concern, or grumble about it along the way. Instead Jesus calls us to approach our work an attitude that recognizes the bigger purposes behind it all and gives us the time and space to stop and appreciate the moment as we journey through it.

You see, it’s easy to be Martha. It’s easy to become so engrossed in the things that we do that we forget why we started doing them in the first place. It’s easy to go through the motions of the day, approaching all the small tasks in front of us with a frustrated spirit and being constantly distracted by the demands put us by others or ourselves. It’s easy to go and help people in the world during the week while forgetting what we do on Sunday that drives us to do that work. In our life here, I know that it seems to be so much easier to talk about and do the practical things—to maintain the building, figure out the budget, and sort out the administrative details—than to get a grasp on the spiritual side of things. I think we have trouble in our world approaching life as Mary did, staying focused on the center, constantly connected to the source of all, the Holy One, even as we move and work and live in our daily lives. While Martha’s work is clearly important—if we didn’t have people like her in our world and our church, we’d be in a lot of trouble!—Jesus makes it clear in this story that we have to spiritually center ourselves for all these practical tasks so that we can be more faithful about all the work that we do.

Exactly a year ago today, I arrived on the Island of Iona, along the western coast of Scotland. This beautiful and remote island has been a center of Christian community for over a millennium, and my experiences there showed me something new about the balance between the experience of Mary and Martha. The guests at both of the centers operated on Iona by the Iona Community are expected to fully participate in both the practical and spiritual work of the community. When we arrived, we were put into groups with specific responsibilities to assist with serving meals and helping with the daily tasks that keep the Abbey running, like peeling vegetables, cleaning the bathrooms, or sweeping the hallways. We had about an hour assigned every morning for these tasks—but it was made clear from the beginning that in no way were our chores to be done during the service of morning prayer. Just as everyone was expected to help keep the  Abbey running, everyone was also expected to attend morning prayer, where the community made it clear that our day was grounded both in our practical tasks and in our prayer and worship.

This is ultimately the challenge for all of us in the story of Mary and Martha, to find the quiet center that grounds us and helps us to hear the voice of Jesus so that everything we do—even the most practical things!—is built upon the spiritual life that we find in and through Jesus Christ. So may we not be like Martha, distracted by the many tasks of our lives, but instead find the center of hope and new life in Jesus for all that way say and do as we follow him in our daily tasks until he comes again. Lord, come quickly! Amen.

Filed Under: posts, sermons Tagged With: Iona, Luke 10.38-42, Mary and Martha

Songs for the Seasons of Life

July 21, 2013 By Andy James

In lieu of a sermon for July 21, I asked church members in advance to submit their three favorite hymns, including a few words about why each was particularly memorable. I then assembled a number of the selections into a hymnsing, with these favorite hymns tied together with a few words under the theme “Songs for the Seasons of Life.” So, since I usually post sermons here, I figured I might also share these hymns and words here as well!

Call to Worship (from Psalm 71:17-18, 20, 23)

O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and still I proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me;
until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come.
You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.
My lips will shout for joy
and sing praise to you!

Creation and Birth

Hymn: “God Is Here!”

God is indeed here in our midst as we worship and sing praise.
God has been with us from the beginning of time,
and from the beginning of our lives God has called us to lift our voices in thanksgiving.

Throughout all our lives, God’s presence surrounds us.
The psalmist wonders aloud:

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.

The hymns that sustain us in our faith remind us of these things:
that in life and in death we belong to God,
that all creation joins in awesome wonder
to consider the breadth and depth of God’s love,
that the stars, the rolling thunder, the woods and forest glades sing of God’s praise,
and that all creation lifts its voice to sing, “How great Thou art!”

Hymn: “How Great Thou Art” (v. 1-2)

Childhood: Growing in God’s Love

From our earliest days, we come to know the breadth and depth of God’s love.
The songs we sing as children echo throughout our lives
and remind us in every season of life that Jesus loves each and every one of us.
So many of our favorite hymns begin in childhood experiences,
in those transformative early moments of faith
where our lives are marked with words that proclaim the wonder of God’s love,

This is no wonder,
for in a day and age when children were to be neither seen nor heard,
when those who followed him tried to turn away children who sought to touch him,
Jesus spoke up and welcomed the children into his midst:

Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them;
for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.
Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.

The hymns that mark our days remind us that God loves us,
however old or young we may be,
and give us strength to proclaim all our days,
“Yes, Jesus loves me.”

Hymn: “Jesus Loves Me” (v. 1)

Hymn: “Fairest Lord Jesus” (v. 1 & 4)

Passing the Peace

All honor, praise, and glory, belong to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace,
who steps into our world and proclaims peace beyond understanding
and invites us to share it with one another and all the world.
May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
And also with you.

A Lifetime of Commitment

As we grow up in the faith and mature into the followers of Christ that God invites us to be,
God calls us to make commitments to show God’s love in our lives and in our world.
The prophet Isaiah heard the voice of God calling out to him:

Whom shall I send,
and who will go for us?

He could say nothing more than these simple words:

Here am I; send me!

Over and over again, God calls us to respond in our lives
and show the fullness of God’s love to everyone we meet.
The hymns that sustain us in our faith
give us words to express our response to God’s call,
to cry out, “Here I am, Lord; send me;”
to journey beyond our hopes and our fears and our dreams
to express the wonder of God’s grace,
and to stand up and follow in the challenging path of Jesus each and every day.

Hymn: “Here I Am, Lord” (v. 1)

Hymn: “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” (v. 1-2)

Offering

Just as God calls us to offer our lives in God’s service,
so God invites us to bring the fullness of our gifts before God,
for all that we have and all that we are comes from God,
and we can respond in faith and hope and joy all our days
as we proclaim that joy to the world.

So let us now bring the gifts of our lives before God
as we gather our tithes and offerings.

Doxology: “Joy to the World!” (v. 1)

Prayer of Thanksgiving

God’s Presence in the Challenges of Our Days

Amidst all the joy that we see in our world,
we know that there are still challenges in our lives.
Day after day, we face difficulty and strife head on,
whether in the darkness of our lives
or in the challenges of living in changing times.
The psalmist knew these moments well and cried out,

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Even so, he also knew that this was not the last word,
that God would transform his mourning into dancing
and would guide him into new life:

But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

And so we too sing to the Lord,
confident of God’s presence in times of joy and sorrow,
trusting that we will be lifted up as on eagles’ wings
and that we have nothing to dread or fear
when we lean on the everlasting arms.

Hymn: “On Eagles’ Wings”

Hymn: “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” (v. 1, 3)

Joys and Concerns of the Congregation

Prayers of the People and The Lord’s Prayer

Faithfulness Along the Journey

All along life’s journey,
the songs that sustain us in our faith
show us new horizons of God’s love in our lives.
We find God inviting us to open our eyes to new glimpses of truth,
the Holy Spirit blowing in the wilderness,
calling us to break ancient schemes and dream new dreams,
and the bold witness of Jesus calling us to be creators of justice, joy, compassion, and peace.

Wherever the journey of life leads,
God’s faithfulness sustains us and invites us too to be faithful all our days,
and the songs of the seasons of our lives give voice to our praise and our prayer.

Hymn: “Open My Eyes, That I May See”

Hymn: “Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness” (v. 1 & 4)

Hymn: “For Everyone Born”

Death, Resurrection, and New Creation

Even when our lives come to an end,
the songs of our faith continue on.
Every time we bear witness to the resurrection for a sister or brother,
we proclaim our mortality and our hope:

All of us go down to the dust;
yet even at the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

And so the songs that sustain us in our faith cannot ignore death
even as they proclaim the sure and certain promise
that there is something far greater ahead for us.
The saints who journey before us and beside us in the faith
give us confidence and hope of God’s wondrous love,
and the promise of the new creation is sure and certain for them and for us:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:
everything old has passed away;
see, everything has become new!
All of this is from God,
who reconciled us to himself through Christ,
and has given us the ministry of reconciliation…
So we are ambassadors for Christ,
since God is making his appeal through us;
we entreat you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.

The songs of the seasons of our life proclaim this great hope
until this new creation is finished once and for all
and we cast our crowns before the Almighty,
lost in wonder, love, and praise, forever and ever and ever.

Hymn: “For All the Saints”

Hymn: “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”

Charge and Benediction

Filed Under: posts, sermons Tagged With: hymns, music

Passing By

July 14, 2013 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 10:25-37
preached on July 14, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Over the past two months, on doctor’s orders to get in better shape, I’ve begun walking a couple miles four or five days a week. I’ve developed quite a lovely route, starting down some of the beautiful streets of Beechhurst, moving along the East River waterfront under the Throgs Neck Bridge, and then back to my apartment via one of several routes depending on my time and energy. I pass by a lot of interesting things along the way—first past Olga’s home, where I wave and sometimes even stop and say hello, then past some other beautiful and not-so-beautiful homes, and eventually along the simple beauty of the waterfront, with the majesty of the bridge soaring above. I pass plenty of people along the way, too—women, men, and children of every age, some walking dogs, some biking or rollerblading, many running, many walking, all with their own stories to tell, lives to live, and exercise to complete. Usually, though, we just pass by each other, often engrossed in the music blaring in our ears or the words flashing on a screen before us, sometimes acknowledging one another with a smile or knowing glance, rarely if ever speaking to each other.

I can’t help but think of these moments of passing by when I hear this very familiar parable from Luke this morning. Jesus told it to answer a lawyer who wanted him to define exactly who was his neighbor. A man was attacked by robbers as he was journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho. They took everything he had, stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and left him for dead. Three men passed by who could help him. The first was a priest, and he moved over to the other side of the road and hurried on his way. The second was a Levite, one charged with caring for the temple and doing holy things, and he too passed by on the other side. But a third man, a Samaritan, came along and stopped to care for the man who had been robbed and left for dead.

Now Samaritans were a religious and cultural minority despised by many in that day and age, but he was the only one who didn’t just pass by. The Samaritan not only stopped, he cleaned and bandaged the man’s wounds. He put him on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him there. Then when the Samaritan needed to leave the next day, he left money with the innkeeper to continue the injured man’s care and promised that he would return to pay any remaining bills. After telling this parable, Jesus turned back to the lawyer who had asked him about the definition of neighbor and asked, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The lawyer, who had been looking for an easy way to limit his definition of neighbor, was forced to recognize that he could not, and Jesus challenged him even further: “Go and do likewise.”

Jesus’ words on how we treat our neighbors reach across two millennia and speak directly even to us. In many places, for many people, the act of passing by our neighbors that inspired Jesus’ story carries deep consequences. In these days, we tend to define our neighbors with the most limited definition possible, preferring to interact only with those we know, those who look like us or act like us, or those who seem to put us at lowest risk. The emphasis for many in looking for neighbors is less to identify those who stand in need and more to find those who look different, those who stand out, those who seem not to belong, and to take action to protect ourselves and others.

Trayvon Martin, a young black man in Florida, was killed last year in exactly these circumstances because someone was keeping watch for those who didn’t look like they belonged in his neighborhood and who felt threatened by his presence and actions. When his killer was acquitted of all charges in his death last night, the tragedy deepened, in large part because suddenly this kind of neighborly behavior seems to be fully sanctioned by the state. But here in this parable Jesus demands that we keep watch for our neighbors and those who look a bit strange, too—not to protect ourselves but to show them grace, not to keep them away from us but to draw us all closer together. In telling this parable, Jesus insists that we not just pass by those who seem to be in need—he demands that we stop and care for them, not turn them in to the police or pursue them with our own deadly force, but to offer them the kindness and compassion we would show to the most honored guest among us.

These kinds of people in need of our neighborly action are all around us. They look like us, and they look very different from us. They are lonely and in need of a listening ear. They are are hungry and wondering where their next meal will come from. They are hurting because of a world that has shunned them. They are forced to live on the streets or in shelters because they can’t afford a place to live. Some are visible or close to us, and others are far away or hard to see even when we are close. Our neighbors are victims of war and natural disaster in nations around the world. Our neighbors are women and men and children who are abused by those who say that they love them. Our neighbors are young people who are forced to live on the streets because their parents or guardians kicked them out when they acknowledged that they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Our neighbors are young black men who go out in a hoodie to buy Skittles and a can of iced tea, and our neighbors are even those who are so afraid of others that they carry around a gun and use it to kill those who don’t look like they belong. As commentator Justo González puts it,

It is not just a matter of loving and serving those who are near us (which is what “neighbor” means) but also of drawing near to those who for whatever reason—racial, ethnic, theological, political—may seem alien to us. (Luke, p. 140)

In this parable, Jesus insists that all of these women and men are our neighbors, that they are loved by God and deserve the kind of care and love that we would share with those we love more dearly, for we are as responsible for their well-being as anyone. We are called to reach out to all of them with the kind of neighborly action exhibited by the Samaritan in the parable, even when we are overwhelmed with the challenges of incessant appeals for help, the confusion of deep pain and hurt, and the raw emotion that pours out so easily in these days. It may be easier to say that we are overwhelmed by the help that is needed around us, that there is so much pain and hurt that there is nothing that we can do, but Jesus demands that we embrace his expansive definition of our neighbor.

We may not be able to soothe every hurt and pain or stop and assist everyone in need, but I think there are still ways that we can direct our focus to to those in greatest need of our neighborly love. First, we must set aside our tendency to define our neighbors as only those who look like us, act like us, speak like us, worship like us, or love like us. The neighbor here was not who anyone expected him to be—he was an outsider, one who was naturally despised, one who didn’t belong, and yet he showed mercy. That is what true neighbors do.

Once we take this step, we can start focusing our neighborly efforts on a particular area of need. Maybe we build upon our gifts and talents and skills to make a concentrated effort where we can make the biggest difference. Maybe we use our abundance in a particular place where there is great need rather than spreading it wide and thin. Then we should keep our eyes open for those whose needs are most easily missed by others, those who are most easily overlooked by the rest of the world, those who are too often dismissed as not looking like us, those who do not have anyone to speak up for them in these challenging days. Neighbors offer them not just the support that they need but our own voice so that others might hear their deep and great need and so offer also them the deep neighborly love that the Samaritan showed. And finally we can place our emphasis on being neighbors in times and places and ways that offer the opportunity to change multiple lives, to advocate for changes to unjust laws and stand up against systems that keep people in a cycle of need, to insist that all people have the dignity of life that comes from God alone. While we might still pass some people by if we focus our efforts in these ways, I think Jesus would welcome our concentration on these people who are so easily missed by others and who yet need so much that we can offer them, for how else are we to start reaching out to those in greatest need?

Even this sort of focus in our world is difficult. It’s easier to trust others to be neighbors to those who are in need. Our internal sense of safety pushes us away from those who do not look or act like us. It is simpler to allow structures and systems that perpetuate pain and hurt and harm to keep working as they have always done. And it is ultimately less work if we just let compassion fatigue set in and step back from offering the kind of neighborly care and presence that the Samaritan showed here because there is so much need around us. But Jesus never calls us to stay where we are—he insists that we constantly broaden our definition of neighbor so that we might get a glimpse of the kind of world that God intends for all creation.

So may God grant us the grace and mercy to do all that we can do never to pass anyone by but to offer the kind of love and grace and care and compassion that the Samaritan showed so that all might know that kind of mercy and go and do likewise. May it be so, now and always. Amen.

Filed Under: posts, sermons Tagged With: Good Samaritan, Luke 10.25-37

Don’t Be Afraid?

July 7, 2013 By Andy James

a sermon on 2 Kings 5:1-14
preached on July 7, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

I started shaking in my boots the moment I got the news. As soon as they knew that it was him, my sentinels came and told me that the great general of Aram was on his way here. What did he want with me anyway? Aram had already occupied our fortifications, taken slaves from our land, and captured our cities, and my reputation as king is marred forever.

But the great general Naaman came to see me anyway. First he sent in his messenger with a letter from the king of Aram. It might have been meant to calm my fears, but it just left me all the more concerned: “I have sent you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” Cure him of his leprosy? I can’t cure anyone of anything! It had to be a trap. If I couldn’t cure this great general of his leprosy, then the whole battle would start up all over again. I was surely done—we were surely done. Israel would be overrun by Aram, our cities pillaged, our women violated, our nation ruined, our identity destroyed. I was so distraught that I tore my clothes to shreds.

Before long, though, another messenger came along. The prophet Elisha had gotten wind of what had been going on in the palace and sent over a messenger. Now Elisha and I haven’t always gotten along all that well—like most prophets, he likes to tell me things I really don’t want to hear, and like most kings, I resent his influence and interference. Why did he want to get involved with this diplomatic and military dispute anyway? He was only a man of God. He couldn’t do anything to protect me and prevent the kingdom from being attacked by Aram once again. But Elisha’s message insisted that I send this general from Aram to him, so I did. What else could I do with him anyway? If nothing else, it got this general off my back for now, but I’m still afraid of what might happen if Elisha can’t do anything for him, afraid of what will become of our kingdom if someone doesn’t intervene. Will I ever figure out the missing piece that keeps us cowering in fear? Can I overcome my fears and get us through this trying time?

Don’t be afraid.
My love is stronger,
my love is stronger than your fear.
Don’t be afraid.
My love is stronger
and I have promised,
promised to be always near.

—John L. Bell
listen online

I’ve been dealing with leprosy for so many years that  I’m not really afraid of it anymore—though most everyone else is. For me, I’m just afraid that it will end my career. In spite of my illness, I have become a mighty warrior, leading the armies of Aram to victory all across Mesopotamia, staying in favor with my master even though everyone stays at arm’s length for fear of contracting my disease. As the sores keep getting worse, I am afraid that one day I will no longer be able to do this job that I love so much, or that my work on the battlefield will be nothing more than a decoy, the guy everyone runs from because they’re afraid they’ll get what I have.

The other day, someone told someone who told me that I might find a cure for my leprosy with a prophet here in Samaria. Now I know Samaria pretty well—I led the Aramite army in battle here not all that long ago!—but I hadn’t heard of this prophet before. But at this point, I’m willing to try pretty much anything. So I went to my king and told him what I had heard, and he gave me the leave I needed to seek out this prophet. He even wrote a letter to introduce me to the king of Israel, hoping to give me safe passage and make sure that they treated me well.

So I went to the king of Israel, sent my messenger to him with the letter, and asked for his help. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with me—like many people, he seemed a bit afraid of my leprosy, but this seemed to go beyond that. It couldn’t have been easy to be nice to the commander of the army that had just defeated you and who might put you at risk again! Soon enough, though, he sent me to see this prophet who I had heard about. When I got there, though, this guy Elisha wouldn’t even come out and see me! He sent a messenger out to me, with instructions that should go bathe in the Jordan River and then I would be cured.

I was shocked. I wanted this prophet to come out to me, wave his hand over me, and cure me right then and there. But no, he wouldn’t even come see me, the great general of Aram, and then his prescription was just to send me off to bathe in the Jordan River. Have you seen the Jordan River?? Up in Aram we have mighty rivers, so I know what I am talking about when I say that there is nothing whatsoever mighty about the Jordan. It’s closer to a muddy stream than anything! If a bath in river water was all that was required to heal me of this leprosy, I could have just bathed in the river back home and avoided this whole trip altogether!

I was furious. But my servants convinced me to come here and at least give it a shot. They know that I will do anything to get rid of this disease, so why wouldn’t I do this? Why wouldn’t I just step in the water and bathe seven times like Elisha told me? It’s not just that I’m still offended that Elisha didn’t come talk to me. I guess deep down I am just a little afraid—afraid of what it says about me to humble myself like this in the muddy waters of enemy territory, afraid that this healing might actually work and leave me with no option but to acknowledge the role of the enemy in making it happen, afraid that finding healing will require me to give up some of my pride of position and my assumption that I can do it all on my own. Can I overcome my fears and bathe in these waters?

Don’t be afraid.
My love is stronger,
my love is stronger than your fear.
Don’t be afraid.
My love is stronger
and I have promised,
promised to be always near.

—John L. Bell
listen online

From the first moment the army came to town, I was afraid—afraid of being taken away from my home and my family and my friends, afraid that they might kill me as an innocent bystander in the battle, even more afraid of the horrible things that they might do to me if they let me live. While they took me away from home and made me live and work here in Aram, they can’t stop me from thinking about life back in Israel every day. I remember all the wonderful people there, all the possibility and hope, all the good things that were happening in spite of our fearful king and our inept army.

So when I found out that my master was sick, I couldn’t help but think of this prophet back in Samaria who might be able to help him. He had come to our town a couple times, suggesting that we needed to pay attention to the old stories and encouraging us to turn our focus back to God as everything else swirled around us. On top of all this, he had a reputation for helping people to find healing from the things that plagued them. So when I heard that my master was sick with leprosy, I couldn’t help but think of the prophet.

But this wasn’t really any of my business. I could get in trouble for speaking up. Would they punish me for speaking out of turn? Would they send me out into some sort of more dangerous work or worse? Despite my fears, I decided to say something to my master’s wife. When I did, she seemed quite relieved and even a little excited about this possible new cure. She hurried away just now to tell her husband. Maybe I don’t have anything to be afraid of after all. Maybe God is still with us. Maybe our God can show healing and mercy to my master too.

Don’t be afraid.
My love is stronger,
my love is stronger than your fear.
Don’t be afraid.
My love is stronger
and I have promised,
promised to be always near.

—John L. Bell
listen online

Filed Under: posts, sermons Tagged With: 2 Kings 5.1-14, fear, Naaman