Nearly all my conversations this week were in and about the wider Church, which makes it challenging for me to preach a sermon on readings that speaks into your lives this week. That is not to say that God was not in those conversations. One, in particular, was memorable for the fact that the lady could not identify the heroine in our reading from 2 Kings today. This visitor was mad that we respond with Lord and Him and call God Father in our liturgy. I was clearly a misogynist and led a bunch of misogynists in worship thinking that God was a misogynist. Good, y’all are laughing, especially the ladies. I tried explaining that I hoped no one at Advent would ever think, let alone speak, the idea that God hates women. I told her I knew we had some “slow” men, but all had figured that lesson out for themselves thanks to their moms, and wives, daughters, and granddaughters. Ok, ladies, let’s be careful we don’t break ribs with those elbows you are using right now.
We are laughing, but we need to understand
there is a segment of the Church that really and truly believes that women are
the source of evil in the world and that women are inferior to men and that God
declared/ordained it so. The lady who
entered my office was clearly a victim of such teachings. She was not hearing what God was saying to
her, but she was sorely wounded.
For my part, I
tried my best. I laughed that she had
come in to visit and chew me out given this week’s readings. She did not get the joke, so I showed her the
story and asked her who the hero was.
Her first time through, she told me Naaman. The second time through, she told me Elisha. The third time through she asked, a bit on
the irritated side, if I meant God.
After a couple more readings, I pointed out to her that the hero of the
story was the slave girl. Her faith, her
confidence in God’s faithfulness, causes the conquering general to recognize
the truth that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Our walk-in, of course, was not having
it. If the girl was so important to God,
we would know her name. If she was so
important to God, God would never have let her be enslaved in the first place.
I recognized in
her passionate anger that I was not going to get through to this lady. I reminded her that sinful men can be
misogynistic, but that God most certainly was not. She was created in His image every bit as me
or any other man in her life. When men
use gender to beat down women, especially in the Church, it is not of God. But again, at Advent, I was certain she would
discover women who were certain of their worth in God’s eyes, who had zero
qualms about telling misogynistic men where they could go or what they could do
with their attitudes, both in the wider word and wider Church. I see the nods and a couple giggling
shoulders.
I invited her to
join us for worship. I invited her to
join us for the Bible studies, to be a Berean, to use Larry’s exhortation on
Sunday mornings.
After some time,
she left. I am quite certain she still
thinks I and you think God is misogynistic.
All I can hope is that I scattered seeds or tilled the earth in her
life. God will see to the harvest.
Another exchange
that day, though, convinced me I should probably address the sin of misogyny so
that we would all be prepared to engage it in the world and Church around us
and spiritually vaccinated against it.
One of my groups was defending a particular preacher against his sins of
adultery. Notice I say sins and not
sin. This particular preacher had
multiple affairs. But it was not his
fault, according to the group. It was
the fault of the women who had a spirit of Jezebel in their hearts. Yes, your laughter indicates you know how
well that went. If you do not
understand, the group was blaming the women for tempting the man of God, that
he fell because they wanted to destroy his ministry.
Tell me again
how we in modernity are so much more smart and advanced and whatever . . . I hope,
if nothing else in my time with you, y’all have learned that the upward spiral
of humanity is a horrible and destructive myth.
Worse, it is a lie. But that is a
sermon for another day.
So, I felt
called to preach on 2 Kings, but what new lesson was there for Adventers? I felt pretty sure that most of you would be
able to identify the hero of the story.
I convinced myself that some, if not all, would understand the world’s
effort to fight God and His revelation.
Naaman, as a conquering general, would have a bit of an ego. His country, Syria, has defeated Israel. That means his god has defeated Israel’s God
in the heavens. If Naaman believed that
his god won the cosmic battle that was reflected on earth, Naaman would only be
insufferable. But what if Naaman
believed his victory gave his god the power to defeat Yahweh? Modern western Christians do not have a
monopoly on believing God needs them to accomplish His purposes.
For all that
should have been boosting Naaman’s confidence, the little slave girl’s should
have been shredded. Her country has been
defeated in battle, meaning Yahweh has lost.
Either she has been captured and carried off or her family has been
killed. Neither reinforces the idea that
Yahweh cares about her, let alone has a covenant with her. In any event, she is now a slave, forced to
serve the wife of the man who led the enemy in battle. If she knows her people’s history, she finds
herself right back where her ancestors found themselves in Egypt. But how does she respond? “If only my lord were with the prophet who is
in Samaria!”
Namaan
eventually goes to Samaria to see the prophet, but not until he gets a letter of
instruction from his king and until he gets a caravan together for a thank
offering, if he needs to bribe this prophet in Samaria. But despite all that, and even the method of
his cure, Naaman knows that there is no God in all the earth except
Israel. Yet again we see God’s covenant
with Abraham playing out in ways none would ever expect. A slave girl?
Other servants? An enemy of God’s
people?
But, y’all know all
this. It could have been a very short
sermon today. It could have been so
short that you would be complaining you dragged yourselves out of a warm bed on
a chilly fall morning for this, were I to have stopped there.
As I said at the
beginning, I was struggling to apply the sermon to our lives today in
Nashville. Everything I have said y’all knew
to be true, but was there a real impact in how you will live your lives this
week and going forward?
So I plumbed the
depths of my commentaries and histories.
Greg and Jeri are just happy I had to unpack more stuff from the
painting and carpeting of the office this summer so they can get their bins
back! But I came across some sermons and
teachings on this passage in the writings of our Church fathers. I won’t bore you with the details of the
teachings except to say I was stunned. I
have read this and the Gospel passage on the lepers for decades. I have preached on both repeatedly. But until I read our Church fathers, I never
made the connection of the stories with the Sacrament of baptism. Ah, I see, now I have your attention. Lol.
Just so we are
clear, and so our medical folks understand I am not oversimplifying, leprosy in
the Scriptures does not necessarily refer to what we name Hansen’s
Disease. Any skin disease or skin discoloration
could be considered leprosy in the ANE.
Things like eczema or a rash or edema could have been considered leprosy
by the priest. Yes, I said priest. Yes, there were doctors in the ANE, but
leprosy was important for community and worship, so priests decided what was
leprosy. If a person was judged to have
leprosy, they were sent out of the camp or village to avoid contaminating
others. A diagnosis of leprosy by the
priest was doubly impactful on people.
Not only were you considered sick and possibly contagious, but you were
not allowed to worship or enjoy fellowship.
Since priests
made the diagnosis, guess who declared people healthy? Right!
The priests! Now you know why
Jesus tells the lepers in his story to go to the priests. Leviticus 14 covers the ritual, but if one was
judged as no longer leprous, there was a cleansing ritual to be observed. A clean bird was killed over a clay jar
filled with running, that is living, water.
Then, the healed individual was sprinkled seven times with the water and
blood and declared clean, able to rejoin the community and the worship of God! You are squeamish at the thought of a bird
being killed, but God reminds us over and over in the OT that life is in the
blood! But back to our lepers . . .
As one ancient
commentator put it, we are all lepers before God. By virtue of our sins, we live in broken
relationship with Him and with our neighbors.
How are we restored? Through the
Body & Blood of Jesus Christ! We
make a public profession of our need for Jesus and of our willingness to live
as He taught us, both by word and by example, right? We promise to gather for the prayers and
worship of God, right? At this gathering,
we pray, we are instructed, and we remind ourselves that Christ died for us,
that God raised Him on the Third Day, and that He will One glorious Day return
to judge humanity. On that Day, we
understand that we will be fully restored to God, that we will be able to see
Him face to face and as a friend, not a stranger, to use the words of our
burial right. We know that we will live
with God and with all those who proclaimed Him Lord of their lives, and that He
will dwell among us. Good, I see the
nods.
But do we better
appreciate the work that Jesus did on our behalf today? Think of all your rashes and eczemas and allergies. How many times might you have been kicked out
of the camp or the village by the priest in your lifetime. Each time we have sinned against God, we have
similarly been in the same circumstance.
But there is one substantial difference.
Jesus! As we renounce the forces
of evil and turn to God and declare our intention to follow His teachings in
the liturgy of our Baptism Sacrament, we remind ourselves that we will fail and
fall into sin. No matter how earnest our
efforts or how mightily we struggle, we will sin. It does not seem particularly inspiring to
remind ourselves that we will fail, does it?
But it is true, as we can all attest.
We are reminded, therefore, in the Sacrament that all we need to do is
to repent and try again. We repent to
God and we repent to our neighbors. We recognize
that our sin causes our relationships to both to be broken. But unlike the lepers in the ANE, we have the
living water and Blood of Jesus to restore us.
Just as we ask to be forgiven and to forgive others, God and others show
us the same mercy! As a result, we are
restored to both. And we are reminded of
this truth each and every time we gather to give thanks to God for the healing
work He has done in Christ Jesus, both in our lives and in the lives of those
in our community. He takes outcasts like
you and me and serves us Himself, that others might know we are His beloved
sons and daughters. Armed with that
reminder and fortified by His Body and Blood, we are sent back out into the wilderness,
to find those who have been abandoned, marginalized, kicked to the curb, by
virtue of their sins, and to invite them to His Table and to His Kingdom.
I see the puffed-up
chests and looks of wonder. Good. Most of you had never seen this link
either. It is always dangerous for a
preacher to get fixated on something like this.
Either we show our ignorance or we are so far in the weeds that we waste
the times of our congregations. I must
admit, though, God was not done with this teaching. I ended the sermon at 8am there, reminding
them that we invite those in the world out there to an eternal fellowship and
Great Marriage Feast.
But, as is so
typical and humorous of God, one of the early attenders grabbed me. You know, Father, I really enjoyed your
sermon. We need more on our BCP like this
and the Articles of Religion last week.
But I’d like to ask you a question.
In the Rite 2 liturgy, you lay your hands over the wine and hosts pray
that they become the holy food and drink of new and unending life, or something
like that, right? I agreed. And we talk about the newness of life in Him
in other places. And some churches are really big about being
reborn, right? They even speak of
baptism as a rebirth. Again, I
agreed. I always think of how new
babies have that soft pink skin when I think about those statements. Do you think God’s metaphor is even deeper
than you just taught us? I asked
what he meant. Are we supposed to see
ourselves with that same soft, pink skin as a newborn? That the disease of sin and the consequences
of sin have been washed from our bodies for a time? We will get more uncleanness each week, as we
live. But on that Day when He returns,
we will be like babes even in that, except we won’t have to worry that our
skins will be damaged by our sins and the sins of others any more?
Yes, you and I worship
God with other saints in our midst. Yes,
even those ordained in God’s service need to be taught. Yes, even those who have handled seven
infants of their own need to plumb their experiences and the metaphors of
God! But think of the image and the
teaching. We live in a world that values
thick skin, just as it values fatty hearts.
But you and I are reminded that our hearts need to be circumcised and
that we are called to care about those things which God teaches us. We value the worship of Him. We are called to value all those whom He
created. Most amazingly, though, we are
sent out with that hope, that promise, to a world that chooses darkness over
light, evil over good, isolation over community, and hard-heartedness over
compassion. But like the little girl in
2 Kings today, we know the end of the story.
No matter how much the world and those in the world rail against Him and
fight Him, His Will will not be denied.
One Day, we will truly be reborn; one Day, all that went wrong will be
undone. And we will laugh and play and sing
and feast like the children we are called to be, and finally made to be,
through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
In His Peace,
Brian†
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