Sermon for 6 Epiphany
February 11-12, 2006
St. Luke’s Church
The Rev. Eric M.
Williams
“O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.”
“…in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize”
The other night I watched the opening ceremonies for the Olympics.
I had to agree with one late-night comic who commented
that it confirmed his prejudice that all foreigners are weird.
The whole show seemed right out of an act by
And I couldn’t figure out what it had to do
with sports at all.
The high point (and the reason I tuned in) was the parade of nations.
I love watching the athletes march in behind their national banners.
The parade is itself a lesson in geography
As we are reintroduced to countries we only see on
maps.
But there was one face missing from the American delegation.
As the other athletes were getting ready for the parade,
Zach Lund was forced to pack his bag and
was escorted from the Olympic village in shame.
Despite being called honest by an arbitration panel,
Lund, a favorite in the skeleton event,
had failed a drug test and had been disqualified.
His crime?
He, like so many of us guys, was ashamed of losing his hair
and had taken a hair replacement drug called Propecia.
He had been open about taking this drug,
listing it on all of his required forms,
but he had failed to notice that recently
it was added to the banned substances list,
because it can be used to cover up the use
of other steroids.
What made this story so poignant for me
was not so much that this great athlete had been sent home
after years of preparing for this one moment.
It was that this man’s personal vulnerability had been exposed
in the most public and humiliating way possible.
In an interview he said, sheepishly, I took this because of my
insecurity.
And now my insecurity is revealed to the whole world.
Think about that for a moment.
This incredible athlete—in top physical condition,
ranked the best in the world in his sport.
A man who goes shooting down the luge
head first on his stomach at speeds of up to 80 m.p.h.,
nonetheless has insecurities just like the rest of us.
The Olympics always seem to give us these little morality plays,
these glimpses into the human condition.
In some ways, the human stories are as interesting as the
sports themselves.
We don’t know what will happen to Zach Lund from now on,
what kind of turning point this will be for him.
But we do know that it is when we are most vulnerable
that healing is possible.
Look at the wonderful story of Naaman from the Second Book of Kings.
This was a story Jesus knew well and quoted in his first sermon.
It is a story that reveals how healing is possible.
Naaman is a powerful man, the commander of the whole Syrian army.
He, in fact, had led the army which had conquered and defeated Israel.
But Naaman, as powerful as he was, had a terrible weakness:
He was afflicted with a disfiguring skin disease.
In the story it is called leprosy, but it might have been any number of
conditions.
At any rate it was a serious problem.
It stigmatized him and risked ending his career and his place
in society.
Like many people facing a terrible and seemingly
incurable illness,
He was desperate and willing to try
anything.
He was even willing to listen to his wife’s little Israelite slave girl.
She remembered that there was a powerful prophet back home
and she had complete faith that he could help.
So this enormously proud and powerful man actually listened to this little slave
girl.
At enormous risk to his prestige
He traveled to the land of his enemy to seek a cure.
Of course, he first went to his equal, the king of
Israel,
thinking that this would be much less
embarrassing.
But the king, terribly afraid himself of what might happen,
Sent him on to Elisha the prophet.
Now, you would imagine that Elisha would be honored by this
guest,
roll out the red carpet and give him a royal welcome.
How flattering to be sought out by a foreign
dignitary!
But instead Elisha deliberately insults him.
He does not even greet him personally,
but sends a servant to tell him to jump in the river,
seven times no less.
And now comes the moment of truth for Naaman.
He has put up with enough.
He is desperate, but not this desperate.
As Naaman turns away in a rage and heads for home,
it is once again the servants who save the day.
Their advice is the heart of this whole story,
because it gets right to the heart of Naaman’s pride.
“Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult,
would you not have done it?
How much more, when all he said to you was,
‘Wash and be clean?’”
Naaman had a skin condition, but he also had a soul condition.
And in the end, healing his soul was much more important.
When he went down to the river,
he was born again not only physically,
but also spiritually.
He is able to set aside his nationalism, his pride, his ego
and accept the healing that God provides—
healing that comes in a foreign river, through a foreign
prophet
at the urging, not of fellow men of power,
but of servants and children.
There is so much we need to hear in this story.
No wonder Jesus liked it so much.
First, it is a reminder that God’s grace and healing are for
everyone.
Just as Naaman needed to be reminded of this,
so did the Israelites themselves.
But for me this is mostly a story of what it takes to be healed.
Just like Naaman, our pride often gets in the way of God’s healing
grace.
Like him, we show up demanding that God heal us
in our own way, on our own time table.
We make deals with God as if we are negotiating a treaty.
God, if you do this for me, I’ll do something for you in return.
Sometimes we are not even willing to admit that we need
healing at all.
After all, as painful as martyrdom is,
at least we can still be in control!
By contrast, we have the leper in the gospel.
He was not proud; he had no deals to make.
He was not interested in martyrdom.
He came as a beggar and knelt before Jesus and he said to him:
“If you choose, you can make me clean.”
That’s all it takes to receive the healing that Jesus offers.
And the healing that Jesus offers is not primarily physical.
Christianity is not a cure for Alzheimers or arthritis.
It is a cure for leprosy of the heart.
You can respond to this sermon by contacting
the Rev. Eric Williams.
