Each time I prepare to stand in this pulpit, I spend quite a bit of time turning the readings for the week over and over in my mind, waiting for the moment when I see my own life or our life together through the lens of the scripture. That moment is like any other moment of inspiration. It doesn’t slowly emerge in my awareness. It pops into view, and I know where the sermon needs to go. Sometimes that moment strikes as soon as I read the scriptures. Frequently an event of my week brings the whole thing into focus. Sometimes an earlier event reminded me of a certain passage in the Gospels or a Hebrew testament story, and the story of that event stays with me, tucked away against the day when that particular scripture is our focus. Then there are the other weeks—the ones like this week. The weeks when I wonder if this will be the Sunday when I come to the pulpit, look at all your faces and say, “Let us sit in silence for a while, meditating on the message this scripture brings to us.” Those are the weeks when I think about the scripture as I walk or sit or knit or pull weeds. I turn the stories upside down and inside out. I pick at the words and look at the Greek and wonder what it was like to be there in that moment and wonder what in the world Jesus meant when he said this or that and try to pay attention to what words or images keep coming to my mind.
This week the word that kept attracting my attention was “leper”. In both the Hebrew scripture and the Gospel portion, we hear about men with leprosy—lepers. Remember that in those days, leprosy was a catch-all phrase for many skin diseases. Some of these diseases were highly contagious. Some, like Hansen’s disease, the modern day name for leprosy, had such a low risk of contagion that spouses could live together for many years without the disease spreading from one to the other. However, the fear of contagion was so great and the law was so powerful that people labeled lepers were completely excluded from society.
As I thought about the stories of Naaman, the mighty Aramean commander who sought healing from the prophet Elisha, and of the nameless leper who sought healing from Jesus, a number of images streamed through my mind’s eye. I thought about groups of people who have been—and in some instances still are—pariahs in our communities. Outcasts—objects of hatred—objects of fear because of race, gender, religion, ethnicity, orientation, physical condition or financial need—you name the human situation, and I guarantee I can give you an example of the way we have marginalized the persons who are in that situation. As I thought of all the ways we manage to exclude people, I thought also of the ways fear of exclusion can lead us to resist healing in ourselves.
It’s unlikely that anyone outside Naaman’s family knows that he suffers from leprosy. He could not retain his high position, despite his successful war record, if his condition were known. His choice to seek to be healed requires that he risk everything—his family, his position, his wealth. His choice to seek to be healed requires that he tell the truth about his situation. His choice to seek to be healed requires that he become fully engaged in the process of healing—even when he believes that the cure is ridiculous.
The nameless leper in the gospel story also must become fully engaged in the process of healing. In contrast to Naaman, we don’t hear of a long cross-country journey for him, but I don’t know if we can begin to measure the length of his journey to kneel at Jesus’ feet. His choice to leave the place where he has been set-apart, his choice to attempt to re-enter the society that has rejected him, is an enormous risk. He risks injury at the hands of those who have set him apart—those who would be made ritually unclean if he even accidentally brushed against them. He risks being injured, but, more important, he risks losing his only hope. What if this man—this Jesus—is not the healer everyone says he is? What if this encounter is like all the others—a hope that leads only to disappointment? The man’s choice to approach Jesus for healing requires that he be fully engaged in his faith—fully engaged in his search for healing.
Searching for healing is risky business. Searching for healing means that we have to step out of the way of life that is known to us and enter the unknown. Searching for healing means making the most important choice of our lives—the choice to tell the truth about ourselves—to ourselves. Searching for healing means that we have to take action when we don’t know what changes that action will mean for our lives.
Most of us are like Naaman. We are strong, we are competent, we are looked up to in our community and by our peers. And, like Naaman, most of us have a secret, a secret that we believe, rightly or wrongly, would make a difference to the way the rest of the world sees us.
Each of us knows our own secret woundedness, our own imperfection, our own need for healing
But making a choice to be healed means leaving behind the life we have—exchanging the life we know for a life that almost certainly will be different.
The good news is that the prophet still walks in the land. The God who brought healing to Naaman—the God who brought healing to the nameless leper—is still with us. And our God has already made the choice—the choice to heal and nurture and love us. The only question left is whether we are willing to receive what God has already given us.
Thanks be to God.