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St. George's Episcopal Church Roseburg, Oregon Sixth Sunday After Epiphany 12 February 2006 Go To St. George's Home Page

2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30:1-12
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter. (Mark 1:40-45)

     As I walked along the corridor I thought I heard a muffled cry coming from one of the rooms. It sounded like “Help me!”

     There were many sounds in the corridor making it hard locate that voice; patients on gurneys were being moved, IV pumps were beeping, and many people were talking at once.

     But there it was again, “Help me!”

     I knocked and pushed open the door. He had fallen over in bed, and his head was stuck between the bars of the bed rail.

     “Let me help you up,” I said. His legs were missing, having been amputated just below his hips. His left arm was gone too. He only had two fingers and his thumb on his right hand, and one of his fingers was wrapped in a surgical dressing. He was also blind.

     James was the victim of rampant, out-of-control diabetes. Blood circulation in his extremities and eyes had failed long ago, necessitating several amputations over the years. His finger was badly infected, and he was in danger of losing his only remaining hand.

     James asked me to pray with him. Day after day, we sat on his bed and prayed together, asking for God’s presence in his life, the preservation of his hand, and healing.

     One day, James told me that the reason he had suffered so with diabetes was because he did not have enough faith.

     Debra Farrington, the author of several books on spirituality, recently wrote, “Watching people struggle with suffering and hopes for healing leaves the rest of us feeling helpless. What can we say to them? In the midst of pain most of us want answers, and we want direction – clear steps that lead to a predictable result.”[1] But, as she points out, that’s not what our texts give us today.

     When faced with life’s pain and challenges, I think my first reaction is anger followed quickly by self-pity. Like Job, I can sit upon my dung heap raise my fist toward the sky and lament what has happened, “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul (Job 10:1). Why did you bring me forth from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me, and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave … Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort before I go, never to return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness, the land of gloom and chaos, where light is like darkness” (Job 10:10-22).

     Our psalmist today has a similar attitude, and threatens God to get his needs met. “What profit is there in my death? Will the dust praise you? Oh Lord be my helper!” It worked; God turned his mourning into joy, and he ended up offering God his praise.

     Naaman, the Syrian King’s general with leprosy from the Old Testament reading took a different approach. Despite his heavy attitude and supreme arrogance toward the instructions of Elisha, the prophet of Israel, he finally listened to his servants and overcame his skepticism. He was someone who needed to be cajoled into taking action.

     These approaches stand in stark contrast to the leper in today’s Gospel, whose faith in God’s healing powers was firmly established. With words that resonate with you and me, he simply looked up at Jesus and said, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” He is both vulnerable and courageous at the same time.

     James thought he was a man of little faith because God had not cured him of his diabetes. Yet each and every time a medical disaster happened, James turned to God in faith to give him strength; to heal him; to make him whole. James had more faith in God than I could possibly imagine.

     James’ found a sense of peace through his faith. Yes, he was still going to lose another limb. No, he was not cured. But he still returned to God and engaged with God. And in the process, James was healed. He achieved a sense of spirituality and wholeness that was absolutely palpable. It is what got him moving in the morning, and kept him listening to his favorite talk shows on the radio. It is what prompted him to cry out for help when he needed it, and to ask someone to pray with him. He was healed. He was made whole.

     The leper in Mark’s gospel was healed by his begging. But what does that mean? Again, just like last week’s story of Peter’s mother-in-law, it means that he was restored to his place in the kingdom. People with all kinds of skin ailments were branded as lepers in biblical times, and according to the Law, they were to be shunned. When moving about, they were to wear a bell and announce their presence with the words “Unclean, unclean!” But if they achieved a cure of some kind, they were to show themselves to the priest of the temple. And if he pronounced them clean, they were to wash, and do other prescribed actions before they could be welcomed back into their society. Only then did they experience true healing. That’s what Jesus did for this man. He allowed him to be restored to his place in his community and his culture.

     And he was so grateful, and so excited by what had happened that he could not hold back his joy. Despite Jesus’ request to keep quiet, the former leper offered his testimony freely to any and all who would listen. “Come! Come and see what Jesus did for me.”

     There is a huge lesson for us in these stories. In all of them we see different people engaging with God in different ways: whining, begging, skeptical. But in all three cases something wonderful happened.

     Often times we don’t claim the healings that come to us. Instead, we set the evidentiary bar so high for a miracle of healing, that we simply miss them when they happen. We, like Naaman, somehow want or need some magic or pyrotechnics to believe them

     Why do you come to St. George’s? Why are you here each Sunday? How do you experience God, and God’s gift of healing in this place? Are you renewed by hearing the word? Are you refreshed and strengthened by Holy Communion? Do you find a sense of peace in the prayers?

     Do you struggle with all of this? Do you come hoping to experience an epiphany, or to feel the presence of the divine mystery really come alive in you? Do you come hoping for a miracle? Are you angry or filled with self pity that your prayers have not been answered the way you want them to be answered? Do you keep coming back despite the skepticism you might feel?

     It doesn’t matter why we are here. We don’t all have to be on the same page in our faith journey. We don’t have to approach the divine mystery the same way. That’s the beauty of the inclusiveness of the kingdom of God. It is there for all of us, no matter where we are.

     This is the great gift that God can offer to us through St. George’s. Francis Bacon once said that “Grace is something that you don’t deserve; and mercy is not getting something that you do deserve.”

      My prayer for all of us on is that we will take our hurts and prayers and offer them to God in whatever way suits us best in the moment, confident that God will meet us where we are; angry, whining or pleading; skeptical or confident. It does not matter whether we are in pain or sorrow or joy. What matters is that we can share in the same joy in God’s abundant grace, and experience the grace and gift of healing.  

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2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “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’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Psalm 30:1-12

 1 I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up,
and did not let my foes rejoice over me.

2 O LORD my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.

3 O LORD, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

4 Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.

5 For his anger is but for a moment;
his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.

6 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
“I shall never be moved.”

7 By your favor, O LORD,
you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face;
I was dismayed.

8 To you, O LORD, I cried,
and to the LORD I made supplication:

9 “What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?

10 Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me!
O LORD, be my helper!”

11 You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,

12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

Mark 1:40-45

A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

The Collect of the Day

O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] Debra Farrington. “Healed, not cured.” The Christian Century 123(3):16, February 7, 2006.

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Copyright © 2006, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
9 Feburary 2006

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