Sermon: Learning to See God

2 Kings 5:1-14

Learning To See God

James Sledge                                                                                       July 7, 2013

My family used to have a dog, a Cardigan Welsh Corgi named Fred. Cardigans are the ones that have a tail. They’re a bit larger and heavier than the better known Pembroke variety, but still, Fred wasn’t even a foot high at the shoulder.

Fred had the best disposition of any dog I’ve ever known. He was always happy, loved everyone, and he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Nonetheless, at some point he decided that one of his jobs was to make like a fierce guard dog when the mail arrived at the front door. He sounded like a much bigger dog, and if you didn’t know him or couldn’t see him, you might have concluded that he was a real threat. But to us, and to the postal carrier who did know him, it was quite comical. And if the front door was open, leaving only the glass storm door between Fred and the letter carrier, she might say, “Hi Fred,” and he would wag his tail.

As ridiculous as the whole thing was, there was no stopping it. It’s not like you can reason with a dog and explain to him how silly he looks. It was instinct, after all. He was trying to protect his home, going into full aggression mode, hair standing up on his back, making him 11 inches tall rather than 10½. He was simply wired to act that way.

We humans are not nearly so instinctive as Fred. We can look at our behavior and change it when it seems to be unhelpful. But that is not to say that we don’t have some deeply ingrained ways of responding to things around us, and these are more instinctive when we feel threatened or angry.

At such moments we are prone to fight or flight responses, and if we do not flee, the fight response means employing some sort of power or force. It may be physical, verbal, military. It may involve threats and intimidation, like Fred with the mail carrier. But whatever the form, most of us have deeply ingrained assumptions about how power and force work.

You can see such assumptions at work in our reading about Naaman, the Syrian commander with leprosy. When he hears that there is someone in Israel who can heal him, he assumes it must be connected to people with power. It must belong to those with influence and might, and so he goes to his king who provides him with a letter of introduction as well as fine gifts that he can take to Israel’s king in order to get this powerful ability to heal.

Of course the king of Israel knows nothing about healing leprosy, but he does understand power and threat and intimidation. He’s beside himself. He tears his clothes and screams at his advisors that Naaman is seeking to provoke an international incident. Clearly he is going to use this as a pretense for Aram attacking Israel, and only Elisha’s intervention prevents the king from going into full fight or flight mode.

Naaman is redirected to the house of the prophet. But Naaman is still caught up in the ways of power, influence, and prestige, as our reading makes clear by announcing his grand arrival with horses and chariots. Yet Elisha doesn’t even come out to meet him. It’s no way to treat powerful and important people, but Elisha simply sends a messenger telling Naaman to go and wash seven times in the Jordan River, and he will be healed.

Now it’s Naaman’s turn to act instinctively. He’s angry and begins to fume about this slight from the prophet. He storms off in a rage, and who knows what he might have done, except that his servants calm him down.

When Naaman flies off the handle over Elisha’s insulting disrespect, he not only falls into typical fight or flight patterns, he also assumes that God’s power looks like human power. He assumes that any legitimate healing will employ grandiose gestures that invoke God’s awesome power. Certainly he expects more than being told to go bathe in some muddy river. Clearly this prophet knows nothing about awe-inspiring, divine power.

Did you notice during the scripture reading that the people who move this story toward a good ending are all people outside the halls of power? Elisha knows about the power of God, but he’s not necessarily appreciated in the royal court. And the other prime movers in the story are Naaman’s servants, and an Israelite slave girl, the very epitome of powerlessness.

Yet Naaman’s view of divine power is still shared by many. It’s one of the reasons people still struggle to make sense of the cross, struggle to embrace the Apostle Paul’s insistence that the crucified Christ is the pinnacle of God’s wisdom and power.

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There’s an old joke about a devastating flood that threatened a small community. Calls went out on radio and TV to evacuate, but one man did not leave.  He said, “I’m a Christian.  I trust in God.  God will protect me.”

 As the waters rose, a levee broke, and crews rushed to make sure everyone had evacuated. Traveling the streets by boat, they found that one man had not left. They begged him to get in the boat, but he said, “I’m a Christian.  I trust in God.  God will protect me.”

As water inundated the town, he man was forced up onto the roof of his home. Just then a helicopter appeared. The crew lowered a basket and called for the man to get in it.  But he refused, yelling up at them, “I’m a Christian.  I trust in God.  God will protect me.”

Moments later the man was washed to his death, and when he met his maker, he demanded to know what had happened. “I trusted you.  Why didn’t you help me?”

An incredulous God responded, “I sent you warnings on television and radio.  I sent a boat to take you to safety.  I even sent a helicopter to save you.  For heaven’s sake man, what the heck is wrong with you?”

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The story of Naaman and the story of Jesus defy Enlightenment notions of God as a divine clock maker who created the world, wound it up, and walked away. The Bible insists on a God who is intimately involved in our world and our lives, who longs to lead us into fuller and more genuine human life, to show us the way to a more humane world. But God’s notions of power do not look at all like ours, and God acts in ways that don’t fit our assumptions, through servants and slave girls and muddy rivers and crotchety old prophets and the horrors of a cross. The story of Jesus insists that divine power is seen most fully in self-sacrificial love, and so it is easy for us to miss.

A spiritual director once suggested that I do a particular form of examen where I prayerfully reflected on each day at its end. She said, “Ask yourself, ‘Where did I meet God today?’ And, ‘Where did I miss God today?’ ” The second question is often the more helpful.

Where did you meet God, and where did you miss God? May you meet God today in worship, in Word and Sacrament, in the prayers and in the breaking of the bread, and in all those other surprising, not-our-ways that God comes to us.