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ALWAYS START WITH KINDNESS

7/27/2025

Sunday, July 27, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Luke 11:1-13

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” So he said to them, “When you pray, say:

Father, may your name be revered as holy.
    May your kingdom come.
    Give us each day our daily bread.
    And forgive us our sins,
        for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

When our Youth Director, Todd Skrzyniarz, prays in public, he very often closes his prayer with words like these: “We love you and we thank you.  In Jesus’s name.  Amen.”

That statement always strikes me because to say that God loves us is one thing.  But to declare our love for God, well, that is quite another.  And for many years, as much as I wanted to or thought I should, I could not say it with any conviction.

How could I love God – really - having been taught a version of God that was utterly unlovable.  Instead, the God I thought I knew was terrifying.  This God was an abusive parent.  This God was obsessed with my every human failing.  This God was always angry.

So, no, as a child I did not love God.  How could I?  And as a young adult, struggling to know who I was and accept who I was, I did not love God.  How could I?  Instead, the normal reaction was to fear God and to try to assuage his anger.  I had yet to learn this basic idea: that love and fear cannot exist in the same place.  As the Epistle of First John so succinctly puts it, “perfect love casts out all fear.”

Now, I know that my religious upbringing in fundamentalist Christianity might be considered extreme by some of you more refined Congregationalists.  But I think that most folks, if they believe in God at all, are afraid of God, even in a tradition like ours.

And for good reason.  After all, we are the heirs of that most famous of all Congregationalist’s sermons: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” In it, Jonathan Edwards skillfully wove a terrifying narrative of God’s anger and judgment against the human race.  In one of his more memorable lines, he wrote: "The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathsome Insect over the Fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his Wrath towards you burns like Fire..."

You won’t hear a sermon like that in a Congregational church anymore, thank God.  But the residue of that theology and the fear it produces still cling, even when we are not conscious of it.  And because it does, that makes it hard to really love God.  Because love and fear cannot exist in the same place.

This fear also makes us vulnerable to the manipulations of others.  In the rising tide of Christian Nationalism, we see religion as fear on display.  The message to the nation is that God is angry at us and that God’s anger will only be assuaged by doing what they tell us to do, and living like they tell us to live, and thinking like they tell us to think.  The point is control - to keep afraid and compliant and divided.  And it’s working.

That’s the intended effect.  But there is also a poisonous unintended effect.  And that is that the changing of our own standards and behaviors.  When people are afraid, they will do almost anything.  And if you believe that your God is mostly angry, then over time that seems to give us permission to be mostly angry too.  We feel free to hate and persecute and punish because we imagine that this is what God would do.  And if those pesky historic teachings of the church get in the way, then they must be redefined in order to fit the purposes of control.

Recently, someone introduced me to the phrase: “toxic empathy.”  Well, I had never heard it before.  And so, I googled it, and was taken to an article about a woman who has made this phrase her claim to fame.  She says that any Christian who is overly empathetic is somehow being unfaithful to the Gospel, because the Gospel, according to her, is not about empathy.  It’s about a rigid adherence to her version of the truth.  And this so-called “truth” that she promulgates is far more important basic human kindness, expressed as empathy.  And in a culture of fear, in a belief system based in fear, her thinking is gaining traction in the church.

Whose version of Christianity will win the day?  Well, that remains to be seen.  But I am convinced that the only hope the church has is to keep going back to the Source, back the Gospels, and ask ourselves again and again and again, what did Jesus actually teach us?  And who did Jesus tell us God was?

The Gospel lesson of the day includes Luke’s version of The Lord’s Prayer.  It’s simpler than Matthew’s and goes like this:
“Father, may your name be revered as holy.  May your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

Now, there are a million good sermons in that prayer, and likely an easier than this one!  But this week, I was drawn to not take the easy route and to have a closer look at the two parables that Jesus tells.  Both are related to the prayer he taught.  One is about how we should pray.  But the other one is about the essential nature of the One to whom we pray.  And that parables speaks loudly to our present moment.

Jesus said:  What if you had company arrive in the middle of the night.  And you didn’t have enough bread.  But you had to feed them because ancient near eastern hospitality demanded it.  So, you go to your neighbor to borrow some bread.  But your neighbor was already tucked into bed with his kids and didn’t want to get up.  Well, this was an outrageous breach of the protocols of hospitality of the ancient Near East.  And everyone who heard Jesus tell this story knew that.  So, the listeners must have been gratified to hear that the man in need of bread just kept pounding on the door until the neighbor finally got up and did the right thing.

And this is how we should pray, Jesus said.  We are to keep on asking and keep on searching and keep on knocking until we receive the bread we need.  This parable is not about God as the lazy neighbor, who must be begged to do the right thing.  This parable is about us, and the discipline of prayer; the work of prayer; the consistency of prayer.

But the second parable is about God and God’s essential disposition toward us.  Jesus asked: Is there any parent out there, who if your child asked for a fish stick, would instead hand them a copperhead?  Or if your child wanted a hard-boiled egg, would instead give them a live scorpion?  Of course not!  If you, then, who are flawed and imperfect know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give his own self, his Spirit, his own essence to those who ask!

The second parable is a parable of comparison.  It asks us to look at our own impulses toward basic kindness as a baseline.  It asks us to consider how we would respond to a child in need.  But then it extends that kindness all the way to the Almighty.  But with this one major difference.  It is three little words, but they are mighty.  Jesus said: “If you then, who are sinful, know how to be kind, then how much more does the kindness of God overflow?   How much more?

And that, dear friends, is the baseline.  Kindness is the standard.  Love is the foundation.  Mercy is the measure.

So in this world of so many opinions; in this time of societal confusion; in these days of fear, remember this: all good theology always starts with kindness.  Good public policy always starts with kindness.  Good relationships always start with kindness.  Because the Lord is kind.  He is OUR FATHER.

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THE BETTER PART

7/19/2025

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Sunday, July 20, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Luke 10:38-42

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

I really liked the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black.  If you don’t know, it’s a women’s prison drama loosely based on the experiences of a Connecticut woman named Piper Kerman.  Kerman had grown up in a privileged home, but through a series of very bad decisions, exacerbated by addition, she ended up in prison.

In addition to the wonderful writing and acting, the show has a really great theme song.  Composer Regina Spektor sings of the monotony of prison life at a break-neck, rock ‘n roll speed.  But about halfway through, the tempo slows significantly, as she invites the listener to “Think of all the roads.  Think of all their crossings.  Taking steps is easy.  Standing still is hard.”

I’ve never been good at standing still.  I like projects and answers.  I like to work.  I like to be busy.  I like the feeling of productivity and accomplishment.  A great deal of my self-image is tied to what I produce.  And when I don’t produce, I can feel lost.

But I’m also self-aware enough to know that this addiction to busyness is very often about avoidance.  It’s about steering clear of fear.  And so, I make my days full because I don’t really want to “think of all the roads… (and) all their crossings.”  I don’t want to seriously consider the complicated and fleeting nature of life.  I don’t want to stand still – even though I know from my own experience that it is in standing still that I am more prone to hear the voice of the Lord.

One day, Jesus was invited to the home of his best friends - siblings named Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.  And in that household, Martha was in charge of the kitchen.  And on this day, with company coming, Martha needed to turn out an impressive meal.  Maybe she liked the challenge.  Maybe, like me, Martha got some of her identity from what she created; from what she produced.

Now, on any other day, her sister Mary would have been in the kitchen with her, acting as sous chef.  But on this day, Mary wasn’t in the kitchen.  Instead, she was lollygagging in the parlor with all the men folk.  In fact, she was acting like a man, sitting at the feet of a rabbi, learning from his wisdom – something that only men did.  And stranger still, the Greek language used here implies a kind of intimacy in Mary’s action.  The word construction suggests that Mary sort of wrapped herself around Jesus’s feet; not wanting to let him go.

Now, I suspect that all of this really rattled Martha, who knew the rules; and who also had a job to do.  So, Martha was simmering like a tea kettle.  She bustled in and out of the room, slamming the plates down on the table and sighing dramatically.  Martha wanted someone – anyone - to ask her what was wrong.  But no one did.  And, of course, that even made her even angrier.  Finally, when she couldn’t take it anymore; when no one was picking up on her nonverbal clues, she did the unthinkable.  She brought the dinner guest right into the middle of a family argument. Instead of just whispering in her sister’s ear: “Get off your butt and get into the kitchen” she addressed the guest of honor directly: “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left all the work to me?  Tell her to help me!”  But Jesus answered her: “Martha, dear Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; (but) there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

A common way to interpret this story is to say that Jesus is making a clear distinction between a contemplative life, which is superior, and a life based in activity.  He even calls the contemplative life “the better part.”  And so, preachers will often laud Mary and chide Martha, as if the sum total of Christian duty is to sit around and think about Jesus all day, while the work is left undone and the whole world goes to hell.

But that interpretation is problematic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the story that directly precedes this one is the story of the Good Samaritan.  And the story of the Good Samaritan is all about doing the right thing – not just thinking about it.

So, if contemplation over action is not the point, then what is it?  Well, notice that Jesus never actually chides Martha for being busy.  Somebody has to make the meal.  Instead, Jesus takes notice of Martha’s state of mind. He changes the tense mood in the rooms by calling her name twice.  This implies a kind of tenderness and understanding.  There is no judgment in it.   And then he speaks directly to her need: “Martha, dear Martha,” he said to her, “you are worried and distracted by many things.”

The Greek word for “distracted” has the connotation of literally being pulled apart or dragged in different directions, like one is being drawn and quartered.  And when I get like that; when life and its worries start to pull me apart, then as much as I love this work, there is no joy in it.  I can’t keep my focus.  I don’t remember my purpose.  I am prone to being overwhelmed or angry or depressed.  And I sure can’t hear the word of the Lord.

So, Martha’s problem was not that she had a job to do or that she was busy or that she liked to work.  My problem is not that I have a job to do or that I’m busy or that I like to work.  My problem, on any given day, is that my dedication to busyness can easily distract me and disconnect me from what it is I actually need.  And what I need is to sit at the feet of Jesus and hear his life-giving words spoken to my own troubled heart.

And I think that what is true for individuals can also true for institutions.  How often does the church collectively listen for the voice of Jesus?  How often do we take time or make time for that?  Instead, we analyze and organize and strategize.  We dive in to the busyness of budgets and buildings and endowment figures and membership rolls and search processes and growth projections and key indicators.  There is nothing wrong with any of these things, but they must be balanced against something Jesus called “the better part.”

I once read that at Old South Church in Boston – a venerable UCC congregation if ever there was one, every Board meeting, every committee meeting begins with 30 minutes of prayer and Bible study and human connection and believe it or not: sometimes even communion!  Well, I didn’t believe it at first, so I emailed their now former Senior Minister, the Rev. Dr. Nancy Taylor.  She was gracious enough to offer to speak to me on the phone, so we made an appointment.  When we spoke, Dr. Taylor told me that at first the very idea of wasting 30 minutes on worship when there was so much work to do was a tall order indeed.  But she persisted.  And once it took hold, she told me that people began to clamor to serve on these boards and committees, because they began to understand, in a visceral way, the Martha and the Mary of life: the connection between worship and work; between stillness and purpose.; between action and contemplation.

This week is going to be whatever it will be: stressful, busy, burdensome, challenging.  We can’t really change that.  But we can change.  We can choose “the better part.”  We can make time to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen closely to his wonderful words of life.

So, I thought it would be good for us to practice this morning.  We’re going to take a few moments to actively listen for the Lord.  After the hymn, we will all be seated and we’ll be quiet together.  It will last about three minutes, so settle in.  You have no other assignment other than stillness and an open heart.  We will close the time of silence by singing the first verse of the hymn again, while remaining seated.

And this is what I hope will happen: if we’re feeling anxious and worried, that we will know the everlasting arms under us.  I hope that we will be able to breathe - deeply.  I hope that our shoulders will relax and our brains will quiet down.  I hope that we will hear Jesus say to us: “All is well.  Peace be with you.  Be not afraid.”

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THE VIEW FROM DOWN HERE

7/13/2025

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Sunday, July 13, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

Luke 10:25-37

An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Perspective is everything.  And the practice of empathy, mercy, and kindness is always a matter of perspective. We learn these things by needing these things and receiving these things.  It’s a perspective from below.

One day, while still living in New York, I was rushing some place… because in New York, one is always rushing some place.  And in that mad dash to get to wherever I needed to be, my fellow New Yorkers were nothing more than obstacles to be avoided.  And so, I practiced what I had learned early on: never make eye contact with anyone because it will only slow you down.  And if anyone tries to speak to you, walk even faster as if you didn’t hear them.

That’s what I was doing on the subway platform that day, when I heard a voice call out: “Mister!  Mister!”  Of course, I just kept walking as if I didn’t hear.  But the voice followed me.  “Mister!” it insisted.  Finally, a hand tugged on the back of my shirt while the voice pleaded, “Mister!”  And this really made me angry.  So, I whirled around and growled: “What?!”

I expected to see a panhandler or some kind of religious nut.  But the person behind me was a child.  He was with his siblings and his mother, who was dressed in a sari and seemed to depend upon her children to speak the local language.  Still, I was still suspicious, expecting to be asked for money.  “Mister” the child said again, “is this the train to Times Square.”  That was all they wanted – some directions.  And I was covered with shame.

You see, I had forgotten what it was like to be new in New York and to not understand how the trains worked.  I had forgotten how intimidating that pulsing city could be.  I had forgotten what if felt like to not be able to speak the local language.  I had forgotten how much courage it can take to ask for help.  In other words, I had forgotten the view from below.

Perspective is everything.  And the practice of empathy, mercy, and kindness is always a matter of perspective. We learn these things by needing these things and then receiving these things.  And that idea is powerfully expressed in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

One day, a prize-winning rabbinical student, asked Jesus, “Rabbi, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  It’s a good question, with a surprisingly simply answer.  Jesus asked the man: “What does the Law say?”  And the prize-winning student answered: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

“That’s it!” Jesus replied with a smile.  “Do that and you will live.  Do that and eternal life is already yours.”  But the young man wanted more of an intellectual challenge.  And so, he countered: “But who then is my neighbor?”  And Jesus, the master storyteller, told a story that the world has never forgotten.

A man was traveling on the dangerous Jericho Road.  It was well-known as a place where robbers hid, waiting to jump out from a shadow or a rock or a bush.  And that is exactly what happened that day.  The robbers jumped out, attacked the man, stripped of his clothing, beat him senseless, and left him for dead.

A little while later, a priest was traveling that same dangerous road, but when he saw this bloody mess, he passed by quickly on the other side.  Then a Levite, someone who worked in the Temple, also passed by.  But the Levite likewise crossed to the other side, with a hurried step.

It is often said that the priest and the Levite hurried by on the other side because of their religion; because they were both concerned with ritual purity.  What if the man was already dead and they were made unclean by touching a corpse and the unable to fulfill their religious duties?  But that idea is not mentioned at all in this story.  And that idea implies a heartlessness in Judaism.  And that idea plants the seeds of some anti-Semitic thinking.

But maybe religion had nothing to do with their actions that day.  Maybe, because of the road they were on, they were afraid too.  Maybe, they thought, the robbers were still there.  Maybe the man in the ditch was just a decoy, a way to make them stop so that they too could be robbed and beaten.

In any event, the next person to appear was a Samaritan.  And if you don’t remember anything else about Samaritans, remember this: everyone hated them.  They lived in the wrong place and practiced the wrong religion and had the wrong customs.  But that Samaritan – that no-good, dirty, foreigner – is the only one who stopped to show mercy.  He is the only one who saw the need and was deeply, viscerally moved wih compassion.

What he did next was shocking.  He crawled into the ditch with the man, his own clothes becoming soaked with the blood of a stranger.  And he bandaged the man and treated his wounds, and put him on his donkey, and took him to an inn, and sat up with him all night, and paid the innkeeper for two more days, so the man could rest and recover and live.  And then he promised to come back and see how the man was doing.

And then Jesus asked the rabbinical student: “So which one of these was the neighbor to the man?”  “The one who showed him mercy,” the student answered.  And Jesus said: “Go and do likewise.”

And we know that.  We know that we are supposed to go and do likewise.  We understand it intellectually.  But perspective is everything.  And the practice of empathy, mercy, and kindness is always a matter of perspective. We learn these things by needing these things and then receiving these things.

Which makes me wonder where we locate ourselves in this story.  Are we the religious folks so concerned with going to church that we fail to be the church?  Are we the Samaritan, doing the right thing, even when no one else is?  Or is it possible that the power of this parable in found in seeing ourselves as someone else?

Amy Jill Levine, the brilliant New Testament scholar who is also a practicing Jew, says that the only way to really understand this parable is from the perspective from the ditch.  Dr. Levine writes that this story is transformative when we see ourselves as the ones who need to be saved – and that the one who comes to save us is our so-called enemy.

And that, she says, is what made and makes this parable such a scandal.  Jesus dared to remind us that we learn mercy by receiving it – and receiving it from those we call enemies.

A modern-day retelling might go something like this: a far-left Democrat is robbed and a Republican saves her life.  A racist cop is robbed and left to die, and an African American teenager saves his life.  A transgender woman is stripped and beaten half to death, and an anti LGBTQ activist saves her life.  An outspoken atheist is attacked, and a Bible-thumping fundamentalist saves his life.  As theologian Debie Thomas puts it: “When you’re lying bloody in a ditch, what matters is not whose help you’d prefer… What matters is whether or not anyone will stop to show you mercy before you die.”

“Mister, is this the train to Grand Central?”  The boy was simply asking for help.  But I was the one who needed it, lost and battered as I was that day, in a ditch of self-importance and arrogance.  And I might have died there had that little boy not lifted me up.

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WHAT’S YOUR SECRET?

7/8/2025

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Sunday, July 6, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell

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.

What’s your secret?  Not the kind that you might reveal in a parlor game or at a cocktail party.  I mean – what’s your secret?  What’s the one thing that you don’t want anyone else to know?  Is it a treasure or a curse?  And if it’s a curse, as most secrets are, have you ever wondered what it might be like to be free of it?

Silence keeps most of our secrets, but not all of them.  Some are more difficult to conceal.  They’re visible if we’re not careful.  And so we smooth our wrinkles with fancy products.  We wear slimming devices to give us the illusion of fitness. We hide scars and blemishes with clothing and make-up.  And it can be expensive to keep those kinds of secrets.  As Dolly Parton once quipped about her so-called eternal youth: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!”  Indeed, it does, Dolly.

Once upon a time there was a man with a secret.  He was a high-powered Aram or Syrian general named Naaman.  General Naaman commanded the army that had defeated Israel.  And 2 Kings reports, rather surprisingly, that God actually favored the Syrian General Naaman over God’s own people.

Naaman was a well-placed mover and shaker in the ancient world. But despite his success and wealth and power, he had leprosy.

Now when the Bible speaks of leprosy, it’s often a general reference to any kind of skin disease – not just Hansen’s Disease but things like psoriasis or eczema or skin cancer.  And skin diseases of all types were highly feared in the biblical world because everyone believed they were contagious.  So having a skin disease put you on the outside.

Maybe Naaman’s leprosy was in a place where he could hide it under his clothing or armor.  But the folks in his household knew what he had, because they had seen him in various stages of undress.  And those in the know included the little Jewish slave girl who had been kidnapped away from her family during a raid and had been given to Naaman’s wife.  Somehow, this little girl knew the secret.  But she also knew of a prophet back home named Elisha.  And she knew that if Elisha prayed for Naaman, his leprosy would be healed.  So, being a kind soul, she told her mistress, Mrs. Naaman, all about it.  And Mrs. Naaman told her husband all about it.

I imagine that at first, he resisted the idea.  I mean, who wants to go to your enemy for help?  But in the end, Naaman’s secret made him desperate enough to do anything.  He asked his king to write a letter to the king of Israel describing his desire to meet the famous Prophet Elisha.

When the king of Israel got the letter from the king of Syria, he thought it was a trick.  He thought he was being set up to meet an impossible demand as a way to humiliate Israel all over again.  But it wasn’t a trick.  And the prophet insisted that he would help this foreign general.  So Naaman set out and took gifts for the prophet: one-thousand pounds of silver, six thousand gold coins, and ten sets of the most beautiful garments you’ve ever seen.

The great general arrived at the house of the prophet.  And, of course, he expected to be treated for the great man that he was.  But Elisha didn’t even come out to say hello.  Instead, he sent out a messenger to tell Naaman to go and wash himself seven times in the muddy and unimpressive Jordan River.

Well, this was all just too much!  Not only had General Naaman gone to his enemies for help; not only had he been met by a messenger and not the prophet himself, but now he had been told to strip down and humble himself and wash in this sorry excuse of a river.  He was furious and began to storm off.  But just before he left, his own servants intervened: “Sir, you would do much more than this to be cured.  All you have to do is go wash yourself.  What do you have to lose?”

Well, that did make sense.  And so Naaman relented and walked down to the river.  He removed his clothing piece by piece, revealing his secret.  And then he walked into that muddy water and dipped himself seven times; a biblical number that always implies “completeness” or “wholeness.”  And each time he came up out of that water, his skin looked better until, at last, he was fully restored.  And his terrible secret, exposed to the light, completely lost its power over him.

This story is notable for all kinds of reasons, but one of the most striking is its bold challenge of the prevailing social order.  Jesus even makes a reference to it in Luke chapter 4 as an illustration of how the Gospel upsets the social order.  The first are last and the last are first.  The powerful are weak and the weak are strong.  And the love of God is far broader than the measure of our minds.

It was through the mouth of a female, a child and a slave – a nobody - that God speak truth to power.  And instructions for Naaman’s healing were delivered by another nobody – a mere messenger of a prophet. And then it was Naaman’s own servants who implored him not to storm off, but to give grace a chance.

This is a story about how our social stratifications and human pride keep us trapped by our secrets. This is a story about pretending to be perfect as we compete for social acceptance and social climbing.  This is a story about the needless pain we bear because of pride.  But this is also a story about the Good News of the Gospel, that our salvation is so often found in those things we try to hide.  Like Naaman, it is standing naked in the world makes us free.

During my pastorate in Manhattan, I was taken ill.  And I was in and out of the hospital several times over a number of weeks.  I told the leadership of the church about it, but I had sworn them to secrecy.  You see, I didn’t want anyone else in the congregation to know that I was sick.  But the people of my church were not idiots.  They saw my pale face and my need to sit down during worship.  They saw my occasional grimaces of pain.  I insisted on keeping up this ridiculous façade up until one day one of my leaders called me out on it.  She told me, straight out, that  I was being silly by trying to hide it. She told me I needed to trust the community to do for me what I could not do for myself.  She told me that there was no shame in being a frail human.

And so, I revealed my secret.  I let the congregation care for me and comfort me and worry about me.  And I stopped pretending that I was different just because I had a title.  And my secret, once exposed to the light, once more dipped into the waters of my baptismal grace, not only lost its power over me, but it served as a bridge between me and the people of that church.  It made us more of a community.  And in a very real sense of the word, it healed me.

And that light and those same waters of grace are available to any of you who are tired of hiding your flaws and who long for a new beginning.  For from the waters of our baptismal grace; from the waters of the very womb of God, we all rise, healed and made whole.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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