“The Kings and Us: faith, not principles”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Text: 2 Kings 5:1-14
It was one of those great World Cup moments that seem to happen primarily in Toronto. I was having breakfast at my favourite restaurant and I noticed a car drive by as it had every single day for the past week with the tricolour of France flying from its window. The driver was most proud of his French heritage. When he was in the line-up talking to some of his colleagues, who also met him there for breakfast in the mornings, I overheard the conversation, and it seemed a little strange, because they reminded him that in fact he was of African descent.
They said, “Why is it that you are not cheering for your home country, but for France?”
He said, “My mother was born in France and my country is not in the World Cup. I am going to cheer for France.”
Three days in a row he came to the same place with the tricolour flying boldly with great pride as he bragged about the World Cup and his association with France. On the fourth day, last Wednesday, no flag, just the car! I looked at him, smiled, although I shouldn't really have been so cruel. I said, “What, no flag this morning?”
He looked at me and said, “No flag, no pride, no France! It is all over!”
I wanted to buy him a coffee, but I didn't bother. I felt for him though in my heart. I might be feeling the same way later today!
I thought that it is amazing that you have all this great pride in the place that you are from and the nation and your heritage, but so often it can wane and fall away. Pride is like that. There is a wonderful line in Troilus and Cressida where Agamemnon said the following: “He that is proud eats himself up.” The more I thought about that, the more I realized that even if you are proud of good things, even if you are proud of your nation or your country or of honour, still that pride can be the prelude to a fall.
When I think of our country, of Canada, and the great nation that it is, and the great year that we have had, there is much for which to be proud. We carried off the Winter Olympics with aplomb and dignity and joy. We have welcomed world leaders to our city and we have made available a place for them to meet. We are welcoming the Monarch of the Commonwealth on Monday in Halifax. There are many things that we do that are internationally outstanding and are a great source of pride and honour, but often pride, even in those things, can become a prelude to problems.
It is fine to have pride well up in the heart, to celebrate the good things and to glory in them, as long as one does not forget the existence of injustice and immorality and the problems that beset humanity. Pride is fine in its place, but pride out of place becomes obscene. That is the lesson that we find in today's passage from the Book of 2 Kings. This is the third in a series from the Book of Kings, and it is not about Elijah today, as it has been the last two Sundays, but about Elisha, who was Elijah's successor.
The stories and the themes are very much the same. They are lessons for Israel, they are lessons for God's people, and they are lessons for the world. The lesson this morning in the story of Naaman (2 Kings, 5) is the story of the debilitating effects of pride. Let's look at the story again. Naaman, we are told, is from Assyria and serves King Arum. He is a very proud military leader. He is exceptional. He is thought of very highly by the elite powers of Assyria.
He is a well-known and a well-respected man, a great warrior, and a gentile leader. The problem, we are told, is that he suffers from a skin disease. We don't know what that skin disease is, nobody knows what it is. It is called leprosy but it might be Hansen's Disease. Leprosy was the term used to cover all manner of problems, but it was a disease that was debilitating and humiliating. He looked unclean.
Worried about this, he sought help, and the servant girl who was working for him, an Israelite, says to him, “Oh, I know how you can have that cured. There are many great prophets in Israel, my home country. I am sure that they will heal you.”
Naaman agreed that he would have a letter sent from his king to the King of Israel introducing him, asking that he might be healed of his skin disease and his leprosy.
Naaman goes to Israel, but the King of Israel having read the letter says, “Oh, this is an affront. We are not going to heal this gentile man. There is nobody here who can do this.”
Enter the prophet Elisha. Elisha says, “I'll take care of it.”
And so, Elisha meets Naaman. Naaman, the great warrior, a letter of introduction from the King of Assyria no less! He looks at his disease and he gives him the solution. He says, “I want you to dip into the Jordan River, a muddy river, seven times, and you will be cured.”
That is all he asked: to go into the muddy river and to come out and be cleansed - a foretaste of Baptism, I believe. But, Naaman refused.
Naaman had no sense that he was going to do this. He was too proud. He was a great warrior. Fancy something as simple as going into the muddy Israelite river? Naaman said, “You must be out of your mind!” or something equivalent. But, Elisha insisted this was the way it would be and Naaman went down to the river.
There is a moment in the Gospels when a rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asked what he must do to have eternal life. Jesus tells him to go and sell everything that he has: a simple thing, but something that the rich young ruler would not do. Such are those who are full of pride. Such are those who even when healing is offered them and an opportunity for peace and reconciliation, they do not take it because their pride gets in the way.
I read a humorous modern parable where a computer expert, an elderly priest and a student get on a plane. As they are flying, the plane experiences a problem and it is going to go down. They look around and realize there are only three parachutes on board. The pilot leaves his cockpit, runs back into the body of the plane, takes a parachute, and says, “I have a family and children. I will be able to fly people for many years. I should take the first parachute” and out he goes.
The computer expert says, “I am the most brilliant man in the world. I have designed programs that will save lives and change the world. I must therefore take a parachute.”
The elderly priest, realizing there was only one more parachute says, “I have lived a good and a long life. I have nothing more really to give.” So, he made sure the young boy on board had the last parachute.
The young boy says, “It is okay, father, there is no need to worry. The most brilliant man on earth just put my knapsack on his back when he jumped out.”
“How pride can eat itself!” wrote Agamemnon.
How those who lift themselves up think that they are above everything else, including wisdom and grace and healing. The power of the problem of pride! But, there is also the power and the problem of principles. Yes, principles! Naaman was a man of principle. He was a man of honour. The reason he would not dip himself in the Jordan River was just simply because he was a leader and this would be showing weakness. He was looking for something complicated, something grand that he could do rather than go into the mud. His dignity would not allow it.
Dignity - another principle! A wonderful thing on so many levels, it can actually stand in the way of reconciliation and change. I will never forget that in encountering a man who was about to go into hospital for a needed operation. Before the operation, his wife said, “Would you be able to meet with this man? Would you be able to encourage my husband to go and have the operation? As it stands right now, he won't do it. He needs it!”
So, I met with the man. He was a man of impeccable dignity, a man of impeccable respect, a very good man. But, the reason he kept resisting going in to have the operation was that he felt that he would lose his dignity if he had to be in a gown in a hospital ward with other people. His dignity held him back from having the very healing he needed. He was so wrapped up in himself, so consumed with his own importance, that he had put his principles ahead of his healing.
Many of you will remember the Home Alone series, movies that are televised Christmas time. I play it every Christmas, along with A Christmas Story, and there is this wonderful segment near the end of the movie where the young boy, Kevin, who has been left at home has a conversation with an old man. Remember the old man who terrified him? Who looked ominous and frightening? In a conversation between Kevin and the old man, there is this incredible moment where the old man says that he has been alone, because he and his son would not meet each other. Something in the past had caused a rift between them and it was so strong that they could not meet, and they had lived in isolation.
The principle of pride of dignity of even holding on to your own position and your own strength, even if it is at the expense of healing, can be a deeply destructive and a deeply painful thing. Principles can stand in the way. I find today that I meet a lot of younger people who have a great sense of principles in their lives. They take upon themselves causes close to their hearts, and they bind themselves to these causes. These causes become their raison d'etre.
It is cool to have a cause, and it is cool to stand for a cause, and it is good to have principles, but at times even those causes, even those principles, can become a source of pride. They can become a source of pride in the one who holds the cause. Holding the cause becomes more important than anything else in life. Often, these causes reflect the pull of God, but sometimes they even stand in the way of the call of God. No matter what the cause, no matter what the principles might be, as good and lofty as they might be, that becomes a source of pride or arrogance or exclusion. It can stand in the way of truly following the will of God.
I would be the first to acknowledge that religion itself can also be one of those sources of pride, and that people who are proud of their own moral fibre and standing, that those who feel that they are holier than anyone else, that those who hold particular religious positions with great fervour, can themselves become so proud of them that what is a virtue quickly becomes a vice. So, what is needed? What was the way out for Naaman: Namaan who was proud, Naaman who was in need, and Naaman who had principles and dignity and strength? What did Naaman need to heal? He needed to humble himself in the presence of God.
There is a wonderful line in the Book of James, Chapter 4:10, where James writes these words: “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.” For Naaman, there is an amazing story. It was a servant in his house, a young woman, who said to him that he should go to Israel to be healed. It was his servants who, when he turned away and refused to go into the Jordon, said to him, “Our father, Naaman, you must go and be healed by this Elisha. If he had asked for a big thing, you would have done it. You must now go and do this simple thing.” His servants, the lowly, were concerned for him.
Isn't it interesting that the letter from King to King does not bring about Namaan's healing? It was the role of the servants, the lowliest, who led Naaman to humble himself before the presence of God. Naaman finally went back to Elisha, he finally agreed to go into the Jordan River, and seven times he was dipped in the Jordan. He came out, and as the Book of Kings puts it so beautifully, his skin was like that of a child. By humbling himself and listening to those who were of a lowlier estate, he was lifted up and healed. This man, who was the gentile warrior, representing the gentile King of the Assyrians, was led to healing by the grace of a prophet from Israel who asked him to do the simple thing, and when he did, he was restored.
Where are the Naamans of today? Those who are willing to humble themselves honestly in the presence of the Lord? For all their might and for all their power and all their dignity and principle, where are those who will recognize the grace of God and that it is that grace that comes from within? In our nation, our great nation of Canada, it seems to me that for all our victories and all the great things that we celebrate, if we do not in our hearts humble ourselves before God, how will we have reconciliation and healing?
For all the greatness of our city and world standing, how great will we be and continue to be if we are not like Naaman, who listened to the simple and the humble, and be led to God? How great can we continue to be if we do not take time to acknowledge and recognize the humble power of God? What physical force will do any good and bring us any valour or peace in the world if we do not have the humbleness of the spirit of grace?
Naaman leads the way. He leads the way with his parting words to Elisha, and they go down in the annals of history:
Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the the world except in Israel. Please accept now a gift from your servant. ”
Naaman, let us never forget! Amen.