Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from Bethel's July 4, 2004 Sunday Morning worship service.  If you would like to read sermons from previous services, please click HERE.

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A favorite storyline for countless movies and novels is the story that begins with somebody high and mighty whose status eventually gets challenged and changed by a hero or heroine who works their way up from the bottom. Disney has made billions playing out this very theme, almost always a teenager, a young girl on the cusp of adulthood: think of Ariel in the Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Disney’s version of Pocohontas, or Belle in Beauty and the Beast.

The virtues of honesty, loyalty, and hard work get rewarded and the young heroine ends up transforming a prince, general, or some other rich and powerful male figure into a gentler, kinder self.

We love stories that work that space between the folk on the top and the folk at the bottom, stories that hinge on a reversal of status, stories that feature the little guy getting the best of the big guy. Jesus told lots of parables about poor little servants who turned out, by the end of the story, to be smarter than the people who thought they were the servants’ masters.

Which goes a long way in explaining why we love today’s story from 2 Kings, the story of Namaan and the little serving girl. Naaman was a powerful Syrian general, a big man, victorious king. But Namaan had a very real problem. He had a dreadful, incurable disease. So the story begins with a great person, a person on the top, who faces a huge difficulty. Then the story moves to a little slave girl who had been carried off from Israel after a Syrian victory in battle. She tells King Namaan that he ought to go see Elisha, a prophet in Israel, who might find a cure for him.

Why should he listen to her? Desperate, he does listen. Maybe, subconsciously, he knows she is on to something. At any rate, Namaan heads out of big, powerful Syria for little, captive, out of the way Israel. Namaan arrives outside Elisha’s little cottage, probably expecting to meet some wise sage, an exotic guru who has some secret incantation to pronounce over him that will give him some relief.

But Elisha doesn’t even come outside to meet this great man. The doctor is in, but he won’t be disturbed. He sends a servant with a prescription: Go wash seven times in the Jordan River.

Big, powerful, important Namaan is insulted. I’ve come all this way and you don’t even examine me, then you tell me to go wash seven times in that muddy little river which, by the way is nothing compared to all the great rivers we have in Syria. Namaan heads for home in a huff.

Once again, a little servant dares to confront the great man. “If that Jewish prophet had asked you to do something hard, something great and demanding, wouldn’t you have done it?

Okay, okay, says Namaan. He submits to the indignity of slithering down into the Jordan mud hole and washes.

And when he clambers back up the bank, his skin is “like that of a little child.” He has been cured.

Now, I ask you, where are you in this story? Could it be that most of us are Assyrians, that is we are North Americans, members of a powerful, secure, self-sufficient, self-confident empire. We have achieved a degree of control over our world that most the world’s people can only dream about. We have unrivaled military might, far more than our fair share of the world’s wealth, incredible access to education and the information superhighway, yet, like Namaan, we need to be washed over by the muddy waters of the Jordan River.

What would it be like if we could be washed clean of our pride of independence and self-reliance and our devotion to patriotism, that we might turn back and see that the only way to be whole and clean is to renew a right relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to repent of our political posturing and lies of convenience, to demand that our leaders take responsibility for the shameful treatment of those whom we have captured in our own war, to face the truth that too often our talk about justice and peace is really but a kind of masquerade for the acquisition of even more power and wealth and global influence. Why have we become so enamoured with national pride when everywhere the Bible speaks not of pride but of humility as being much closer to the way God truly wants us to live?

Scripture teaches that the gospel is always political, and that God is always about doing a new thing on behalf of the nations and within political orders. Just as God did with Namaan. God’s purpose is to upset the status quo, bring down the high and mighty, call national leaders – whether generals or politicians -- to humble themselves, to turn around and face God and face the truth of whatever disease would make them unworthy to stand in the presence of God.

When we, as people of faith, hear this story about a lowly servant girl who surprises a mighty but diseased General by telling him where to go, surely we are meant to be reminded of other times in Israel’s history when someone small and insignificant becomes the bearer of good news and new life that the world never thought possible.

That’s what happened to Namaan, a powerful Syrian general who finally listens to the voice of a little servant girl from Israel. We are not told what goes on in Namaan’s heart and mind, or what pride he has to swallow, or how filthy the Jordan actually was on that particular day. All we know is that Namaan descends into the waters seven times, sees his leprous skin “restored like the flesh of a young boy,” and acknowledges the full authority of Israel’s God.

Namaan has journeyed to this pitiful, little, developing, third-world kind of country in order to get the kind of medical care he couldn’t get at home, and in the process, he receives more than outward healing -- he comes to faith.

And for us, there is much to pray for, much healing that we either put off or don’t know how to pursue or healing that might come if only we could let go of our pride and come and let body and soul be washed over by the muddy waters.

But it does seem especially incumbent upon us, the Church, the people whom God has formed and is always reforming according to the Word, it seems especially appropriate on this civil holiday, this day to celebrate civil freedoms, that we learn to play the part of the little servant girl, daring to direct the powerful and the mighty where they need to go to be washed over and be made clean. That means that we are to pray for the healing, even for the conversion, of those who lead political and military regimes, our own as well as other nations, pray that, like the healing Namaan once experienced, that they, too, can in humility hear the voice of God and respond in faith.

The truth of the matter is, of course, that we are all guilty. We all have our own quests for power and fortune and status. My name is Namaan. And so is yours. We would turn a deaf ear to the servant girl; spurn the word of the prophet; resist entering the muddy waters.

Yet, if you dare to think that conversion is not only possible with the big names but with your little name, too, then perhaps you will dare to humble yourself this day and come to the table, here to this sign in bread and cup that God can change the way things are; God can change our politics as usual and our politicians and generals, and if God can change them, then it is possible for even me and you to change. In the name of the one who washes us clean in the muddy waters. Amen.

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Invitation

This table represents our declaration of dependence. No longer do we depend on nation or family, tradition or social influence to save us from the demons that lie within and without. We gather here to experience the freedom that God in Christ alone brings to each body stained by leprosy or whatever disease stands between us and a right relationship with God and neighbor.

Jesus says: come unto me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.