Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

Naaman's Disease - November 18, 2007

Naaman's Disease

2 Kings 5

November 18, 2007

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

I've told a few of you the story about how I once got a free tank of gas at the SuperAmerica in Eau Claire.  I was returning from a week of college visits and I was dog tired.  And you all know that I know absolutely nothing about sports.  Those are my two reasons why this thing happened - my version of a plea of temporary insanity.

So I pull into this SuperAmerica - in Eau Claire - two hours after the Vikings had beaten the Packers.  I fill up the car and walk in to pay....whereupon I notice all the displays of Packers merchandise - shirts, caps, cheese-head hats.  So to lighten things up a bit I say to the guy at the counter, "You guys can still SELL this junk?"

He told me to get out.  "But I haven't paid for my gas."  He leaned over the counter right into my face and said, "Get you blank out of here right now."  So I did.  With a free tank of gas.

That is kind of what happened to Jesus in the Gospel Lesson that you read a moment ago.  He's in His hometown and stands up in the synagogue and tells the people that back when the prophet Elisha was on the scene, there must have been all kinds of people with leprosy, but God did not choose to heal any of THEM, but only some hotshot who was visiting from their next door state, a region called Aram which today is called Syria.  It would be like me standing up here saying that God is on the side of the Green Bay Packers.

THAT is why they ran Him out of town on a rail and tried to throw Him off a cliff.  I got a free tank of gas and Jesus also got a free trip out of town.

What He was referring to was the incident we heard about in the Bible Focus.  But there was a lot more to the story.  We are going to be digging into it in Adult Bible Study right after coffee this morning.  In a nutshell, about eight hundred years before Jesus, there is this famous military commander from the next country over and his name is...Naaman.  He discovers that he has leprosy and that is as good as a death sentence.

He hears that in next door Israel there is this prophet named Elisha (not Elijah who was the previous prophet).  When he gets there Elisha sends instructions for him to bathe seven times in the Jordan and that he would emerge completely cured.  But this big shot refused to do it because he thought it was totally nuts.

 Finally someone convinces  him to give it a try.  He does it and, "Voila!", he IS cured.  And then he asks forgiveness for his stubborn refusal to believe.

Again I would like you to look at the bottom of the bulletin to see the quote for the day inside that box.  The American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, "Our distrust is very expensive."  In the Bible Focus you see how Naaman's distrust almost cost him his very life.  Because of his refusal to trust God's messenger, Naaman almost refused the treatment that would have cured him.

Personally I really can see Naaman's point of view.  "Why couldn't that prophet have come out and talked to me himself?  I though for sure he would stand in front of me and pray to the LORD his God, then wave his hand over my skin and cure me.  what about all the rivers we've already got back home?  Those rivers in Damascus are just as good as any river in Israel.  I could have washed in them and been cured."

So he got his ego a little bent out of shape - for crying out loud, he had to secure diplomatic letters between two kings and then drag an entire cavalry unit on an overland patrol for almost a month to get there only to told to go jump in a lake.

These days, leprosy is called Hansen's Disease and 130 new cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year.  I am convinced that what is most likely to kill most Americans is what I call "Naaman's Disease" - and I am not referring to his leprosy, but to his refusal to trust God.

Naaman's Disease - the refusal to trust God's promise - is what is going to kill most Americans in the eternal courts of heaven.  Like Naaman, our intellectual arrogance is going to keep most Americans from doing the one thing that is necessary to be cured of the virus that will kill us out of heaven.

Like Naaman we will say, what God is supposedly telling me to do, what God is supposedly promising me, just does not make sense to MY way of thinking."  Like Naaman we will say, "It all sounds just too easy to work - that all we have to do is believe in Jesus Christ to get into heaven."  Like Naaman we will say, "There are lots of other rivers around - you don't have to get into just THIS one.  Why is JESUS the only One who will cure me?

Like Naaman we will think, "washing ourselves in the waters of Baptism, receiving the body and blood of Jesus, just sounds like silly rituals - THESE could not possibly cure us of our leprosy of sin."

As educated, enlightened Americans who pride ourselves in thinking for ourselves, who trust nothing that we cannot prove, who are used to getting what we want and doing things OUR way, who are simply too proud of our self-centered selves, we tun the risk of refusing to take what God has told us is the ONLY cure for our lethal condition - His Son, Jesus Christ.

But we can also be like Naaman in another way.  He reached out beyond the limits of his own understanding, beyond the limits of his own intellectual arrogance, and made the decision to take a chance on trusting God's promise.  And when he did find himself healed, he did one thing more:  he asked forgiveness.  And that is when the prophet Elisha said one last thing:  "Go in peace."

That is why we begin each service by asking forgiveness in the Confession. And why we say the last words of God's messenger at each service:  "Go in peace, serve the Lord."

So LET us be like Naaman:  "Go in peace, serve the Lord."