Preached by: Rev. Stephen Matthews I once was visiting at a
hospital and while in one person’s room, there was a crowd visiting
and all the chairs were taken, so I got to sit on a window ledge.
During the next few minutes, I found that my back was getting warm.
In fact, it was getting really hot. And so, I wondered what was
happening, as I was talking to the patient and their family. I
wondered if the heater was over-heating, but when I placed my hand
on it, it was cool to the touch. I then wondered if there was
something wrong with my back.....maybe I was having something
happening with the nerves of my leg.......many things popped into my
mind as I struggled to figure out what was happening.
So, here I was listening intently as I possibly could, while my
back became increasingly hotter and hotter. I wondered if I stood
up, if it would make a difference. And so I did, in as incopisiously
as possible and as I did so, I felt relief...... Then one of the
other visitors looking behind me remarked..... I hope the curling
iron wasn’t on.
I had been trying to bring complex answers to something very
simple........I mean, I had been sitting on a curling iron........!
I was like Naaman in the reading that Brittany read. Naaman was a
famous military leader for the Areameans; he was well known for his
courage and his loyalty but Naaman had leprosy. This
made him unclean for many..... ....people would avoid him. But
Naaman had a family who cared about him and a servant who held
Naaman in great esteem. This servant knew a way that Naaman could be
cleansed from his leprosy.......a way he could be cured ........and
so the servant told Naaman about this prophet and Naaman told the
King of the Areameans. Very quickly, Naaman was given permission and
money to go to Israel so that he could seek out this cure. Within a
short time, Naaman along with his servants, are before the prophet’s
home who promised that a cure can be arranged. Naaman waits at the
entrance of the prophet Elisha. Naaman waits, probably expecting
some complex solution....maybe thinking that a great prayer and
drama would unfold for him. Being a man of importance, Naaman might
expect that the prophet, finely dressed and adorned in bright
garments, along with everyone in the home would come before him. And
what happens....the prophet sends out a servant and
tells Naaman: Go wash in the Jordan River seven times. That
was it!!!
Naaman becomes angry.......he had travelled all the way from Aram
to be told by a prophet’s servant to wash in the small, dirty river
Jordan. Naaman remarks that his rivers at home are larger and
cleaned. Naaman exclaims: Surely, I thought this prophet would
come and stand and call on the name of the Lord and wave his hand.
And Naaman, turns and goes away in rage.
And You know, what Naaman faces in his own heart is something we
see played out often. We demand complex solutions in our
lives.....we think about accumulating much for happeniness. We are
lullied into the sense that trust in God requires fancy prayers or
saintly behavior at all times. I have even had people say to me in
other places that God would not hear them, because of the way they
live their lives. I remember talking to one person and suggesting
that they could trust God and their answer: "Yes, but..."
As a church, we are called to trust God and then act out our
lives in accordance to that trust. Like me, who had to simply stand
up and get off the hot iron, we can simply trust God and get up and
live our lives for God....simply.
For Naaman, he was fortunate in that a servant of his, saw what
Naaman was struggling with and said to Naaman: If the prophet had
commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?
And so Naaman reconsiders his decision, he goes to the Jordan in
humility and trust and washes and is healed.
We pray for peace and we ask that those millions of people in
Africa are helped so that starvation and drought are stopped. We
pray for a healthy church....we pray for families welcomed into our
midst.....we pray for many things and maybe, like Naaman who washes
in the dirty river Jordan, we have to stop, ask God to be with
us, to trust God and then get our hands dirty as we work with God.
When we work together, trusting God, just think about what can be
done. We have over 1200 people who are affiliated with this church.
Just think about how we can encourage them. We have well over 400
families who give financially to the church and only 170 who help
out in the mission and service fund.
The outreach committee has issued a challenge to us here and all
our church families to be part of caring for people who are facing
famine in Africa. We might think it requires fancy and complex
solutions....but in reality, it requires TRUST and an eagerness to
get our hands dirty as we do something. If each of our families
could place even just $10 worth of coins in a glass for the south
Africa Crisis, then whole towms could be fed for weeks....or a well
could be drilled. Maybe, if we work together with God, maybe,...
definitely, we can be used by God. Too simple? .........Let us TRUST
in God
