A Different Road Map
2 Kings 5: 1-19
Psalm 30
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church
 
The Jewish Talmud observes, “We do not see things simply as they are, but also as we are.”  What we see is shaped in part by our assumptions and attitudes.
 
Therefore, as Liberation theologian Robert McAfee Brown wrote, When we turn to the Bible, the news we find is always unexpected.

Our scripture reading this morning from 2nd Kings tells the story of Naaman … a man who needed to be healed, but whose healing was found only in unexpected places with the help of unexpected people.
 
Naaman was a great commander in the army of Aram, a kingdom just to the north of Israel in what is today Syria.  Naaman was a powerful warrior who led the conquest and occupation of Israel.  He was highly favored by the King of Aram.  But Naaman was also afflicted by leprosy, a terrible skin disease. Power and favor did not protect him from suffering.
 
The story of Naaman’s healing begins with an unexpected person from an unexected place, a young captive from Israel.  A girl, who had been taken prisoner in a military raid against Israel, was servant to Naaman’s wife.
This young captive told her mistress that she knew of a prophet of Israel who could heal Naaman.  
 
Naaman told this to his King, the King of Aram, who then asked the vanquished enemy, the King of Israel, to heal Naaman.
 
But the King could not heal, only the prophet.

Elisha, the prophet, heard of Naaman’s misdirected request and sent word that he was able and willing to heal Naaman.
 
So, having been helped to see beyond his presumptions about power, Naaman ended up in the right place, at the door of Elisha the Prophet.
 
Elisha sent out a messenger who told Naaman where to go and what to do to be healed.  “Go to the Jordan River, wash seven times and be made clean.”  
 
Naaman was not happy. Talk about unexpected places. Naaman knew the Jordan.  It was a muddy backwash compared to the great rivers he knew back home.  That was totally unacceptable! Naaman had an image in his mind about what healing a “great man” should look like … and it was something much more direct and dramatic than a river washing at the word of a messenger.
 
Angry, Naaman started to walk away.  But his servant convinced him to turn back … to do as the prophet had directed him … and be healed.
 
Again and again Naaman needed a change of direction, a different roadmap than his expectation to lead him to his own healing.  Again and again powerless people – a captive servant girl, a conquered king, an enemy prophet, the prophet’s messenger, his own servants – unexpected people, guided him to healing.
 
And so it is with us. When we carry heavy burdens in body, mind or spirit. we find ourselves in unexpected places, places where we do not want to be, stumbling toward healing in a process shared with the powerless.
 
This is a story about a person, but it is not for individuals alone.
 
The global community needs healing from the violence of economic disparities, from national assumptions and ambitions, and from environmental crises that pose a threat to life.
 
If we open our eyes to a different roadmap, a roadmap through unexpected places, if we open our ears to the voices of unexpected people, we will find the path to our common healing.  And we will be changed.
 
As people residing in the world’s most powerful and privileged nation, how can we see this nation, this world, our lives with “new eyes?” How can we listen to new voices?  The prophet listened to the voices of the poor, the captives, the occupied peoples, the refugees and spoke God’s word.  The prophet Elisha’s miracles benefited widows and orphans, the hungry, diseased, and vanquished.
 
Much has been written about the ways in which Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposed the economic gulf between the rich and the poor in New Orleans and in this country.  This did not need to be exposed, this was not new information to poor people who had been living in New Orleans all along.  The poorest members of our cities do not require a disaster to expose the deep divides of race and class that wound our land.
 
A different road map to health care begins with the caring for the most vulnerable.
 
A different road map to a drug policy treats addiction as a public health crisis rather than a crime.
 
A different roadmap to peace begins with the security of children in occupied territories.
 
A different roadmap to God is to humble ourselves enough to listen to the words of the prophets and recognize our need of God.
 
If we are guided by captives rather than commanders, directed by prophets rather than profiteers, secured by the common sense of those who serve, rather than the presumption of those in power, we will be healed. And we will be changed.
 
Naaman was healed, but he was also changed.  He found the road from high favor to humility, from greatness to gratitude, from seeing important people to seeing people as important, from control to blessing, from entitlement to justice, from the illusion of self-sufficiency to the vital reality of mutual vulnerability, from healing to transformation.
 
That road brought him to the river.  
 
Naaman immersed himself -- and then again, again, again, again, again, and again in the liberating waters of God’s power and presence.
And Naaman worshipped -- for the first time.
 
We do not see things simply as they are, but also as we are.

Prophets and poets expose and explore this truth.
 
Kings and those who profit from the rule of kings deny it.
 
Mostly we stumble along following maps and scripts and gods that reflect our past, our assumptions, and our attitudes, leaving alternative routes unimagined or ignored.  But God offers us a different roadmap … Thanks be to God!