Sermon, Sunday Feb 15, 2009
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
So what is the problem with this Namman guy from the Old Testament lesson?? Here he is this, great military leader and warrior who has been stricken by the plague of leprosy. The Lord had shown Himself to be faithful to Naaman by giving him great victories on the field of battle, and yet Naaman was struck by this crippling and deadly disease.
But then, through this young Israelite girl whom the Arameans had taken captive and had become the servant of Naaman’s wife, Naaman hears about this prophet in Israel who could heal him of his leprosy. And so with the king’s permission and a letter from the king of Aram to the King of Israel, Naaman heads off to Israel so that he might be healed. The King of Israel initially relents, in fact he tears his clothes, because he really doesn’t understand what is going on.
But then Elisha, the man of God asks the king to send Naaman his way. Now understand, Elisha was no little known prophet. This was not some obscure unknown and unaccomplished prophet. He was the heir apparent to Elijah and he inherited a double portion of Elijah’s wonder-working ability. This would have been very well known, as well as the fulfillment of the prophecy that Elisha delivered at Mt Carmel which meant Israel’s relief from great drought and consequently victory over the Moabites.
But Naaman does not appear to be too impressed with this. Elisha sends a messenger to Naaman and tells Naaman to go and wash in the Jordan seven times and his flesh shall be restored. But rather than humbly submitting himself to this word from God’s prophet, he gets angry. He gets angry because Elisha does not come out to greet Naaman personally and simply cure his leprosy right there. And then he doesn’t understand why it would be the Jordan that Naaman would tell him to cleanse himself in. He names two rivers in Damascus and says that they would be better suited for this than all the waters in Israel.
Naaman was so singularly focused on himself that he couldn’t see what was going on right before him. He could not see the almighty God and creator of the universe extending out to him a hand of healing and mercy through the word of the prophet Elisha. And so in his short-sightedness Naaman walks away in a rage.
But to this day we struggle with the same short-sightedness and singular self-centered focus that leads to a gross misunderstanding of God and His redemptive and merciful activity. I watched a Youtube video earlier this week where someone was surveying people on what they believed about both Jesus and Christians.
I had some serious disagreement with answers that were given to both questions, but I was troubled by answers to one question more than the other. The first responses that the video shows are the responses to the questions about what people think of Jesus. Now, as you might imagine they were pretty much universally positive. But most of them fell pretty far short of being reflective of a biblical understanding of who Jesus is. I think there were about 10 people questioned and there were only 2 or 3 who referred to Jesus as Savior but I would be willing to wager that they would struggle to be able to articulate just what He saves us from. The rest of them reduced Jesus to being a rebel or a great teacher or one guy even referred to Jesus as a “pretty cool dude.”
Then came the questions about Christians. And this was pretty much universally negative. People answering this question of what they thought of Christians referred to Christians as being “crazy” and “uneducated” and “Bible-thumpers” and many other less than flattering descriptions.
Now, if you have ever been to Youtube and seen the videos there then you may know that below each video they have where people can comment on the videos. Well I read some of the comments on this video and it was a lot of Christians lamenting over what all the people said about Christians. People were commenting, saying that we as Christians need to be nicer and more welcoming and less judgmental.
And while there is certainly some truth to that, the real tragedy in this video is not what people thought of Christians, but rather what they thought of Christ Jesus. I think both sets of responses reflect a shortcoming of the church, but I think the greater shortcoming is that the church has inadequately confessed who Christ Jesus is and what that means for us. And today we have another example of this for today is “Evolution Sunday..”
The church has failed to clearly and boldly confess Christ as the redeemer of all humanity. We have failed to clearly and boldly confess Christ Jesus as the One who bore the penalty of our sin. We have failed to clearly and boldly confess Christ as the One who’s perfect life, death and resurrection saves us from sin, death and the devil. We have failed to clearly and boldly confess Christ Jesus as the only means through which we are able to receive the forgiveness of our sin.
Instead we reduce Jesus to a moral example or a great teacher or someone who helps us to find purpose or some other excuse or rationale that in the end just turns us inward back to ourselves rather than outside ourselves to Christ Jesus and the redemption and forgiveness that He accomplishes on our behalf through His perfect life, death and resurrection. And so it’s no wonder people have these distorted views of who Christ Jesus is. When we insist on seeing and confessing the name of Jesus through our self-focused, inward-turned lens then we very likely end up leaving ourselves and certainly our neighbors in the confusion that Naaman struggled with.
But as Naaman’s story continues we see that God does not desire that we should be left in our confusion and in our misperceptions of who He is and what He has done and is doing for us. For God placed around Naaman, servants who were faithful enough to their Lord to tell their earthly master Naaman that he was in fact mistaken in his perceptions about the word that the Lord had brought to him through the prophet Elisha. The servants simply made it clear that through the word delivered to them by the prophet Elisha the Lord God was reaching out to Naaman with a merciful word of healing, even though on his own Naaman could not see it.
And our gracious God has seen fit to surround you with and surround you around servants also; servants in the form of parents, friends, fellow members of the Body of Christ, pastors, spouses, neighbors all of whom you all called to boldly and clearly confess who Christ is and whose clear and bold confession of Christ you are called to hear and listen to. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus and what He has done for us; dying on the cross for our justification, rising from the dead for our salvation, making of us new creations in Christ. And we receive this through faith, and Paul tells us in Romans that faith comes through hearing and that hearing comes through the Word of Christ.
It is not our Lord’s will that we should walk around in self-focused confusion like Naaman, but rather that we would have the same bold faith that we see in the leper in the Gospel lesson. This leper had true faith. He was not afraid to recognize and acknowledge his impurity. This leper saw Christ Jesus for who He truly is, pure and merciful goodness of God. The leper looked not to his own good works and his own idea of what seemed logical like Naaman did, he looked purely upon Christ and saw Him for what He is. He didn’t even have to ask Jesus if He could make him clean, he boldly said to Jesus “If you choose you could make me clean.”
The fact that he seems to ignore or perhaps didn’t even hear Jesus’ admonition not to tell others about this, is not reason for us to condemn the now former leper. He simply could not hold himself back. He had been freed from anything holding him back in his proclamation of the mercy extended to him in Christ. We see this in Naaman also, for after he finally relents and receives the cleansing Elisha had told him about in the Jordan he can not hold himself back from returning to Elisha and boldly confessing his faith in the one true God.
This is what faith does for you; the faith that you receive in the preaching of the Word and receiving of the sacraments. It enables you to see your Lord Christ Jesus for who He really is; the One who has freed you from the burden of the law, and has saved you from sin, death and the devil. And you have been freed to cast aside whatever holds you back, you don’t have to worry about what people think of you, you have been freed to focus on Christ, and freed to follow the example of the former leper proclaiming freely what Christ has done for you, spilling forth to your neighbor the same faith you have received and continue to receive, freeing them from confusion and misperceptions of who Christ is.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
So what is the problem with this Namman guy from the Old Testament lesson?? Here he is this, great military leader and warrior who has been stricken by the plague of leprosy. The Lord had shown Himself to be faithful to Naaman by giving him great victories on the field of battle, and yet Naaman was struck by this crippling and deadly disease.
But then, through this young Israelite girl whom the Arameans had taken captive and had become the servant of Naaman’s wife, Naaman hears about this prophet in Israel who could heal him of his leprosy. And so with the king’s permission and a letter from the king of Aram to the King of Israel, Naaman heads off to Israel so that he might be healed. The King of Israel initially relents, in fact he tears his clothes, because he really doesn’t understand what is going on.
But then Elisha, the man of God asks the king to send Naaman his way. Now understand, Elisha was no little known prophet. This was not some obscure unknown and unaccomplished prophet. He was the heir apparent to Elijah and he inherited a double portion of Elijah’s wonder-working ability. This would have been very well known, as well as the fulfillment of the prophecy that Elisha delivered at Mt Carmel which meant Israel’s relief from great drought and consequently victory over the Moabites.
But Naaman does not appear to be too impressed with this. Elisha sends a messenger to Naaman and tells Naaman to go and wash in the Jordan seven times and his flesh shall be restored. But rather than humbly submitting himself to this word from God’s prophet, he gets angry. He gets angry because Elisha does not come out to greet Naaman personally and simply cure his leprosy right there. And then he doesn’t understand why it would be the Jordan that Naaman would tell him to cleanse himself in. He names two rivers in Damascus and says that they would be better suited for this than all the waters in Israel.
Naaman was so singularly focused on himself that he couldn’t see what was going on right before him. He could not see the almighty God and creator of the universe extending out to him a hand of healing and mercy through the word of the prophet Elisha. And so in his short-sightedness Naaman walks away in a rage.
But to this day we struggle with the same short-sightedness and singular self-centered focus that leads to a gross misunderstanding of God and His redemptive and merciful activity. I watched a Youtube video earlier this week where someone was surveying people on what they believed about both Jesus and Christians.
I had some serious disagreement with answers that were given to both questions, but I was troubled by answers to one question more than the other. The first responses that the video shows are the responses to the questions about what people think of Jesus. Now, as you might imagine they were pretty much universally positive. But most of them fell pretty far short of being reflective of a biblical understanding of who Jesus is. I think there were about 10 people questioned and there were only 2 or 3 who referred to Jesus as Savior but I would be willing to wager that they would struggle to be able to articulate just what He saves us from. The rest of them reduced Jesus to being a rebel or a great teacher or one guy even referred to Jesus as a “pretty cool dude.”
Then came the questions about Christians. And this was pretty much universally negative. People answering this question of what they thought of Christians referred to Christians as being “crazy” and “uneducated” and “Bible-thumpers” and many other less than flattering descriptions.
Now, if you have ever been to Youtube and seen the videos there then you may know that below each video they have where people can comment on the videos. Well I read some of the comments on this video and it was a lot of Christians lamenting over what all the people said about Christians. People were commenting, saying that we as Christians need to be nicer and more welcoming and less judgmental.
And while there is certainly some truth to that, the real tragedy in this video is not what people thought of Christians, but rather what they thought of Christ Jesus. I think both sets of responses reflect a shortcoming of the church, but I think the greater shortcoming is that the church has inadequately confessed who Christ Jesus is and what that means for us. And today we have another example of this for today is “Evolution Sunday..”
The church has failed to clearly and boldly confess Christ as the redeemer of all humanity. We have failed to clearly and boldly confess Christ Jesus as the One who bore the penalty of our sin. We have failed to clearly and boldly confess Christ as the One who’s perfect life, death and resurrection saves us from sin, death and the devil. We have failed to clearly and boldly confess Christ Jesus as the only means through which we are able to receive the forgiveness of our sin.
Instead we reduce Jesus to a moral example or a great teacher or someone who helps us to find purpose or some other excuse or rationale that in the end just turns us inward back to ourselves rather than outside ourselves to Christ Jesus and the redemption and forgiveness that He accomplishes on our behalf through His perfect life, death and resurrection. And so it’s no wonder people have these distorted views of who Christ Jesus is. When we insist on seeing and confessing the name of Jesus through our self-focused, inward-turned lens then we very likely end up leaving ourselves and certainly our neighbors in the confusion that Naaman struggled with.
But as Naaman’s story continues we see that God does not desire that we should be left in our confusion and in our misperceptions of who He is and what He has done and is doing for us. For God placed around Naaman, servants who were faithful enough to their Lord to tell their earthly master Naaman that he was in fact mistaken in his perceptions about the word that the Lord had brought to him through the prophet Elisha. The servants simply made it clear that through the word delivered to them by the prophet Elisha the Lord God was reaching out to Naaman with a merciful word of healing, even though on his own Naaman could not see it.
And our gracious God has seen fit to surround you with and surround you around servants also; servants in the form of parents, friends, fellow members of the Body of Christ, pastors, spouses, neighbors all of whom you all called to boldly and clearly confess who Christ is and whose clear and bold confession of Christ you are called to hear and listen to. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus and what He has done for us; dying on the cross for our justification, rising from the dead for our salvation, making of us new creations in Christ. And we receive this through faith, and Paul tells us in Romans that faith comes through hearing and that hearing comes through the Word of Christ.
It is not our Lord’s will that we should walk around in self-focused confusion like Naaman, but rather that we would have the same bold faith that we see in the leper in the Gospel lesson. This leper had true faith. He was not afraid to recognize and acknowledge his impurity. This leper saw Christ Jesus for who He truly is, pure and merciful goodness of God. The leper looked not to his own good works and his own idea of what seemed logical like Naaman did, he looked purely upon Christ and saw Him for what He is. He didn’t even have to ask Jesus if He could make him clean, he boldly said to Jesus “If you choose you could make me clean.”
The fact that he seems to ignore or perhaps didn’t even hear Jesus’ admonition not to tell others about this, is not reason for us to condemn the now former leper. He simply could not hold himself back. He had been freed from anything holding him back in his proclamation of the mercy extended to him in Christ. We see this in Naaman also, for after he finally relents and receives the cleansing Elisha had told him about in the Jordan he can not hold himself back from returning to Elisha and boldly confessing his faith in the one true God.
This is what faith does for you; the faith that you receive in the preaching of the Word and receiving of the sacraments. It enables you to see your Lord Christ Jesus for who He really is; the One who has freed you from the burden of the law, and has saved you from sin, death and the devil. And you have been freed to cast aside whatever holds you back, you don’t have to worry about what people think of you, you have been freed to focus on Christ, and freed to follow the example of the former leper proclaiming freely what Christ has done for you, spilling forth to your neighbor the same faith you have received and continue to receive, freeing them from confusion and misperceptions of who Christ is.
Amen
posted by Steve at 5:24 PM
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