Decently and in Order - With a Human Face

2 Kings 5.1-19   Psalm 19.7-14   Acts 8.4-24   Matthew 23.1-12, 23-36

October 29, 2006 – Reformation Sunday

Warner M. Bailey
St. Stephen Presbyterian Church in Fort Worth, TX

She didn’t have to do it.  That little slip of an Israelite slave-girl.  She didn’t have to tell her mistress about the prophet in Samaria who could cure her master of his social disease.  The little girl had been ripped from her dying mother’s arms as a prize of war—that never ending conflict between Syria and northern Israel.  Now she was a slave forever in the house of Naaman, Syria’s top general, facing the fate of all unprotected, nubile women. 

Naaman’s leprosy was as much of a social disease as it was a medical problem.  His skin was filled with abrasions, it was rough, torn, open, unsightly, oozing, perhaps smelly.  Though he wore the most stars on his uniform, he was repugnant to others, made fun of behind his back, and could not be true to his public self.  Why not let him suffer?  She could let him continue to suffer, though she knew where he could get well, in retaliation for her own suffering.  She didn’t have to do it. 

But she did.  And at the end of the story Naaman’s flesh was restored—let me quote this for you exactly—“like the flesh of a young person.”  Look at it!  Naaman became—in his flesh—just like the young girl.  Baby flesh, soft, supple, sweet smelling, a new gift of innocence.  The great man is healed like the little girl.  The big one is healed like the little one.  Naaman became an Israelite.  The great Syrian man is healed like the little Israelite girl who “did it” though she didn’t have to.  She had the grace to remember her home country, to know where help could be found, to speak mercy to those who had no mercy on her, and to open the future by her testimony to a man who had no future left for him in society.  She didn’t have to, but she did.

They didn’t have to, either.  The headquarters staff of Naaman who accompanied him to Israel didn’t have to speak up when he threw a temper tantrum at Elisha’s prescription, “Go wash in the Jordan River.”  When Naaman let his blind patriotism take him on the road back home, his aide-de-camp didn’t have to speak up and talk common sense to him, “Look, if it works, if it’s that simple, why not give it a try?”  His staff could have let him go home to an early retirement and plotted how his vacancy would allow everyone to move up a notch in the chain of command.  But they didn’t.  They adopted a very hands-on, practical, outcomes-oriented approach.  They didn’t know where all this would lead them, but they were willing to give it a try.  Finally so was Naaman willing.  His taking the chance gave him a new future.

Of course, we, the readers of this story and others like it, know that in the Bible to stand in the Jordan River puts us in the stream of new possibilities, new options, new beginnings.  Stand in the Jordan where ancestors long ago crossed from the wilderness to enter the promised land.  Stand in the Jordan where John the Baptist spoke of the coming Messiah.  Stand in the Jordan where Michael rows the boat ashore, Alleluia.  So Naaman came “just as I am without one plea.”  So Naaman came and took off all his clothes in public.  So Naaman came and washed away one skin and put on another.  At the Jordan, Naaman not only got a new skin; he received a new God.  We are not surprised.

She didn’t have to do it.  They didn’t have to do it.  Elisha didn’t have to do it.  When Naaman asked him if he could have permission to make his public appearances with his king before the idol Rimmon, Elisha didn’t have to say okay.  He could have thrown the Ten Commandments at him.  He could have trumpeted the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.”  He could have screwed him down with the Second Commandment, “You shall make no graven image and worship it.”  He could have thundered about God’s jealous holiness, and threatened disaster upon Naaman and his house.

But he didn’t.  Go in peace, he said.  There is healing; there is gratitude, and you have glorified God as sovereign.  That is enough.  Take a pass.  Here’s your exemption.  The accommodation that Naaman is asking for apparently does not threaten the essence of the Ten Commandments.  We understand your total situation.  We know you have a public self with public duties.  It won’t be easy, but after you leave the public worship of Rimmon, God is not going to reject you when you approach the Lord in your private worship.  The accommodation that Naaman is asking for apparently does not threaten the essence of the Ten Commandments.  Remember that!

Naaman wasn’t the only one in the Bible who tried to buy something to benefit himself from God.  In the companion story to this, the lesson from Acts, Simon tries to buy from Peter and John the franchise to jolt people with the Holy Spirit.  Both Naaman and Simon are refused.  But here is where the difference comes in.  Naaman was given a pass by Elisha to continue to function as a Syrian general whilst being a secret worshipper of Israel’s God.  Simon was not allowed to enhance his career as a magician through owning the Holy Spirit franchise.  “You and your money can go to hell!” I believe were Peter’s exact words that shut down that deal. 

Why did Simon’s deal run into a stone-wall?  Because in this case there are standards that are essential.  For one thing, God is not for sale.  For another, only God controls the bestowal of divine gifts of the Spirit.  You cannot buy into and share control with God.  And for a third reason, the church, the church into which Simon was baptized, does not control the Spirit, but lives from that Spirit given by God as God bestows gifts upon whomsoever God chooses. 

Simon asks for a pass, an exemption, a cut of the deal the apostles have.  Simon, unlike Naaman, gets the book thrown at him.  “Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.  For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.”  To which Simon answered, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may happen to me.”  In the end, Simon, too, must come “just as I am, without one plea.”

We are a long way from the days of Naaman the Syrian and Simon the Samaritan.  But we are in the family that reads their stories and finds in them the leading of our Lord.  What might that be? 

Today is Reformation Sunday, the time we recall the beginnings of our Presbyterian church in the 16th century and focus our minds on major aspects of what it means to be Presbyterian and Reformed today.  One of the hall-marks of Presbyterianism is that we do things as a community of believers “decently and in order.”  In fact part of our Constitution is called the Book of Order.  But in reflecting upon this cardinal point of behaving decently and orderly, we must not forget something else that has long been in our Presbyterian DNA—that we always put a human face upon the process of decent and orderly behavior. 

Our stories about two men who sought exceptions today shows us that putting a human face upon decent and orderly processes forces us to make decisions on a case-by-case basis.  Standards are standards; systems are systems; but people are people.  Sometimes exceptions are given; sometimes they are not. 

The Bible, however, recognizes that Presbyterians, being a people of the book, are tempted to come down on the system side of things and make everyone fit the system.  Therefore, Presbyterians need to listen up to Jesus who says in our gospel lesson, “Pharisees, you tithe mint, dill and cumin, but neglect justice, mercy, and faith.” Jesus is correcting our blind obedience to a system.  Jesus is reminding us to restore justice, mercy, and faith to community life marked by decency and orderliness.  When the psalmist prays in our psalm for today “save me from the great transgression, cleanse, thou, me from secret faults,” what is being asked of God is the grace not to let my great love for the law blind me to thinking that I have to force everyone in my community into obeying it just like I do.  That’s what Jesus calls straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Presbyterians, when we are at our best, have always been people who let how we experience another person be our guide to discerning the truth that is in them.  We have always had a hands-on, common sense, “I know it when I see it” approach to whether something flies or doesn’t.  To prove my point, walk with me quickly through a bit of our theological heritage.  The people who put together our present Book of Order wisely included in it a section called The Historic Principles of Church Order.  These principles were first published over 200 years ago in the Form of Government of the infant Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  A new church for a new nation. 

These principles have continued to govern us until this day, and one of them states, in classic 18th century language, “That truth is in order to goodness; and the great touch-stone of truth, its tendency to promote holiness, according to our Savior’s rule, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’” 

Now that’s far enough.  Truth is in order to goodness.  That means that what is true will promote goodness and holiness.  Experiencing goodness will lead you back to truth.  Experiencing holiness will lead you back to truth.  Experiencing the fruits of a life will lead you back to a character that is true or not.  We take an outcomes-oriented approach to figuring out truth. 

God does not drop a standard of truth down from heaven to which everyone has to subscribe.  God sends various gifts of the Spirit of God into individuals.  The Spirit lives through us and produces what we do.  As we exercise our gifts of the Spirit we show the truth we have in us.  God save us from such slavery to a system that we sacrifice a soul!

In closing this Reformation Day sermon, I want to come back to how it needs to be among us here.  If these two stories of how things turned out for these two powerful men provide enough evidence on which to build a principle, it would be this.  If you want to be treated as an individual in the church, then you have to be honest with us about who you are, and we have to accept you in the words of the gospel song “Just as I am, though tossed about/With many a conflict, many a doubt,/Fightings and fears within, without…” 

Naaman was not really a puffed-up general.  He was a man whose social disease made him too scared to face his true self.   Consequently, he camouflaged himself with the trappings of his rank.  When finally he stripped that all off, he found that he was healed.  He came back to the prophet of God just as he was “without one plea/But…that Thou biddest me come to Thee.”  He was able to be honest with Elisha about the expectations of his job.  Elisha honored his honesty and gave him a major exemption.  At some level we all live by exemption and grace.

Simon was not really a whiz-bang magician.  Peter saw right through him to his heart full of gall and wrapped in wickedness.  Simon had been duping people to believe the exact opposite.  When Peter ripped the cover off of Simon’s heart, Simon came just as he was without one plea.  Will we offer Simon pardon, cleansing and relief?  We will, if we are behaving decently and in order.  

I am indebeted to the following biblical commentators with whom I have been in “conversation” in the creation of this sermon:  Walter Brueggemann, Testimony to Otherwise, The Witness of Elijah and Elisha (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001) pp. 45-64; Alexander Rofe, The Prophetical Stories, The Narratives About the Prophets in th Hebrew Bible, Their Literary Types and History (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1988), pp. 126-132; Thomas L. Brodie, “Towards Unraveling the Rhetorical Imitation of Sources in Acts: 2 Kgs 5 as One Component of Acts 8:9-40” Biblica, 67 (1986), 41-67; Charles K. Barrett, “Light on the Holy Spirit from Simon Magus (Acts 8.4-25),” in Actes des Apotres (Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1979), pp. 231-295; and Robert C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts, A Literary Interpretation  Vol. II, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 102-112.