A Cycle of Grace

2 Kings 5:1-14

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past week or so with doctors and prescriptions as I get ready to go to Africa, and I’ve noticed that our American health care system has gotten so complicated and specialized that you practically need a translator and a guide just for the travel immunizations. 

I’ve been immersed in incomprehensible vocabulary, trying to translate and coordinate a primary and a travel doctor, stuck full of needles, and informed of a tidal wave of symptoms and contingencies to track over the next month. I’ve sometimes felt frustrated or confused, or even helpless.

And that’s while I’m perfectly healthy.

So I imagine vividly what it must be like for Naaman. And if you’ve ever been under emergency care, or managed a major disease, you don’t have to exercise much imagination at all.

You see, Naaman has leprosy.

It’s an incurable degenerative disease, and it’s visible on his skin, ugly, and everyone avoids him, if they can.

Now, Naaman is a powerful man.  He’s strong and in charge; a winner. The world accommodates him, not the other way around.

But things change when you get leprosy.

You feel your body betraying you. People start to tell you no. No, there is no cure.  No, you can’t do anything, and you can’t come in here, now, either.  He can’t command or summon anyone or anything that will help him.

And then a slave girl speaks up.

This is an Israelite child captured in one of Naaman’s victories, a girl from a defeated nation, mostly ignored by everyone around her. But she speaks up, and from her own experience of God, announces that God’s prophet in Israel could cure the General.

It’s almost beyond belief that General Naaman hears of this, and listens to her, and acts on her word.  It’s like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs seeking medical or military advice from the immigrant doing housekeeping at his hotel.

And the whole story cascades from there.  There’s some politics and comedy with kings and messages and treasure,

and Naaman finds himself in a foreign land, at the door of a foreign prophet – who then won’t even see him face to face – as though the only specialist in the country just phones in a prescription.

And that prescription – the unlikely and ridiculous-sounding instruction to wash seven times in the Jordan – leaves Naaman feeling baffled and more helpless than ever.

Think for a minute about times when you have felt helpless.  When you are face to face with a world you can’t control, when your friends and allies can’t help.

Maybe you, too, had a medical crisis.

Maybe it’s the seventeenth time you’re put on hold, waiting for someone else to come on the line and tell you that, no, you can’t do what the last person told you to do to get things sorted out, and you’ll have to start all over.
Maybe it happens to you all the time, at work.  Or as a parent, or with your parents.

And maybe you’re lucky enough, like Naaman, that this experience is rare, and brief.

Where are those places in your life?

Who are the people in our world, or in our country, who live in that vulnerable place?

Think about that, and you’ll feel the place that Naaman was in, when he stood outside the prophet’s door, still sick, brushed off with a message and a ridiculous instruction.

But that’s also the place where that young slave girl lived, all the time.

It’s the place where Naaman’s staff, his servants and chariot drivers, lived, often.

It’s the place a lot of people live in our world, today.

And in Naaman’s story, healing and grace depend dramatically on those powerless people. 

Healing and grace depend on that powerless, kidnapped child speaking up with her testimony of faith and possibility. Healing and grace depend on Naaman’s servants who create a safe space for their powerful master to try something nonsensical, even silly.

And because the powerless people in Naaman’s story take that risk - - speak up, and tell their truth, even protect and watch out for someone who wouldn’t seem to need it,

Naaman is healed.

He’s whole, and strong, and restored. And he finds God.

It’s not just the powerless speaking up that counts.

Naaman could so easily have ignored the slave girl and the servants, even punished them for discounting his dignity and authority.

But he stopped. And listened. And acted.

He let go of, or gave away some of his power, created a place for the powerless to be heard. And found grace, and healing, and inspiration, all unlooked for.

Think now for a minute about the times and places where you have power.  Where you feel strong, competent, safe and capable.  Where you don’t have to worry, at least for a while.

Maybe your home is a haven, a place where you can keep things right and secure.

Maybe you have authority at work, or in a volunteer role,

whether you chose it or not.

Maybe you know your way through the medical system from experience or training, and you can guide and assist someone else.

Maybe it’s subtle, like the power to get shoes or appliances to appear at your door, with the help of your credit card.

Many of us have power, whether we planned for it or not.

Think about those places in your life.

And think about the people in our world, who have power, official or informal.

Feel yourself there, for a moment, because in our world, in God’s world, just like in Naaman’s story, healing and inspiration and grace depend on the powerful to listen, and make room, and even give away their power. 
It’s the flip side of the powerless speaking up, and you can’t have one without the other.

And it flows, one to the other. Eric Law, a leader and teacher in the church’s multicultural work, calls this the “gospel cycle,” the ongoing, flowing exchange that gives power to the vulnerable or oppressed, and receives it from the dominant and strong.

Jesus just calls it the Kingdom of God.

Sometimes we go through that cycle of power and vulnerability ourselves, in a day, or an hour, or a year. 

Sometimes we’re called to start it for someone else, giving away power, or speaking up, to make space for wisdom and healing, inspiration and wholeness.

And whether you’re a slave girl or the king, we can start that cycle anytime, drawing ourselves, and all around us, into the kingdom of God.

So, when you’re secure and confident, remember Naaman, and make time to stop, and listen, and give your power away, so the helpless can be whole.  When you’re feeling vulnerable, remember his servants, and the slave girl, and speak up, or even make safe space for the powerful to be vulnerable.

It’s a cycle of grace. 

And it’s got to keep moving, like the living water of the Jordan,

to heal our world,

to make us all whole, and strong, and well.