{"id":1453,"date":"2016-10-09T11:00:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1453"},"modified":"2019-10-06T13:10:33","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T17:10:33","slug":"good-advice-from-the-most-unlikely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2016\/10\/09\/good-advice-from-the-most-unlikely\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Advice from the Most Unlikely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke 17:11-19<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the\u00a0meditations\u00a0only<\/a><\/p>\n

The word \u201cleprosy\u201d in the Bible refers to more than one type of skin disease, not just Hansen\u2019s disease, which is what is commonly thought of as leprosy when the work is mentined.\u00a0 All the biblical diseases of that name are similar in that they are fearful diseases:\u00a0 they are thought to be highly contagious, they cause physical disfigurement to greater or lesser degree, and they cause afflicted persons to be banned from society until they can prove themselves healed.\u00a0 The two leprosy stories in our scriptures this morning seem fairly straightforward and turn out well:\u00a0 Naaman and the ten lepers are healed.\u00a0 However, as theologian and disability activist Sharon V. Betcher has pointed out for us before, the healing stories in the Bible are not only or not even about healing.\u00a0 They are also social commentary and teaching stories as well.<\/p>\n

As we are invited to explore the story of Naaman further, for instance, we note that he is a powerful and rich man.\u00a0 He has access to captured Israelite children and is able to give a young girl to his wife as her servant.\u00a0 He has other servants himself.\u00a0 When he wants to give a gift, he is able to give away ten sets of garments, 756 pounds of silver, and 151 pounds of gold.\u00a0 His success in life has come from the favor of his king:\u00a0 as commander of the Aramean army he has won a great victory over the army of Israel in the series of border wars and raids that Aram and Israel conduct against one another.\u00a0 The King of Aram is pleased, of course, but see how the writer of II Kings phrases the victory:\u00a0 it is by Naaman that THE LORD had given victory to Aram.\u00a0 This is the first sign that this is not just a healing story;\u00a0 it is also a story about the reach of God\u2019s power through all lands and all kinds of people, even an Aramean general.<\/p>\n

And through a captive servant girl.\u00a0 She is the one who tells Naaman\u2019s wife about the prophet Elisha, who at this time is in Samaria, the northern part of Israel, and who can cure Naaman of his leprosy.\u00a0 And Naaman\u2019s wife tells Naaman.\u00a0 It is a measure of Naaman\u2019s desire to be rid of the disease that he listens.\u00a0 Female captive foreign children and wives of the time, especially those who suggest to their master and husband that he go to the prophet of another people\u2019s God who after all did not give that people the victory,\u00a0 did not usually sway the decisions of rich, powerful, commanders of men,\u00a0 But Naaman not only listens, he goes to his king.\u00a0 The king of Aram, who after all wants Naaman at his best, not only gives him permission to go to the foreign prophet, but smooths his way with a letter of introduction to the king of Israel.<\/p>\n

So Naaman takes his gold and silver and garments and horses and chariots and servants and letter and makes the trip to Elisha\u2019s house.\u00a0 He expects to deal with a professional prophet like those in Aram, who control their prophecy, able to say and do as they wish, and who have a responsibility to please their betters.\u00a0 Instead, Naaman gets Elisha, who does not even come out to greet him or put on a show, but sends a messenger to tell him to wash seven times in the Jordan.\u00a0 Naaman is so insulted that he misinterprets what the messenger says, and thinks that Elisha only offers him a ritual cleansing.\u00a0 But his servants, who were not in a rage and who were able to listen to the messenger properly, convince Naaman to do what Elisha instructed.\u00a0 Again, it is a measure of Naaman\u2019s desire to be rid of his leprosy that he listens, and changes his rage and his mind in front of his servants and military personnel.\u00a0 He washes, \u201caccording to the word of the man of God\u201d, and is healed. \u00a0So he is no longer disfigured and no longer isolated.\u00a0 But this is not just a healing story.\u00a0 It is a story of conversion as well.\u00a0 Because of his need, Naaman throughout has converted his power, wealth, and position to a position of acceptance of help and advice, help and advice that comesfrom the most unlikely people:\u00a0 a female captive child, his wife, his servants, a disrespectful foreign prophet, all of whom had to manage him up to get him into the water.\u00a0 And at the last, he makes a final conversion, to belief in the God of Israel as the God of all the earth.\u00a0 For the writer of II Kings, Namaan is not just healed, he is truly whole.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t end there.\u00a0 Later in II Kings there is the story of how the Aramean king, who now knows about Elisha, realizes that Elisha is working to advise the king of Israel.\u00a0 Because of what Elisha does in a certain situation that there is no loss of life for the Arameans, the King of Aram stop the border wars and raids against Israel.\u00a0 There are many kinds of healing.\u00a0 And of conversion.<\/p>\n

As we are invited to explore our second story, we notice that all ten of the lepers address Jesus as \u201cMaster\u201d. They do in fact obey him when he tell them to go to the priest, and they are healed in the going, before they even reach the priest.\u00a0 But nine of them, who we assume from the story were Jews, did not turn back.\u00a0 Only one of them did, and he was a Samaritan, not only a foreigner but someone considered by Jews to worship wrong.\u00a0 Yet he praises God loudly, falls on his face before Jesus, and thanks Jesus for his healing of body and his restoration to society.\u00a0 The other nine may have b3een cured of their leprosy.\u00a0 But the Samaritan is not only healed, he as a foreigner who worships wrong exemplifies true faith, faith in Jesus and in the power of the God of Jesus.\u00a0 A better translation would have Jesus say to him that his faith does not just make him well, his faith saves him.\u00a0 In his obedience, but even more in his conversion to praise and gratitude for God\u2019s free gift, he is an example of the true disciple, of one who is truly whole.<\/p>\n

Our theme for the Fall here at Marsh is conversation.\u00a0 Conversation involves both speaking and listening from all parties involved.\u00a0 Who is invited to take part in the conversation is also an important point.\u00a0 In conversations about conflict transformation, for instance, one of the best practices is to notice who has not been invited.\u00a0 This is because, if some of the people involved in the conflict are not in the conversation, their insights will not be available.\u00a0 Or, and perhaps even more importantly, the uninvited will be angry about their exclusion and so the conflict will continue even if the invited people come to an agreement.\u00a0 This is especially true in conversations about the dis-eases of our time, fearful that can disfigure our minds and souls if not our bodies.\u00a0 We all know the categories:\u00a0\u00a0 race, sex, class, economic status, gender preference, climate change, body type, war, normality, religion.\u00a0 Dis-eases that can have us isolate ourselves in barricaded ideological and social compounds, \u00a0lest we be contaminated by the change and inclusion. \u00a0Some of us now, in our country and in some of our faith traditions including my own, some of us actually find it is easy and acceptable to make others figurative lepers, to consider them the cause of our dis-eases.\u00a0 to castigate them as not normal, wall them out, persecute their faith as wrong, take away or try to take away their agency and freedom,\u00a0 love them only to a certain point in the name of God, deny our shared humanity with them.\u00a0 No conversation at all with these outcasts.\u00a0 No talking.\u00a0 No listening.<\/p>\n

Naaman and the people Jesus was talking to were instead invited by God to expand their conversation, to listen as well as talk.\u00a0 They were invited to listen enough to take good advice and good example from those who were the most unlikely people to have it to offer.\u00a0 But when they did listen, and acted on what they had heard, they were not just healed of their dis-ease.\u00a0 They were converted, to a new relationship with God, with themselves, and with their neighbors.<\/p>\n

The stories of Naaman and the thankful Samaritan invite us to expand our conversations too.\u00a0 Not just with the rich and powerful or with each other.\u00a0 But with those who we might consider most unlikely:\u00a0 marginalized people, foreigners \u2013 whoever that is for us, people whose allegiances or worship we might think are wrong, those we might consider \u201cthe help\u201d, people who don\u2019t take us as seriously as we think they should.\u00a0 Conversation sounds simple, but it might not be easy.\u00a0 It probably depends on the measure of our desire to be rid of our dis-ease.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, in conversation with those who are different from us we might just find some good advice or a good example.\u00a0 We might find some healing, some wholeness, some praise and some gratitude, some truer discipleship.\u00a0 We might find ourselves converted, to a new way of being with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors.\u00a0 Before our dis-eases \u00a0disfigure our minds souls bodies and completely cut us off.\u00a0 Before our dis-eases kill us and the rest of creation.\u00a0 Conversation, even with the most unlikely people, is possible.\u00a0 Thanks be to God, who gives us this chance to be whole.\u00a0 May we choose to accept it and act on it, to talk and to listen with one another with praise and thanksgiving.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

\u2014Rev. Victoria Hart Gaskell, Chapel Associate for Methodist Students<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service Luke 17:11-19 Click here to listen to the\u00a0meditations\u00a0only The word \u201cleprosy\u201d in the Bible refers to more than one type of skin disease, not just Hansen\u2019s disease, which is what is commonly thought of as leprosy when the work is mentined.\u00a0 All the biblical diseases of that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1453"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1929,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions\/1929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}