Healing Aerobics

2 Kings 5:1-15ab; Luke 11:1-13

Getting sick is so easy! No doubt, there are a few of us here who don't dread the winter flu season, when all any of us has to do is just get near a school-age child or shake hands with someone in order to suddenly be the new home base for some exotically named virus that has dismally familiar symptoms!

But, then, summertime colds are transmitted in about the same way. But, they are much sneakier. They prefer to wait until you are on your long-awaited and longed for fun'n'sun vacation to remind you that sinusitis flourishes in tropical as well as in temperate zones. In fact, getting sick IS so easy that most of us tend to forget how hard getting well can be.

When some noxious germ grabs us, we may allow it a day or two of domination over our lives, but life goes on. Even while we are still sick we are all too soon out of the house, back on the job, spreading the illness to friends and coworkers as we struggle to ignore its continued presence and get our busy lives back on track. In healing, as in the rest of our lives, we want to take control. We want to settle our own ac counts and set our own agenda and timetables.

And the same is true in our spiritual life. We keep running through our lives, we keep working, we keep pushing, ignoring the symptoms of spiritual and psychological damage that take place as we go. We get hurt, but we bury it, we ignore it, and do something else so that we don't have to deal with it. And when we do deal with it we do it so superficially, so incompletely, so rushed. And, again this is a sign that we want to be in control when deep down we know that we aren't in control at all.

Whether we like it or not, healing is a process over which we have very little control. Physicians continue to be mystified by the fact that patients suffering from the same illness and given the same treatments will respond in a wide variety of ways. The presence of God's healing spirit moving through our bodies and our souls is the variable that makes all healing possible. It cannot be prescribed.

The story of Naaman's healing, our Old Testament lesson for today, is an example of this. His healing suggests that there are often some necessary steps our spirits must go through in order to respond to God's healing touch. I like to call these spiritual steps: healing aerobics.

The first step that Naaman had to take was the step towards humility. And this was a tough step for him to take! After all, Naaman was very self-assured. He was the victorious general of the Aramean troops. He, of all people, had to acknowledge that he had no power of command over the leprosy that was afflicting him. Like a person taking a class in aerobics, throughout this Old Testament story, Naaman had to go down. He had to go down, because the cure that he sought for his leprosy was only to be found in lowly places. First, the word of hope comes to him from a humble slave girl. Next, he had to travel to the land he had only recently defeated in battle to seek the help of Israel's king and prophet. He had to "go down" to Samaria -- a dusty enclave, a far cry from Jerusalem's splendor. Finally, after listening to Elisha and then to his own servants, Naaman had to "go down" to the muddy banks of the Jordan to bathe away his sickness. Certainly, Naaman knew that there were greater rivers in the world than the Jordan. There were the mighty Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to have bathed in one of these great rivers? But, no, Naaman had to go down to the lowly Jordan.

But, besides being humbled, besides having to go down, Naaman had to also experience a sense of "metanoia" or turning around. Verse 14 proclaims that, after bathing in the Jordan, Naaman's flesh was "re stored" -- that is, returned to a previous condition of youthfulness and health. Furthermore, after this miracle occurred he "returned" to Elisha to pay his respects and give thanks. Restoring and returning carried the biblical baggage of more than a simple physical phenomenon -- this experience of turning around suggests that a spiritual conversion had taken place in Naaman. Not only was Naaman's flesh transformed by God's action in Jordan's waters, but Naaman's spirit was likewise changed. When Naaman returned to Elisha's front porch, it was with both a healthy body and a transformed spirit.

When the restored body and spirit of Naaman journied back to Elisha, there was a third and fourth step he had to take in order to demonstrate that lasting healing had indeed set in. Just as a broken bone is not healed until it can once again bear weight, neither can a body and spirit healed by God be completely transformed until the healer is thankfully acknowledged. This means that Naaman returned in a state of "submission" to kneel before Elisha. Naaman assembled himself and all his soldiers and family before Elisha in order to lay his pride before this "man of God," as Elisha was called. Naaman's submission was complete. Naaman was now identifying himself as a servant to both Elisha and Elisha's God.

Thus, Naaman is finally brought to the fourth state of healing when, after spiritually kneeling before Elisha, he now stands up before God and confesses faith in the Lord of Israel. Having experienced the unmerited grace of God's restorative powers in his own life, Naaman's thankfulness wells up within him, bubbling out in his simple, yet all-consuming, confession of faith. Only at this point is Naaman's healing process completely accomplished.

The experience of healing in our own lives is an active, not a passive, process. But the actions required of us, as demonstrated by Naaman, are not the kind of exercises we like to undertake. Naaman's progression from humility to turning around, to submission and confession, translates into a series of spiritually uncomfortable positions for us: We also, like Naaman, must go down, turn around, kneel before and finally stand up before God's power and grace.

Getting started with any exercise regime is always the hardest part. Consider how Naaman must have felt to have a lowly servant girl call attention to his sickness in order that she might prescribe a possible course of treatment. Naaman was a conqueror, her master, the commander of a victorious army -- but in the innocent truthful observation of this young girl, he was only a leper who needed to be cleansed and healed.

Do we have the ability to see past the visions we have of ourselves and our facades in order to take that first step and admit that we too are lepers in need of God's healing touch? Naaman could have ignored his condition, covered it up and even could have had the servant girl beaten for making such an impertinent suggestion. His exercises began when his spirit humbly bent down to acknowledge the label of leper and he began to seek a cure.

"Turning around," experiencing the effect of metanoia on our life, can also be intimidating to us. To be transformed means that we must willingly give up our old familiar self. We do not know how long Naaman had suffered from leparosy, but it was part of his identity. He had obviously enjoyed a professionally successful life despite it -- perhaps he even felt his condition added to his military prowess. No matter how failed or frail part of our identity might be, it is still difficult to give up that comfortable image of ourselves for a transformed and as yet unknown new self that God has waiting for us.

An alcoholic wonders if he will still be interesting and likeable at social events without a drink in his hand. A drug abuser wonders if her life can ever be as satisfying as that first momentary rush of narcotic into her bloodstream. Turning around takes courage, despite the fact that we need never fear what God has in store for us. In this week's Gospel lesson, Jesus reminds us of this when he asks rhetorically, "Is there any among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?"

Experiencing God's redirective powers and healing touch in our lives should cause our knees to bend in prayerful thanks. Naaman wastes no time in returning to Elisha and submissively acknowledging the hand of God in his miraculous cure. Yet we often struggle against identifying God's hand in our lives, refusing to submit and kneel before that power. The unswerving loyalty of friends and family during a personal crisis is taken for granted. Life-saving surgery is forgotten, even resented, in the daily struggle to get well. Our disposable society has made us quick to use up and then throw away blessings without considering their source. Taking time to "kneel before" our God and recognize the essential healing nature of the divine presence in our lives is a deep kneebend that must be repeated over and over again to keep us spiritually fit.

The final exercise we learn from the Naaman story requires us to "stand up" and boldly confess our faith in the source of all healing. Naaman took considerable risk in voicing this confession. In the summation of this story, not included in today's Old Testament lesson, we get some sense of what might be the potential cost of this confession. For Naaman there was the risk of making his own king angry with him when he failed to accompany his king to the temple of a pagan god.

Confession, it seems, has always been good for the soul, but hazardous to the continuation of "business as usual." How often do we fail to confess our faith, publicaly defend our God or define a moral stance because we fear the resulting fallout? Standing up for our faith and rising from our sickbed to proclaim our newfound health is the final stage of healing. Until we show others that we are now whole, the good news of God's redemptive, curative power in human life is hard to pass along.

The story is told of how a college president once stood before a graduating class at commencement and said: "I have three things to say... Learn more than you know now, because what you know now isn't really that much. Don't forget your family. Stay healthy. Don't drink too much and don't make yourself ill with stress." And, having said these few words he sat down.

The audience was stunned. The students wondered to themselves, "Is that all?" But then they quickly realized that the graduating seniors had heard nothing that day any more important than that:

--learn more:

--don't forget your family:

--stay healthy."

The four healing aeroibics outlined in the story of Naaman are that simple, and that life-changing:

--go down:

--turn around

--kneel before

--and stand up before God's power and grace.

Amen.