RonBlog

Sunday 12th February, 2012 Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Sentence
A great prophet has arisen among us! God has visited His people Luke 7: 16

Collect
Ever-living God, Your Sin Jesus Christ healed the lepers and brought good news to the despised and outcast, grant us Your gifts of compassion and self-control, that in serving others in their need, we mat strive for the imperishable wreath that You bestow on all who truly love You; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen

Old Testament Lesson 2 Kings 5: 1 – 14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.
Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, "Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel." He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, "When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy."
When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me." But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, "Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel."
So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean."
But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, "I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!
Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?" He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, "Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Psalm 30

I will exalt You O Lord, for You have drawn me up from the depths: and have not suffered my foes to triumph over me
O Lord my God I cried to You: and You have made me whole
You have brought me back, O Lord, from the land of silence: You saved my life from among those that go down to the Pit
Sing praises to the Lord, all you His faithful ones: and give thanks to His holy name
For if in His anger is havoc, in His good favour is life: heaviness may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning
In my prosperity I said, ‘I shall never be moved: Your goodness O Lord, has set me on so firm a hill.’
Then You hid Your face from me: and I was greatly dismayed
I cried to You O God: and made my petition humbly to my Lord
‘What profit is there in my blood if I go down to the Pit: can the dust give You thanks, or declare Your faithfulness?
Hear, O Lord, and be merciful: O Lord be my helper
You have turned my lamentation into dancing: You have put off my sackcloth and girded me with joy
That my heart may sing Your praise and never be silent: O Lord my God, I will give You thanks for ever.

Epistle 1 Corinthians 9: 24 – 27

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

GOSPEL Mark 1: 40 – 45

A leper came to Jesus begging Him, and kneeling he said to Him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."
Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!"
Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him Jesus sent him away at once,
saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to Him from every quarter.
© New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved

NOTES ON THE READINGS
Old Testament
The story of Naaman should be well-known, albeit only to those who had a Sunday School in their youth. It is a odd cameo, for Aramaeans were never the flavour of the month for Israel. In Israel’s terms, Naaman was not only enemy but outcast because of leprosy. Mind you, it is to be imagined that he had to keep his infection to himself, for leprosy was feared by most cultures back then --- and for millennia to come.
Of greater interest is the intervention of the little Jewish slave girl, a nonentity to Naaman and his family, who offered an answer to the illness. Pride and ego looked likely to keep the General from relief, until one of his underlings dares to suggest a little humility.
One needs to read on in 2 Kings 5, for while the prophet was not interested in any recompense for the healing, someone else was – and brought a bitter taste to everyone’s mouth. This is a fascinating picture into the way in which something good can be destroyed by veniality of people. So easily is some good thing rendered evil by sheer and utter selfishness.

Psalm
Psalms are often a great source of advice in how to respond to life’s disasters; and here is just one of those. It appears that the author found enormous difficulties in front of him, and through prayer sought significant answers. I find it interesting that the author almost debated with God, wondering how God could be glorified if he was consigned to the Pit! Who would be around to point to God then? Whatever, the situation was improved for the person, and his rejoicing was a result. It is not always so, one must remark – but there will be answers to those who look for them, even these days.

Epistle
Quite clearly, the Apostle underlined the need for discipline ... in being a disciple! (Same root for each word, obviously.) In our own day and age, discipline tends to be a dirty word, but one is left having to point to the need for it. Lack of discipline, even among Christian disciples, tends to be a mark of the present and is a disturbingly destructive way of life.

GOSPEL
Both first and last lessons today refer to lepers – but in a way the medicine of today has demolished so much of the fear of this disease that we tend to have lost quite something of the impact of the tales.
Isn’t it a little strange that this leper raised the question of Jesus’ willingness to heal? I wonder why that was, except that any contact by any healthy person with any leper would have resulted in strict isolation of both persons! Whilst there were reasons for that, it is very touching to notice how Jesus stepped over such boundaries for the sake of the infected person. Leprosy was a long-term ailment at that time, which resulted in that long-term isolation. No one to talk to; no one to embrace; it is easy to feel your way into the sterility of the isolation, is it not. What a stark and lonely life those people lived; until Jesus came along.
One can only feel for the man who raced off to tell the world. Jesus’ problem was, simply put, that He was not there to be ogled at, or lionised – He was there to point to life as it was meant to be. Humans have a stupid capacity to embrace the stunning, and miss the reality.
Anyone involved in the Faith will know the extent to which that is true.



NOTES FOR A SERMON

I wonder if it is as much a shock to you as it is to me to find that many people who profess and call themselves Christian have little or no regard for the challenges that such a profession calls them to. How often I have found a clear and deliberate determination to be remarkably self-centred or just as determined to avoid the reality of the Faith. Small wonder that people turn from the Church when such ill-considered choices become clear, or such closed-mind pigheadedness is on display. It was naive of me, I confess, but when newly ordained, I was sure that people in congregations would respond with joy and commitment as soon as they understood the dimensions and directions of the Faith. Silly me! Most of the time, the only response from people was that they buried their heads in the sand so to speak.

One should not have been at all surprised at this! First of all, a close look at the history of Israel and its clear and wilful determination to head in its own direction runs right through the story from beginning to end. It drove the prophets up the wall, and must have done much of the same to Israel’s Lord. In more recent times, I remain convinced that part of our more recent problem is that the Faith is presented, far far too often as one’s God-given escape from ‘future punishment’ – and if you stop to think about it, that is the most impoverished reason for ‘believing’ anyhow. Very poor theology gushes from far too many pulpits these days; and what scares me even more, is the way in which that populist rubbish seems to be overtaking the more ‘sensible’ denominations.

Miracle-focus does not help much either. And that can so often be the response from readings such as today. Healing of lepers! And why do not we have the gift of waving magic wands over people? The answer is obvious immediately. The focus of people would be on ‘me’ instead of on Christ. And how often does that occur these days? Forget miracle, I often say to people (who delight in misunderstanding my reasons): focus on what is being pointed out to you. And what is that?

The focus is on lepers in that day and age. Lepers were outcast, unclean, untouchable, out-of-sight and out-of-mind. That is the focus. There are great mobs of people in every day and age who live – or is that survive? – on the edges of society – or fall through the net so that they are invisible. And those are the sorts of people whom Jesus cared for in so much of His ministry. And calls us to head in the same path.

Now do you see why so many ‘Christians’ rather hide behind a sort of religiosity and conservatism instead of sticking their necks out for other less fortunate people?

We have a Lord Who went out of His way for those on the edges. Pretty people were never His focus because they tend to see no further than their noses. Of course, following Christ is a rather uncomfortable path to travel, and disconcerting, and pretty people tend to be concerned about appearances. Not so with Jesus.

What an uncomfortable start for a sermon, but I bet you can explore further than this from such readings. How about having a go at it!