We have a crying need
for healing. So many are sick, inside and out. We know that God
should heal the good and let illness be a punishment for wrong. It
doesn’t work that way. As Jesus said, the rain falls on the
just and unjust alike. In our first story, Israel is in trouble, and
Syria has power over it, as their great general Naaman leads them.

Do a small thing for a
big reward-gets in his own way, He is willing to let his pride, his
sense of the respect due to him and his position, remove a chance at
a healing. There it is in front of him, and he won’t accept the
healing agent. Think of it, he ahs gone to the desperate length of
listening to the slave, traveled into enemy territory, in a desperate
gamble for healing. We will do almost anything to seek healing. As a
leper, he would be the very model fo the isolation that illness
brings at so many levels. Part of the trouble is that he not only
wants healing, but he has expectations that he wants met. He wants a
real show, and he wants a real show of religious splendor and power.
In our lives, not only the presenting physical ailment, but other
places require healing.

God’s global love
can seem to work against the seeming interest of Israel, or the
United States. No country is perfect, deserving of only blessings,
especially those that feel special. All of the wisdom in this story
is with the little people, Israelite or outsider. . The young servant
lets her compassion and religious pride overcome her hatred of her
captors. Hold on for a second. I had a dream that we had a choice to
capture or kill Osama. When can we love the enemy enough to want them
healed? Naaman’s own servants have to use reverse psychology to
persuade him to get healed.

After Jesus was
baptized in the same Jordan as Naaman, he begins a public work of
healing and teaching. Word travels fast about this new healer. Notice
that Jesus does not blame the victim. Notice that Jesus does not make
sure that the right kinds of people get healed. When Jesus sees
suffering, Jesus heals it. Even for Jesus, healing is hard work. I
wonder if Jesus was prepared for the sheer press of desperation in
the eyes of people clamoring for him, the weight of pain that illness
brings. Jesus needs to get away. The Sabbath time doesn’t last
long. The new disciples track him down. As usual Jesus does not meet
anxiety with anxiety. He continues his work as he sees fit. One of
the ways we need to be healed is our seeming inability to take
Sabbath time; we have the phrase, burn-out, because we don’t
give ourselves a chance to rejuvenate, to give ourselves some margin
for error.

We are ordaining elders
in our 2 sister churches. The laying on of hands s transmitting our
connection to the first disciples ordained by Jesus. The elders
follow Naaman’s example. By living out their own Jordan
washing: baptism, they are moving to a new stage of Christian
calling. . They set aside their pride and doubts and act as servants
for the church. Since they work in the group called session, they set
aside the desire for control and commit to do their best for the
session and the church. In their work they will help guide the
congregation in healing bodies, minds, hearts and souls, including
their own. As followers of Jesus they will get tired, and like Jesus
will take tome out to allow their own spirits to heal in prayer.
Remember, in Naaman’s story, wisdom lies with the servants. The
elders follow the example of Jesus, to extend the work of the church
in healing, in teaching, and any other way the church extends the
work of Christ. Touched by hands, that were touched by hands, that
were touched by Christ, we are joined.