NUCC

February 12, 2006

Epiphany 6

2 Kings 5:1-14

Mark 1:40-45

            Both of today’s lessons are about leprosy.  In the Old Testament Lesson Elisha heals Naaman the leper.  In the New Testament Lesson Jesus heals an unnamed leper.  Scholars tell us that the disease probably wasn’t what we know as leprosy --- the disease which affects the nerve supply to the extremities and face such that people with the disease cannot feel pain.  Deformities frequently occur because sufferers do not feel pain and so are more prone to injury or various infections.  Hansen’s disease, as it is now called, affects about 6 million people today and is completely curable.

 Most likely the disease mentioned in our lessons was something like a horrible case of psoriasis.  We don’t know for sure.   What we do know is that this disease caused great problems for those afflicted by it.  They were made outcasts.  People were afraid to come close to them or touch them.  They were isolated and shunned from society.  They lost their livelihoods.  Perhaps you could compare these people to those who have HIV/AIDS today.  We’ve all heard stories about a child who contracted HIV/AIDS and was prohibited from going to school or ostracized in some way.  This is what both Naaman and the unnamed man in our lesson from Mark experienced.

These men wanted to be healed, but what they needed was more than just a beautiful skin.  They didn’t need a new soothing lotion.  They wouldn’t be helped by Botox.  They needed a healing that was more than skin deep.  They needed God to get under their skin.  This is what God offered them and this is what God offers us.  Something more than skin deep.  How did God get under their skin?  How does God get under our skin?

1.         God gets under our skin to change the whole person.  Look at the example of Naaman.  Naaman was a great and powerful general in the Syrian king’s army.  He was a man of prestige.  He was a man to be feared.  The Bible text tells us that Naaman was “a great man and in high favor with his master.”  But all the power in the world could not prevent Naaman from the horror of leprosy.  He would become an outcast.  Fortunately for him, his king wanted him to get better.  Naaman went to his king and the king sent him south to the King of Israel, the northern part.  Naaman brought along all the trappings of power.  He brought a great fortune.  But none of these could help him.  The king could not help him.  Instead he went to a prophet named Elisha.  Elisha humiliated him by not coming out of his house.  And Elisha humiliated him further by sending him to bath in the muddy waters of the Jordan River.  This infuriated Naaman, this proud military man.  But on the advice of his servants he did the washing and he became clean.

            We didn’t read this in the lesson today, but after washing Naaman is obviously a changed man.  He was no longer the arrogant general.  He became a man who knew he was in God’s hands.  He became a man of generosity.  He became a man of humility.

            Then think of the man Jesus cured in our lesson from Mark.  He begged Jesus to cure his leprosy, which Jesus did with the touch of his hand.  Jesus told him to keep all this quiet, but the man was so moved that he went off in exuberant joy, so grateful that he was now free from loneliness and ostracism, now free to be back in community and talk to anybody without fear.  More was healed than his skin.  It went deeper.

            This, I believe, is the kind of healing we also might experience when we allow ourselves to be touched by God.  A healing more than skin deep.  One of the most popular recent movies has been “The Chronicles of Narnia:  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”  Karen and I enjoyed it on a Saturday night in Marquette, Michigan.  The movie is based on a book by the great Christian author C.S. Lewis.

            Lewis was a great English scholar and writer.  For the first part of his adult life he was an atheist, but in the middle of life he felt pulled and nudged by God.  It was a bit of a struggle.  He had questions and doubts.  But he became one of the great apologists for Christianity in the 20^th century.  In the 1950s he met a woman named Joy Gresham and fell in love with her, only to learn that she had cancer.  He married her anyway.  For two years her cancer went into remission, but then returned.

            This was one of the great trials of Lewis’s life, but as Francis McNutt writes:

“What is clear is that God blessed C. S. Lewis with a very special love and marriage, when he seemed resigned to live without love. His love for Joy deepened his faith and compassion. Like Jacob, he wrestled with God and emerged wounded but blessed.”

            For Lewis, the healing was not without pain, but it was “more than skin deep.”  Like the man with leprosy whom Jesus healed, Lewis had moved from loneliness to community.  And even in his sorrow he found a joy in his heart.  God got under his skin.

2.         As we read in our Bible texts this morning we discover a second way in which God gets under our skin.  God gets under our skin through the outsider.

            Think again of Naaman.  He was an outsider.  An enemy general.  But God decided to use him.  Our text tells us:  “By him the Lord had given victory to Aram.”  As the story develops this outsider, this worshiper of other Gods becomes a humble follower of the Lord.  But this is not all.  Who are the heroes in this story?  The servants.  First there is a slave girl who tells Naaman to seek healing from the prophet.  Then when Naaman seeks healing from the prophet and arrogantly dismisses the prophet’s instructions, it is his servants who persuade him to go and bath in the Jordan River.  The underlings, the outsiders, are the ones who help bring the healing in this story.

            Who are the outsiders in our day?  Who are the untouchables?  We could establish quite a list when we decide who is in and who is out, couldn’t we?  We divide people by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, age, wealth, occupation.  Sometimes in a small town we talk about newcomers.  Sometimes in a church we even talk about “strangers.”  We become engrained in our pews.

            God gets under our skin to tell us that these differences don’t make any difference at all.  Sometimes the lesson has been difficult to learn.  During the past week Coretta Scott King was laid to rest with four presidents attending her funeral.  People came from great distances to pay her tribute.  It was not always like that for her.  There were times when she must have felt terribly lonely.  With her husband she endured all sorts of insults and rejections.  Even as her body was welcomed to the state capitol in 2006, the body of her husband was not welcome in 1968 when a segregationist governor presided in Georgia.  Yes, in many ways God has gotten under our skin to tell us that skin is not such a big deal.  Some things do change, thank God.

            Did you read the front page article in the Marshfield News-Herald this Thursday?  The headline read:

“Race less of a big deal in young relationships.”

The article featured a study of 14-24 year-olds in the United States and concluded that “this age group is more tolerant and open-minded than previous generations.”  It points out that today young people are more accustomed to diversity than those of us who reached adulthood a number of years ago.  Even if one grows up in a basically white community like Neillsville we see images all around us of people from various races and ethnic backgrounds on television and in the news.  If our children go to college or enter the armed forces or Peace Corps they are going to encounter all sorts of people who don’t have a German or Scandinavian surname.

            In this way we can say that God has gotten under our skin, but of course the challenge continues.  God continues to challenge us to reach out and touch one another.  That is why we have matched up confirmands with shut-ins and nursing home residents ---- because we know that all of us need human contact ----- even touch and even hugs.  One thing my wife Karen likes to do is take her little babysitting charges over to the nursing home.  When those smiling little faces prance through the hallways the whole place lights up and God bring smiles.  The outsiders and the insiders are all mixed together.

            Today we have learned a little bit about healing, healing which is more than skin deep.  Healing which affects the whole person.  Healing which bridges the gap between people.  Healing which brings hope.  Let God get under your skin.  And see what happens.