Sermon: May 01 2022 Third Sunday after Easter

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Mark 1:4-11

Naaman is a four-star general in the army of Aram, a hostile kingdom next door to Israel. He’s a battle-hardened war hero, chest full of medals, had his own driver. You might find his face on a postage stamp.

This guy’s as great and powerful as they come. That is, until he catches leprosy, a terrible skin disease. A man of great power and prestige, he tries every cure out there. Pharmaceuticals, naturopathy, visits the Mayo Clinic for experimental treatment, nothing. Really, this kind of thing spells the end of his career. This guy’s unclean. Tainted. His career is toast.

Now, Naaman and his wife have a young servant girl, a slave, one they’d captured in their war against Israel. Sensing Naaman’s despair, this young Israelite servant girl suggests he go see Elisha, the prophet in Israel. Elisha, like Elijah before him, is known as a wonder-worker, healing diseases, saving sick children. Maybe he’s got a cure.

Naaman’s at the end of his rope, scraping the bottom of the barrel. It’s like famed atheist biologist Richard Dawkins turning to the Pope for advice. Really, the Israelites are sworn enemies. But you know, when you’re desperate, you’ll try anything.

So Naaman arranges a little sick leave, and heads deep into enemy territory. Eventually he’s directed to Elijah’s house, down by the Jordan river. He pulls up with full military entourage, you know, rumbling armoured vehicles, black SUV’s kicking up dust all over the place.

Funny thing, though, Elisha doesn’t come out to greet the great man or his great parade. He sends a messenger. Messenger says “go wash in the Jordan. Seven times. Then your skin’ll be restored, and you’ll be clean.”

Naaman, he’s insulted by this whole thing and stomps away. First Elisha sends some lame servant now he’s making him get into the Jordan. Back home in Damascus, we’ve got rivers that are grand, flowing beautiful things. And you’re making me take a bath in this dinky, muddy little Israelite river. If this guy and his God are so great, he could just wave his hand over the spot to cure me. Do you know who I am? This is INSULTING. This kind of stuff is below me. Naaman may be terrified, desperate. But what’s a man without his pride?

Of course, his pride’s was the problem. And his servants know it. “Look boss,” says one. “We all know if he would have asked you something difficult, like doing five-hundred pushups, or paying $100 000 in cash, you woulda done it. But all this guy’s asking you to do is “wash and be clean.” Not saying you gotta, but maybe it’d be worth humbling yourself, if just this once. We won’t tell anyone.”

And so Naaman, obviously convinced, he unstraps his helmet, tosses off his bulletproof vest, strips off the rest of his clothing. Swallows his pride, and steps right into that tiny little muddy Jordan. Dunks himself seven times as per the prophet’s instructions. And wouldn’t you know, after the seventh dip, he pops right out of the surface a whole new man. Leprosy’s gone, skin healed, as smooth and healthy as it was when he was a little boy. Where he was once tainted by disease, now, he’s washed clean.

Now, this is the first sermon in our series Living Under Water, on baptism as a way of life. While there’s obviously plenty of water here, this isn’t an obvious scripture passage about baptism. This is an Old Testament text that’s pre-baptism, baptism being established in the New Testament gospels where John the Baptizer dunks Jesus.

On its surface, this is a story about physical healing, the washing away of disease. But there’s more going on here under the surface (no pun intended). Here’s what the fourth century a hymn writer and preacher Ephrem the Syrian said about this episode with Naaman:

“Naaman,” he writes. “Naaman was sent to the Jordan for the only remedy capable to heal a human being. Indeed, sin is the leprosy of the soul, which is not perceived by the senses, but intelligence has proof of it, and human nature must be delivered from this disease by Christ’s power which is hidden in baptism.”[i]

Though this is a pre-baptismal story, many early Christian interpreters read this as a type. That it points ahead, pre-figuring baptism in the New Testament. It’s not only about the physical healing, the scrubbing away of disease, his skin restored to child-like fullness and health. It’s also about another kind of healing. The cleansing of the human soul from the spiritual sickness we call sin, so our spirits can be re-born. By Christ’s power hidden in baptism.

Now, what do we mean by sin? On one hand, we mean sins. Those things we have done and left undone that have harmed us and our neighbours before God. The commandments we’ve broken, or failed to keep. How we’ve screwed up, caused pain, fallen short. Used and abused other people and left suffering in our wake.

But it’s not only that. Sin is also bigger than us. Sin is the brokenness at the heart of all human life. The Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans that “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” We have the desire to do what is right he says, “but not the ability to carry it out.” That’s what we call sin. One writer calls it the “human propensity to screw things up.” But he doesn’t say “screw.” HPFTU.[ii]

Sin is the mysterious force, that draws us towards self-centredness and draws us away keeps us from loving God with all we’ve got and our neighbours as ourselves. The language of sickness is very helpful, because it’s not just an action, but something deeply embedded in our human nature. As individuals, yes, but also as families, as groups, as nations, systems, as a species. Our sins are merely symptoms of the deeper disease. We’re born into a broken world, a world that ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. And we inherit this world’s brokenness in ourselves. In our own thoughts words and deeds.

So, as Naaman soaks in the Jordan, cleansed from head to toe by the power of God, in baptism we are drenched from the inside out. The spiritual grit, accumulated by us in our sins, and the power of sin in the world is swept away by God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Remaking us, renewing us.

Now, to be clear, that baptism isn’t some kind of magical charm, or quick cure. That baptism somehow fixes us, makes us perfect people who automatically do right. Adolf Hitler, after all, was baptized. I was baptized as an adult, and I can tell you that I’m certainly not who I oughta be. Often life is two steps forward, one step back.

But baptism is a means of grace. That in it, we’re given God’s promises. Not in the form of words, but in the tangible form of water. I mean, notice how Elisha didn’t just say words or hold his hand over him, but sent him into the river. Baptism is a concrete expression of God’s grace. It happened to us, once and for all. In baptism we return to the waters over and over and over and over as a reminder of God’s forgiveness. God’s grace, God’s power to make us new.

This really hit home for me when a friend of mine was telling me about his experience ministering to the spiritual needs of people going through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you’re unfamiliar, the fifth step is “admitting to God (higher power), to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” You have to share a written inventory of all them things you’ve done and left undone—ie your sins. And I tell ya—our souls are caked in a lot of heartbreaking grime.

One man who did his fifth step had a fairly normal, suburban Canadian childhood. He learned a trade, got married, had kids. But he had a problem with drinking, rooted in abuse at the hands of his father, a World War II vet that never came to terms with the suffering he’d experienced in a Soviet POW camp.

He was coarse, and abusive to his wife and his kids. His drinking lost him a couple jobs, and eventually ended his marriage. Two out of three children barely spoke to him anymore. He had an impressive inventory of sins to divulge.

This man shared that he was raised Catholic, but hadn’t darkened a church since he left home. So after this long confession, my friend took in a deep breathe. “Well,” my friend said, raising his hands in blessing. “Somewhere in there you already know this. But I’m going to just repeat the promise that was proclaimed to you in your baptism. As a called and ordained minister of the church of Jesus Christ, and by his authority I therefore declare to you the forgiveness of all of your sins.”

My friend said he could feel the energy in his words, like he was passing something physical to this person. The mans eyes instantly welled up. And they sat in silence.

“It felt good,” the man said, wiping his eyes. “I feel so much lighter. You know, this is gonna sound weird, but it felt like warm water when you said that.”

Of course it wasn’t weird at all. It felt like warm water, because it kinda was. Because the same promise that washed over him when he was just a little baby, just flooded right back. That same forgiveness. Like Naaman, the words washed over him, exposing the new, healed person underneath his own suffering and wrongdoing. “This is my beloved child, with whom I am well-pleased.”

Baptism means forgiveness, and it means healing. At the font we are spiritually washed and made clean. Remade, and renewed. In baptism, we are flooded by grace. Like the Jordan cleanses Naaman’s outward disease, baptism represents the inward cleansing of our souls by God in Christ. One we return to again, and again and again, for the sake of our healing.

So, friends, whether you were baptized as a baby or at the age of 92. If you have yet to be baptized, but long for the new life it gives. Let these words wash over you. Like warm water.

Your sins—all of them—all those things you’ve done and left undone—in Christ they’re forgiven, washed away like Naaman’s seven-fold dip into the Jordan. Nothing you’ve done to deserve it or earn it. A free gift. Washed away by grace, by Christ’s blood shed on the cross for you. And for all. And as Noah’s flood washed the earth, and as the Egyptian armies were drowned in the parting of the Red Sea, it’s the drowning of all the forces opposed to life and love, so that newness can emerge. God’s good creation is mended, and healed for good. Including us. A new creation is on its way.

Every time you wash your face, every time you bathe your kids. Remember this truth. And may it change you.

Amen.

[i] Ephrem the Syrian, On the Second Book of Kings 5:10-11.

[ii] Francis Spufford, Unapologetic: How In Spite of Everything Christianity Makes Surprising Emotional Sense.