6th Sunday after the Epiphany--Year B

6th Sunday after the Epiphany Year B
February 12, 2012
I’ve been thinking a great deal this week about a couple of questions. What is it that motivates people of faith? What is it that motivates us as a church?
In two of our readings for today, we see two different stories about lepers who are healed. But they are two very different stories.
In 2nd Kings, we meet Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He is a successful war leader, who has led his people in victory against the children of Israel. And yet, he suffers from leprosy. One day, his slave suggests that he seek healing from the prophet in Samaria. So a bureaucratic chain of events is set in motion. Naaman petitions his king, who sends word, with lots of pomp and circumstance to honor his great general, to the King of Israel, who becomes distraught until confronted by the prophet Elisha. Elisha sends word to tell Naaman to come, but when Naaman arrives at Elisha’s house, Elisha doesn’t even come out to see this important man. Instead he sends a messenger with Naaman’s prescription: “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” Naaman is outraged. Sure, he’s been given his prescription, but it is not at all what he expected. And he is starting to think that these Israelites are having a laugh at his expense. Why on earth should he have to go wash in the Jordan other than to have these foreigners whom he had defeated laugh at him. Forget it. I’m going home. But then some brave servants approach Naaman and say, “Why not? So it’s not what you expected, but if it will heal you, why not try it?” And Naaman does. And he is healed, confessing that the God of Israel is the one and only God because of this miracle God has performed for Naaman.
Naaman is motivated first by a deep desire for healing, but his pride and his expectation of how he would be healed almost get in the way of his actual healing. He is given the prescription for healing and he almost walks away without even trying it, because it is too mundane, too beneath his notice, not spectacular enough to even merit trying. It is only through his encounters with different slaves, the lowliest of people, that he is inspired to lay aside his pride and his expectation and take a chance and be healed.
In Mark’s gospel, we see a snapshot of Jesus healing one particular individual in a long string of healings. Jesus has just been in Capernaum where Mark tells us he healed a man with demons in the synagogue; then he healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, and then he healed countless others who had been brought to him strictly for the purpose of being healed. Jesus has drawn away from the crowds to regroup and he makes the costly decision to leave Capernaum, a place of safety where he has done very well, to go out into the great unknown so that he can continue to “proclaim the message” of good news—that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the good news.” And so he begins to make his way through Galilee, proclaiming the message and casting out demons.
Then we have our isolated incident for today. A leper approaches Jesus. This in itself is huge. Lepers were required by law to stay a certain distance away from other people, and when they did come near, they had to shout out the words “Unclean, unclean” as a warning for people. But this leper, perhaps upon hearing of Jesus and the things he was doing, defies convention, and comes right up to Jesus, falling on his knees and begging Jesus, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” And Jesus, moved with pity, stretches out his hand, touching this “unclean” person and makes him whole.
Ancient manuscripts vary on Jesus’s motivation in this healing story. Our reading for today says he was “moved with pity.” It’s easy to understand why Jesus would be moved by pity or compassion for this man. Once a person was discovered to have leprosy, they were cast out of both civil and religious society. They couldn’t pray in the temple or go to synagogue; they couldn’t share the tables or the beds of their healthy relatives. They became solitary persons, completely isolated from their communities, their friends and their families. But other sources say that Jesus was “moved by anger—a much more disturbing image. Was Jesus angry at the man for interrupting his prayers? Was he angry at the social constructs and religious laws that had made this man a complete outcast?
Either way, Jesus is motivated by some strong emotion, and he chooses to heal the man, dramatically impacting his own life and ministry and legally making himself unclean by his physical contact with the leper.
What is it that motivates people of faith?
Last weekend, I was most impressed by Bishop Gray’s opening address to diocesan council. The Bishop talked about how we now live in a time when the culture no longer supports the life of the church. It is a brave new world in which we find ourselves, as the culture around us asks again and again what relevance the church and our faith have for them. Bishop Gray challenged us to evaluate what our motivation is, in this brave new world. Are we making decisions about our lives and about our church and its ministries out of fear? Are we motivated by concern for our survival? Or are we motivated by something else—excitement about what we have to offer this hungry world, creativity, hope, gratitude? It’s a question that is worth considering in the life of our own individual faithfulness and in the life of our church. What is it that motivates us? And if we discover that the answer is, in fact, fear, then how do we change that?
In the gospel reading for today, Jesus heals the leper, and the man is so grateful, so bursting to share the good news of what is happened that he ignores Jesus’s command to tell no one, and he tells everyone what has happened. Once he is healed, the former-leper is motivated by gratitude, and it’s not a bad place for us to begin, either.
I was reading a book this week which includes some exercises that have to do with cultivating discipleship (which is basically what the gospel of Mark is all about). And it asked two questions: 1. How has your life or the lives of the people you love been transformed because of participation in the church? And 2. What do you see happening in the lives of others that makes you excited about giving to your church? As I started writing my answers to these questions, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I remembered the people in the church throughout the years who helped shape me and mold me—adults who treated me with respect and named me friend, even though there were sometimes 60 or 70 years between us. I thought about how I knew, from an early age, that the church was someplace where I truly belonged, and I thought about how you are doing that for my own children. I thought about all the holy moments that I have gotten to witness just since my ordination 7 years ago—births, weddings, deaths… hard times and good times… healings and heartbreaks… and how each and every one has shaped me.
I thought about all the friendships I see at work in this place—those that have stood the test of time and those that are just being formed. I thought about how people rally around one another for support in times of need; I thought about the overwhelming generosity of people who have contributed so that over 5,000 lives were helped last year by our offering people basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and care. I see people breaking bread together regularly and the intimacy and companionship that are shared there. When I took some time to list the things for which I am grateful in this church and in the Church at large, I was almost overwhelmed by the weight and the depth of my gratitude.
It’s one thing to say that we are grateful. It is another thing to cultivate our gratitude and then allow that to be our chief motivation.
As we approach the season of Lent, it is customary for people to give up things which separate them from God or to take on things which would help them draw closer to God. I’m going to invite you to prayerfully consider joining with me to take on two spiritual disciplines during Lent. The first spiritual discipline is reading the gospels with the bishop, which I’ll talk more about later.
The second spiritual discipline is cultivating gratitude—that is every day, making a list (either in writing or in your head) of the people, things etc for which you are most truly grateful. Let’s see what we can do together when we cultivate our gratitude and allow it to motivate us.
And may the words of the Psalmist be true also for us: “You have turned my mourning into dancing;/ you have taken off my sackcloth/ and clothed me with joy,/ so that my soul may praise you and not be silent./ O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”