Exercise and Diet. Oh, that again!

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany:
12 February 20121994
Trinity Church


2 Kings 5:1-14
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45
Psalm 30

    Naaman was a mighty general, The Second Book of the Kings has told us. He was not an Israelite but a gentile, and the commander of the Syrian army; He had won many victories for his king. He was successful in every way a soldier wants to be. But he had a problem. He had a disease the Hebrew Bible calls leprosy. It’s not that same thing that we know as leprosy today, but it was obviously a serious and debilitating disease that resisted cure by ordinary means.
    Naaman gets some advice from an unusual place, from a slave girl who doesn’t even have a name in the story. Humble and, in the eyes of the world, as insignificant as she is, she is able to guide Naaman toward healing. She is able to guide Naaman --  through his wife, that is, in case you didn’t get it the first time: great wisdom often comes from the women in our biblical story!
    She guides Naaman toward Elisha the prophet in Israel. In those days to be a prophet meant to be a wise man, a person who knew and understood great things, a person others looked to for wisdom and guidance, even for healing.
    So Naaman sets off to see if this wise one of Israel can heal him. The prophet doesn’t even come down to see Naaman. He just tells Naaman to go and wash in the River Jordan. Naaman is disappointed, even angry.
    He says, "I thought that for me [Elisha the prophet] would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand and cure me." Naaman is unable to believe that any prophet worth his salt and any God worth his incense would use such simple stuff--the water of a river as insignificant as the Jordan--to heal and restore. After all, there are mightier rivers back in Damascus.
    Naaman is rather like, well me, for one, and maybe like you too. I have a doctor, or should I say I have some doctors who actually say they know how I can be healed, or at least made more whole. They claim to have a way for my heart and my arteries and my mind and my mood and my memory to be stronger and healthier. Their secret will work for you too, I bet. They tell me that this miracle of healing can be accomplished if I will pay careful attention to what and how much I eat and to how much and how often I get exercise.
    Oh, that again! Diet and exercise. Diet and exercise. Surely it can’t be that simple. But we all know it is. That simple combination is shown over and over and over and over again to be the key to a healthier body and mind.
    So simple. And yet so hard.
    We are just like Naaman. The answer is close at hand and, for me at least, it just doesn’t seem like the thing to do. There must be another way.
    Naaman, unlike me, finally does what the doctor –  I mean the prophet orders – and indeed he is made well.
    The story of Naaman is an interesting folk tale, but like all most folk tales it has been preserved for a reason, for some lesson it teaches.
    In this case, the lesson, I think is that wonderful things are often available to us if we will take the obvious, not usually very glamorous steps to help make them possible.
    What is true for individual people is true also for groups of people. Like congregations.
    I pray you are aware by now that the future of this congregation, like the future of the majority of congregations in this diocese, indeed in this country is going to be very different from its past. I also hope that by now you have begun to understand that in many, many ways God is behind these changes. The Church has not been abandoned. It is not disappearing. It will never cease to be, but, as it always has, it will undergo periods of adjustment and change. Phyllis Tickle, in her book The Great Emergence is right, I believe and so do many, if not most, theologians and church historians, that she is right when she says that every 500 years or so the Western Church – that’s us – has undergone a massive upheaval, redefinition and refinement. That time is upon us again. It is what we are currently living through.
    So what to do?
    Well, one thing, at least, is to do what Naaman finally did, pay attention to what the prophets are saying and do what they suggest even if there advice is to do the painfully obvious. The church’s future, including our parish’s future depends on you. What our parish needs is for those who are its members to develop their own spiritual lives, to attend to their growth in faith, their growth in the knowledge and aloe of the Lord. That means gathering together regularly for worship – not just when it’s merely convenient or only when it isn’t June, July or August. It means reading and studying the scriptures – not by yourself, but in the company of others who are also learning what it means to be shaped and molded into the image and likeness of Christ. It means seeking, truly seeking your own vocation – listening for what God is calling you to be and do – and to do that also in the company of others who are asking the same question. The Spirit seems to work best when there is a group gathered together seeking the Spirit’s wisdom and guidance. It means giving generously, even sacrificially, for the spread of God’s kingdom. It means all the things you already know you are encourager by your church to do.
    It isn’t glamorous; it isn’t grand and spectacular.
    It’s just the way it is.
    This parish can be whatever you are willing to work for it to be and whatever you are willing to provide the support for it to be.
    It isn’t a mystery and it isn’t a secret. It is the diet and exercise of our corporate life.
    With God all things are possible. Without God nothing is.