May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.
‘Wash and be clean’ (2 Kings 5:10,13). These are the words of Elisha, the man of God, a prophet of Israel, who gave these instructions to Naaman, the commander of the King of Aram’s army and which were repeated by Naaman with derision and anger when he heard them. ‘Is that it, he asks? Is that all I have to do, wash in the River Jordan, which isn’t anywhere near as good as the rivers at home, the Abana and Pharpar in Damascus, which are much better than all the waters of Israel.’
Naaman turns around and walks away, hurt, frustrated and convinced he’s been conned and disrespected. He’s come this far, on the words and recommendation of an unknown young Israelite slave girl who serves his wife, a loving and concerned wife who tells him about the possibility of being healed. Naaman listened to his wife, and he has come to meet an Israelite prophet who can heal, a man of God. His suffering is desperate, having leprosy was a dreadful illness; and he has come to Israel to seek healing, when the Israelites are ‘the other’, despised and held in contempt. What good can come out of Samaria, in the kingdom of Israel, he asks?
The unnamed servants of Naaman persuade him not to lose his temper, to listen to the invitation from the man of God, given by his messenger, to try it, and not to stand on his dignity. He gives in and does as he is instructed and ‘His flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.’ (2 Kings 5:14)
Elisha, Jesus and Paul in his letter to the Galatians, remind us all what we are being invited to do and to see what is actually happening in God’s kingdom: Wash and be healed, wash and be cleansed, wash and join in God’s new creation. Such a wonderful invitation and hope which was offered to Naaman by the man of God; and, being healed and restored, he is converted to a believer. It is a hope and belief which Jesus has offered to us also.
Today we celebrate the baptism of two children, Charlotte and Theo, children of God and the newest members of our church family. We have in our baptismal water in the font, water from the River Jordan, as we share the journey of Jesus who was baptised in the River Jordan, of Naaman who was washed and cleansed, and of all the saints who have gone before us, in faith and hope.
Paul writes to the Galatians: it is for us to work together as followers of Christ, and to know the only thing which is important is doing what is right, in God’s sight, working together for the good of all. In doing so, and together with God, we bear the fruit of Jesus Christ, who died for us all, and in whose body, we are joining in the new creation, which is everything!’ (Galatians 6:7-18)
Like Naaman, Jesus challenges us and his followers (Luke 10:1-12), those 70 people whom he sent out in pairs ahead of him, to every town and place where he himself intended to go. We are to listen to God and not to those around us who would pressure us with burdens, and cultural norms, traditions and practices. We are to travel lightly, without our usual baggage, we are to take God’s peace and love and share it wherever we find ourselves. We are to rejoice; our names are written in heaven.
We are captured by God’s love and somehow, with God’s help, we must share it, live it, believe it, trust it, bring peace with it, be healed by it, washed and drenched by it, so as we emerge from the baptismal waters of God’s love, we are living in the new creation. We are forever transformed and living into our new lives. What ever was before is passing away. Let us not be distracted by the anger, the divisions, the differences and the scapegoating, the comparisons between my life and yours, between my politics and yours, our theologies, our races, genders, or ages.
We are one in Christ. We are the comprehensively diverse, glorious body of Christ, created by God. If we become too entrenched and comfortable in the position in which find ourselves, too focussed on holding tightly to the life and divisions we know, the familiar burdens we carry, convinced by the opinions and the things which divide, then, it seems to me, God’s love will be passing us by unrecognised, unwelcomed and unremarked. The Holy Spirit is blowing strongly, and the hope we have in us is bursting to escape, the waters of baptism are forever, washing, cleansing, healing and restoring us, reconciling us together.
We hope for Charlotte and Theo the same hope we have for all of us, here in the pews on a Sunday morning and on all our sabbaths, that they will know they are members of God’s new creation, forever. God’s invitation and the hope are never withdrawn, never denied. We welcome all who come. Let me finish with a poem which seems to capture this by Maya Angelou, the phenomenal African American poet and writer.
Touched by an Angel by Maya Angelou
We, unaccustomed to courage,
exiles from delight,
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies,
old memories of pleasure,
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity.
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave,
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free. The Lord be with you.
