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A few years ago, after I had completed my first extended silent retreat, Dorothy Landeros caused me to laugh out loud, when, upon my return to church, she wore a button which read in large capital letters, “ASK ME ABOUT MY VOW OF SILENCE!” She nailed it. For when I return to speaking after a long period of silence, the pull is indeed strong to remain in blissful quietude. And the words that seem most important to speak are those that describe the silence itself—the insights and learning, the magic and mystery that permeates for me the gift of silence. So today, it is ironic that my first Sunday to preach after my annual period of silence has three of our four scripture readings focusing on words, on speaking, on following verbal instruction! I wonder if, like Dorothy’s clever button, this is God’s idea of a joke?!
Words are the focus of this day’s stories. We just heard Jesus tell all seventy members of his first and only church to go ahead of him into towns and villages and say two things to their inhabitants: 1) Peace, and 2) the Kingdom of God has come near to you. In the reading from 2nd Kings, and after a lifetime of diseased living, Naaman, a commander of a foreign army, is cured by following the brief instruction of the prophet Elisha: “Go, wash in the
Jordan
seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” And the psalmist, with great poetry, suggests that our sense of joyful living is pronounced by both praise and by honest complaining, and that through both, our grief will be changed into dancing, and our illnesses into healing. We can almost see the joy-filled dance of this ancient poet as we read the words with which he or she concludes Psalm 30: “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 God, I will give thanks to you forever.”
Now, that’s a lot of talking!
Words provide security to us, do they not? From the earliest sections of the book of Genesis to the present day, we humans seem to think that if we can name something, if we can identify it, then we have maintained the illusion of control. If we can explain or rationalize behaviors—ours or those of others—we imagine somehow that we are justified and logical. I notice this especially as I read blogs these days or listen to press secretaries or hear even the chatter in my own head while supposedly sitting in silence. Words, words, and more words become our means of understanding, of explaining, of defining, describing, and even trying to control reality down to its finest particles.
A recent article in the Utne Reader suggested to me that words provide security in the same way that electronic gadgets provide security to wilderness travelers. In an article entitled, “Tread Lightly and Carry a Big Bag of Batteries,” backpacker Chris Dodge writes that there is now a bewildering array of tempting gear—from propane stoves to freeze-dried food to filtration devices to air mattresses to electronic contraptions that allow hikers to find landmarks. He quotes from several experienced backpackers who argue that such accoutrements provide only the illusion of continual security and are no substitute for common sense, wilderness savvy, basic knowledge about the human body, and using our brains in an unexpected situation. In other words, there is little security in packing a larger bag, or, I would add, in relying on a thesaurus-sized vocabulary.
So also implies each of our three scripture stories this morning. While words do figure prominently in each, they are a particular sort of word; it is a simple word, a direct and abbreviated word, a healing word.
Look more closely at the gospel story, underneath the words that Jesus instructs his followers to speak, and we see that Jesus is seeking to cure their natural anxiety. Pastor Patrick Willson of
Williamsburg
,
Virginia
, quoted in this week’s Christian Century, writes that “Jesus commissions seventy messengers and gives them a gift of words so that they know what to say. ‘First say,’ Jesus directs, and again, ‘Say to them.’ As a result, we don’t have to be anxious about ‘What can I say?’ The whole church—which Luke numbers at seventy—is given the gift of words. With the words we are given we can go anywhere. We can walk over ‘snakes and scorpions,’ we can stand and speak before ‘the power of the enemy,’ whether the enemy is an emperor, a jail keeper or all manner of lesser adversaries.”
The whole church—not just the preacher or the elder or the deacon or the lay leader—receives words from Christ. And for what purpose? To relieve anxiety—both ours and the person to whom we are sent to speak. We are given words. Sit with that promise of Jesus for a half a second. Perhaps you can recall a time when you were in a sticky situation, one in which you wanted to help, but you didn’t know what words to say. And then, as if by magic, the words came to you.
Such was the experience of the unnamed captive in the Naaman and Elisha story. She was one of the little people in society, a powerless servant girl who had been captured by Naaman’s army during a previous raid into
Israel
and was now working for the commander’s wife. We can imagine that she was going about her daily work, when her mistress’ husband walks by. He is Naaman the great, a Syrian general, who has leprosy. Tough guy. Tougher disease. Today, we’d call Naaman’s illness by its more correct name: Hansen’s disease. By whatever name, this dis-ease is killing him slowly. He tries all the local cures…all the proper medications…all the professional healers. Finally, this nameless servant girl quietly says to him, “There is one in my land who can help…A prophet…Named Elisha.”
This is preposterous. Naaman’s relationship to
Israel
is as invader, as occupier, as commander-in-chief of the chief tribe of
Israel
’s enemies. Why, in any god’s name, would he rely on them for healing? Yet if you have ever been so ill that nothing else has worked, you will go anywhere…even to an obscure prophet’s house in enemy territory. But savvy Naaman does not go empty-handed. He takes with him a distinguished letter of introduction from his king to
Israel
’s king. Turns out Naaman doesn’t need the letter. And, being accustomed to getting what he pays for, Naaman takes along a small fortune in silver, gold, and fine clothing. But he doesn’t need that stash, either.
Naaman arrives at Elisha’s house, loaded down with disease and armed with dogged determination, but Elisha doesn’t even come out to see him. Instead, Elisha sends word from behind closed doors—18 short words arranged into one abbreviated instruction that is communicated second-hand through a messenger of the prophet to Naaman: “Go, wash in the
Jordan
seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” This River Jordan is not known for its healing properties…it is nothing more than the muddy river at the end of the street.
In defiance, Naaman nearly ignores the instruction. Why? Because it sounds so ridiculously ordinary, that’s why. Naaman is a big shot after all, and though ill almost beyond recognition, he expects to be treated according to his important social status. He expects to actually see the holy man of
Israel
…see him do holy things and say holy words and make holy gestures and offer holy incantations and dance holy dances…maybe even sacrifice holy animals. What Naaman does not expect is to hear a virtual nobody telling him to go down to the end of the block and jump in the river. “River,” Naaman fumes when he hears the instruction, “I’ve got better rivers than this mud hole back home in
Damascus
. You call this a river? You call Elisha a healer?”
But it was (a river, I mean). And Elisha was (a healer, I mean). You never really know, do you… where it’s going to happen to you, in you, for you. The cure, I mean…the healing touch. Any place can be a holy place or a healing place if you’ve got your shoes off and your eyes open. God is not particular about where God shows up. Nor, apparently, is God choosy about whom God heals. Naaman was a foreigner in a biblical culture which more than favored the chosen ones of
Israel
. Yet his story makes plain that God’s healing touch is not just for the chosen, but for anyone from any country whose skin is itching.
Barbara Brown Taylor, one of our country’s most endearing and prophetic preachers, says of this story, “The problem with the story of Naaman is not that God loves the despised Other more than God loves us. The problem is that people we cannot stand are loved just as much as we are by a God who has an upsetting sense of community. No matter how hard we try,” Brown continues, “we cannot seem to get God to respect our boundaries. God keeps plowing right through them, inviting us to either follow or get out of the way.”
So also intoned the Apostle Paul to the Galatians, with a similar level of prophetic determination. The church in
Galatia
was being tempted by rival missionaries to believe that converts could only enter Christianity on the road which passed first through Judaism. Circumcision, purity eating habits, and all the rest of the Levitical laws were being fed to these early Christians as the exclusive pathway by which they could be Christ-like. Logically, it was noted, Jesus was Jewish, therefore his followers must also follow Jewish laws and customs. Paul, not so quietly, but with a few carefully-chosen words, blows that notion out of the Galatian waters. He says to the floundering Galatians, “Bear one another’s burdens… work for the good of all…be a community that is guided by the Spirit, not leashed by the law…”
Do you see a common thread in these passages? Do you hear a common theme, a common word, implied in each of these stories? I do, and that word, that one single word, is “all.” All people, even an insurgent like Naaman, all people can receive and deserve God’s healing. All people, even a nobody like the unnamed girl who served Naaman’s wife, can be God’s mouthpiece. All people, even the misguided missionaries with whom Paul is arguing and the confused Galatian Christians who are their victims, all people are members of the inclusive and welcoming Jesus community. All people, even every single one of the seventy followers Jesus appointed to pave the way for him, all people can receive and share the words which bring God’s kingdom to earth, one healing word at a time, one compassionate word at a time, one loving word at a time.
You see, friends, when God is involved in the silence or in the speaking, All really does mean All. In our day, God’s community includes those our government would objectify by the name “insurgents.” God’s community includes those our politicians would ignore because they are too young or too poor or otherwise not a statistically-significant voting block. God’s community includes those who have been abandoned and abused by the system—the Valerie Plames and the Cindy Sheehans, as well as the quietly prophetic people—like you and me—that go about simply loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. God’s All really does mean All, and those of us who need to be touched by God, who are desperate to experience God’s love, who await the healing that came to Naaman or the words that came to the seventy, can rest in knowing that we, too, are included in God’s community of All. And in this community of All, with a few words that speak volumes, our grief will be turned into dancing; our sackcloth exchanged for clothing of joy; and our silences filled to the brim with thanks to God for giving us this lifetime of favor…this privilege and this responsibility of belonging to the community of God’s All.
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