Clothed With Joy

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

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 12, 2006

Heritage Congregational Church, Madison, WI

What is it like to be a physician? In my last church, there were several members who were doctors of one kind or another. There were general doctors, a podiatrist, an orthopedic surgeon and two dentists. They put to the test the public theory that people of science were not people of faith, for each was a brilliant scientist in their own right.

But what impressed me the most about these physicians was their holistic approach to their calling. You heard me right—their calling. Each one felt called by God to do what they did. And so they endured the years of school and lived lives of personal sacrifice, for like me they were on call 24 hours a day. They were all good, very good, at what they did. And they saw themselves as healers. They attended to both the physical and the emotional. They sought to help their patients become whole in body and spirit.

I don’t know what the doctors are like that you deal with in your personal life, but as a pastor who visits hospitals regularly, my heart is made full when I see doctors with an outlook like the ones in Burlington, Iowa. And I must say that most of the doctors I meet feel the same way—they are concerned with the whole person. They know that what affects the body, affects the rest of the person and vice versa.

Today we read three healing stories in our lectionary readings. 2 Kings and Mark speak of the healing of men who are stricken with leprosy. Psalm 30 praises God with thanks for healing. The three stories are vastly different, and yet they are the same. They speak of what happens when we experience the Divine as the Great Physician.

In 2 Kings the star of war, Naaman, is a tragic hero, like those in Greek or Shakespearian tragedies. He is a hero because of his great prowess in war, but he has a flaw—a tragic one—his skin is covered with sores. He has leprosy. Despite his heroic acts, how far will he be able to go in life with this very public and despised disease? His wife’s servant speaks of a prophet who might help Naaman, and so he travels to meet with this man of God. But when Elisha does not come out to meet Naaman in person, he is angry. Who does this prophet of Israel think he is, sending a messenger to speak to the great Naaman? Naaman wants to take his toys and go home. Elisha has not behaved as Naaman thought he would. His expectations are crushed. But another servant speaks to Naaman and talks him into staying and playing by the prophet’s rules. Naaman is cured, in spite of himself.

In Mark we find a leper who believes in the healing power of Jesus. If you choose, you can make me clean, he cries to Jesus. And Jesus chooses. I love it that the leper speaks of cleanliness. He seeks to be ceremonially clean, according to the law. His skin disease prevents him from participating in the life of public faith, and the rest of life as well. He does not have it as good as Naaman did. He was no hero. He seeks out Jesus’ healing so he can be a part of the world again—the religious, the business, the social. He wants to be clean. And he believes Jesus can do it. And Jesus does—He chooses to do as the leprous man asks.

In the psalm, David writes of God’s faithfulness in healing. We don’t know what his ailment was, but it seems he was in great distress. His illness makes him feel insecure and vulnerable. He is in so much pain that he cries to God and is healed. It is night and he is weeping, but God acts and he finds joy in the morning. He is mourning, and God transforms it to dancing. God’s healing power has changed him from a person clothed in sackcloth to a person who is clothed in joy.

Naaman, the leper in Mark, and David all have something in common. They are healed by the great physician. They all sought physical healing, and they got it. But they also got much, much more.

When healed by washing in the Jordon, Naaman is cleansed not only in body, but in Spirit. He is transformed. In his encounter with God through the prophet Elisha, Naaman learns to try something new. He learns to put his own expectations aside and his pride as well. Because of the words of two servants, Naaman is led to put his faith in God’s word, even when what he hears makes him angry.

The leper in Mark’s gospel is made clean by Jesus’ choosing. Jesus tells him not to tell anyone, but the leper cannot contain himself. His transformation complete, he proclaims freely and spreads the word. When his body is healed, his faith in Jesus is confirmed and he cannot hold it in. He is made complete, body and spirit.

David is healed in body, and thanks God by showing how his life has changed. What was dark is now light. What was sorrowful is now joyful. When he was paralyzed with sadness he learned to dance, all because of God’s healing power in his life. And when he is healed, like the leper in Mark, David moves from a position of silence to a stance of public praise. He cannot be silent any longer. He has been healed by the Divine.

In each case of healing, what was given was much more than what was asked for. Each person saw their physical ailment—what could be seen by the eyes, apparent to anyone, and this is what the desire to have healed. But when God heard their cries for healing, much more was seen. God saw sicknesses of the mind, the heart and the spirit, and healed those as well. What God gave was a sense of wholeness, a sense of being healed in both body and in spirit. God knew what they needed to be healed fully and gave it to them.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul continues speaking to the church in Corinth, encouraging them in the faith. They think they know what they need, but according to Paul, they never quite hit the mark. They are young in faith, young as a church, and it is easy for them to become embroiled in their own understanding of the faith. What they are reaching for is too limited, Paul says. What they are reaching for is perishable. Reach instead for the imperishable. Why bother to run the race if you are not hoping to win? Do your best, reach for the whole prize, not just part of it. Run the whole race.

Naaman, David and the leper in Mark all want to be healed. They go to God for that healing, but they don’t reach far enough. They don’t know how much more they need. They think their only ailments are physical. But God knows better. God sees their whole being and seeks to make it whole, in spite of their ignorance.

Paul says something else as well. He speaks of the importance of proclamation. We should share what God has done in our lives with others, help them to see God’s care and love and healing power. But we must never forget the healing we need as well. We must continue to run the race ourselves, never forgetting to reach for all of what God offers us. We should seek to be healed body and soul by our God.

So, I ask you—how is it with your soul? Have you let God heal you wholly—body and spirit? Our relationship with God is one that is continuous. We do not just accept God’s love and then believe we are complete. God’s work in our lives, the process of transformation to wholeness, is always in progress. Each and every day, God calls us to proclaim the story of how we have encountered God, how God has healed us, and yet continue to seek what God has to offer, the way God alone can heal us.

And, we must never forget how physical illness can bring us to a place of closeness with our God. When we are ill, we learn to rely on God in new ways. Often, we find our reliance on God is the only thing we can count on in the midst of the uncertainty of the physical life. This is one of the ways that God heals us into wholeness.

This week I received a call from a woman I know at one of our Congregational churches in Alaska. She told me of a young man who would be having surgery in Madison the next day. He was the nephew of someone in her congregation. They didn’t have a pastor, and would I go and visit. I did. I met with the young man’s family when he was in surgery. This was his third brain surgery in ten years. It was a dreadful thing for him and his family to endure. And yet they were—enduring I mean. His mother told me, You know, something like this could have ripped us apart. But it didn’t. We have really learned to rely on each other. We are closer than ever because of our experiences surrounding our son’s condition.

God was healing them all. Through ten years of surgery and treatment, the whole family was forced to face places in themselves they never could have dreamt of going. And yet they had grown closer, for during this time God was busy healing them all, moving them toward wholeness, healing the body of one and the spirits of them all, giving them all what they didn’t even know they needed. This is what God does. This is God’s character. God is the great physician.

I’d like to return to the physicians in Burlington, Iowa. What made them unique, what made them special is not just that they knew there was more to healing than the physical. It was also that they knew they were not alone in the business of healing. They all knew and practiced that they were in partnership with God. They all believed that God, and only God, could complete the work they had begun. They all knew that each human being needs what God has to offer, that what God offers is necessary and singular, that what God can do is irreplaceable by anything a human being can do. And so, they all sought God’s particular brand of healing when fulfilling their calling, praying for the wholeness of their patients. May we receive what God offers to us all. Amen.