PENTECOST 6C
July 8, 2007
SCRIPTURES
-In an inner city neighborhood, Anna Freud once asked a little girl who she was. The poverty stricken girl replied, "I
ain't nobody's nothing."
-Most of us here, by global and historical standards, live in Assyria. We live in the empire, the superpower, the first world. Most of us have the trappings of power and privilege: cell phones, palm pilots, laptops, and all the stuff that is supposed to secure our lives—not unlike Namaan,
- Aram, today known as Syria
- But Naaman learned something critical. The world wasn't about Naaman. Life wasn't about Naaman. And for sure, God was not Naaman's cosmic bellhop!
-For me the question is: "What gets in the way of obedience?"
- We expect important people to play big parts and they do but we don't expect "nobodies" to play big parts (and they
do in this scripture!)
- sermon outline God works through ordinary people, ordinary events and ordinary obedience.
- There are spiritual lepers separated from God by their own sin
- It's the biggest little thing you will ever do.
- Like a baptism: Namaan goes under the water and comes up a new creature. For him the past is finished and gone,
and God gives him his future back.
- Illness is a great equalizer. It affects us all.
- Leprosy, like sin, begins within (with what we are) and then erupts on the skin (on the surface). As such, it clearly reminds us of the principle that men are, by an inherited nature, sinners and that it’s not just what we do that is so bad, but what we are.
-
Many today are perishing from the loathsome leprosy of sin.- Leprosy or Hansen’s disease
- "What do I love about this story? Servants telling their masters what to do. Enemy kings doing one another’s bidding. Elisha’s moxie. Nathan’s injured pride overcome by his desire to be made whole. The backstairs conversations between servant and mistress, the official missive from one king to another, the Syrian "dissing" of the River Jordan." Peter S. Hawkins
- We don't need to receive something to become whole as much as we need to eliminate "things". (Pride, lies, germs, ignorance, prejudices, doubt, etc.) Lindy
-- To be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best to make you everybody else is the hardest battle you can fight. e.e. Cummings
- To become whole, we become what we already are! (That's what Naaman did)
-The Hebrew word for healing is shalem, which means "to be made whole, complete again". The healing of the leper is
not merely personal. Just as peace in Hebrew means more than the absence of war, so health means more than the absence of illness.
-We are all lepers. We all know what it means to stand outside the gates. Without community, we are dis-eased and we
fall into alienation and separation. De jong
-To be cured is one thing, to be healed is another.
-There is a schedule for healing.
-This story is about another kind of power: a reality, a truth, outside of
us, beyond us, coming at us—the amazing, unexpected power of grace and new
life seeking us. It is the surprising energy of the exodus, and the radiance
of the resurrection. Lauri Manning
-Yet, how ironic it is that the possibility of healing—whether of a
serious illness, or a broken spirit, or a destructive arrogance—can only begin
when we admit our powerlessness, our inability to be in charge.
-The greater our "self sufficiency," the harder it can be to surrender.
-The temperature of the spiritual life of the church is the index of her
power to heal. Evelyn Frost
- sermon:
We are all “Assyrians” super power possessions, power, strength
We are all Naaham’s have the same trappings pride, prejudice, control, etc.
We all need to be made whole, to find our shalom, (body, mind spirit ) bath in the Jordan, baptized.
We all can become what we already are…children of God Lindy
-Sometimes we are "disciples," that is, "learners." Sometimes we are "apostles," that is, "sent out ones." Stoffregen
-The old illustration of the Dead Sea might apply -- all inflow with no outflow -- produces death.
-We grow, not by preserving the past but by expanding outward. We grow, not by building fences, but by building bridges. We grow, not by creating a museum but by creating new relationships. Keith Wagner
- Have you ever seen such a rag tag group? “dirty dozen” , William Willimon
- Of the 12, there was a Loudmouth, two mama’s boys, a bullhead, and an apparent bird-brain
- God works through ordinary people!
- We like to think of ourselves as self-made men and women. The great thing about Abraham, Jesus and disciples is that they were, God made!
- Religion is easy, discipleship is more difficult
-You will not preach values to the people out there. You will go out there and live those values and that will be the only teaching and preaching that will take place
- Go from leave world and join church to enter world and be church
QUOTES (most are for 2nd Kings scripture)
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“Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace.” - C. H. Spurgeon- St. Augustine might say, "Our pride-swollen faces have closed up our eyes."
- Pride attacks us not at our weakest point but at our strongest
- Elbert Hubbard There was
one who thought himself above me, and he was above me until he had that
thought.
-We are rarely proud when we are alone. Voltaire
- Humility is knowing your own worth
-'Umble we are, 'umble we have been, 'umble we shall ever be. Author: Charles Dickens
-Don't be so humble--you are not that great. Lord Lytton
--Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within ...1Cor. 6:19
-To have a sense of self you must feel part of something greater than self
- I have spent more of my time proving than being
- What you are you will never know...it's enough to know what you are not.
- Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself.. to become what he potentially is. E.Fromm
-We are all tattooed in the cradle with the birth of the tribe. O.W.Holmes
-We are all sons and daughters of a king. We are all prince and princesses.
-Something we were withholding made us weak until we found out that is was ourselves. R.Frost
- Here and there and now and then, I find a new being with in me...sometimes hidden sometimes manifest. Buechner
- We are a soul with a body, not vs.vs. Dyer
HUMOR
-"Before I begin the sermon, I have something important to say"
- God pickles the proud and preserves the foolish.
- Passengers on plane were instructed to fasten their seatbelts immediately. Everyone complied but Ali. Noticing this, the flight attendant approached him and requested that he observe the captain’s order, only to hear Ali audaciously respond, “Superman don’t need no seatbelt.” The flight attendant did not miss a beat and replied, “Superman don’t need no airplane either.” Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God,
-Little boy defined Christian: "Christians are mild, weak, quiet, people who never fight or talk back." Then he added, "Daddy is a Christian but Mother isn't."
-Only responsibility some get is passing the buck, pushing their luck, jumping to conclusions, carrying on about problems.
-Parody “Butt prints in the sand”. One night I had a wondrous dream. One set of foot prints there were seen. The foot prints of my precious Lord but mine were not along the shore. But then some stranger prints appeared. I asked the Lord, “What have we here?” These prints are large and round and neat but Lord, they are too big for feet. My child he said in somber tones. For miles I carried you alone. I challenged you to walk in faith but you refused and made me wait. You disobeyed, you would not grow; the walk of faith you would not know. So I got tired, I got fed up and there I dropped you on your butt. Because in life there comes a time when one must fight and one must climb. When one must rise and take a stand…or leave your butt prints in the sand.
-The police were trying to get the man to turn, lean over and put his hands on the hood of his car. The man was screaming, "Hey... I'm an American and I live in America and that means nobody can tell me what to do!" One of the frustrated, but somewhat amused officers replied, "Yea, sure buddy... If you can spell American, I'll let you go." The drunk, offended by the reflection on his sobriety yelled back, "Don't make fun of me sir... I can spell it borwards and fackwards!"
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran theologian, wrote a series of reflections on the Sermon on the Mount entitled The Cost of Discipleship, in which he maintained that discipleship requires us to make a fundamental decision to follow Jesus and to accept the conseuences of that decision. His own religious convictions led him to stand up to the tyranny of Nazi Germany and to participate in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The plot was uncovered, Bonhoeffer was apprehended, and the ultimate “cost” of discipleship was exacted of him. He was hanged by the Nazis on April 9, 1945.
2. Those of you who served in the armed forces know what it means when the drill sergeant calls out, "Fall in!" That means it is time to drop everything immediately, assemble and come to attention. That's what Jesus did when he set out for Jerusalem and the crowds were watching as though spectators. Jesus called out, "Fall in!"
3. Composer Giacomo Puccini wrote a number of famous
operas. In 1922 he was suddenly stricken by cancer while working on his last
opera, "Turandot," which many now consider his best. Puccini said to his
students, "If I don't finish 'Turandot,' I want you to finish it for me."
Shortly afterwards he died. Puccini's students studied opera carefully and
soon completed it. In 1926 the world premiere of "Turandot" was performed in
Milan with Puccini's favorite student, Arturo Toscanini, directing. Everything
went beautifully until the opera reached the point where Puccini had been
forced to put down his pen. Tears ran down Toscanini's face. He stopped the
music, put down his baton, turned to the audience and cried out, "Thus far the
Master wrote, but he died." A vast silence filled the opera house. Toscanini
picked up the baton again, smiled through his tears and exclaimed, "But his
disciples finished his work." When "Turandot" ended, the audience broke into
thunderous applause. No one at the premiere performance ever forgot that
moment.
4. -Michelangelo says the beautiful sculptures
he created were already there, inside the stones. He simply moved the excess
to reveal the precious essence.
CHILDREN
- Avocado / Heart is best part (God)/ leaves things that get in the way (pride, possessions, etc), - Nahaam needed to get past his "leaves" before he could get to God and become what God intended him to be.
-A Native American Grandfather was sharing with his grandson how he felt about life. He said, "I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other is the loving compassionate one." The grandson asked him, "Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?" The grandfather answered, "The one I feed."
PRAYER PHRASES
-...... keep me on the narrow way. You alone can do it. When I want to go some other way, keep me, at whatever cost, keep me with you and constantly fit me for service, for work with you in your wonderful world. Amen.
- In our need for power direct us outward: towards neighbor not to power over or control but to serve, etc.
.....direct us upward: to our higher potential to new spiritual levels that transcend our ordinariness .......become fully human, etc.
---- direct us forward: beyond horizons of smaller visions where new hope, promise, and new births can transform us
.....direct us inward: Where your spirit may minister to us in the deeper places of our hearts. Lead us to deep interior reserves of power that lie
within us all, for our greatest power is within...where love, faith and truth reside. .... Lindy