6 Epiphany Yr B

If you choose, you can make me clean, the leper says to Jesus. Again, the writer of this gospel doesn't mince words, he gets right to the point. Jesus instructs the man to go to his priest, and make his offering. What Jesus is doing in this healing, as he did when he healed Simon's mother-in-law, and as he did when he cast the unclean spirit out of the man in the synagogue, is to restore this person to wholeness, essentially to give them new life. These stories of healing in which Mark does not mince words, are to show all who are in hearing, that Jesus, the Son of God, is bringing about God's kingdom right here, and right now.

The people who populate these healing stories are all out on the margins, because of their disease, they essentially have been cast away, they have no life, they are in effect dead. Jesus gives them their lives back. They are healed, and they get their lives back.

What do you need to be healed of to get your life back? What demon needs to be tossed out, so that you can be restored to wholeness? While that demon rules your life, while that affliction continues to keep you from others, you are not really living. You may think you are, really living, but real life is life that is healed, life that bears the scars of your woundedness, and life that witnesses to the power of love.

Namaan's lord went out from his palace, with plenty of money and his pedigree, to buy healing from the king of Israel. But money and pedigree can't buy healing. Elisha, the man of God, healed him, without show, without fanfare, without anyone watching, and Namaan's lord was mad. Namaan's lord doesn't get what he wants, but he does get healed.

This story from Kings and the accompanying story from Mark are also miracle stories whose characters are holy people. Their purpose is to show authority and power from God, who is the main character. As I was sorting through these stories this week I was imagining them as tv shows. Kings and servants, prophets, and a man with a horrible disease that is highly contagious. Hmmm, sounds just like the stuff of a crime scene investigation drama. Some of the characters even seem like the super doctors that we see in the doctor dramas on television.

But the point of these stories is quite the opposite. In the story from Kings, Naaman reminds us quite clearly that this power is nothing like super heroes or super doctors, this power is all about God. Even the commander of the army finally says “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.” But, it took him a while to get there. Naaman was a bit put off that the prophet Elisha did not himself come out to heal him. Naaman asks why Elisha did not put on a big show, make a big deal out of healing him of his leprosy, that Elisha didn't bow down to his money and pedigree. Maybe Naaman might have agreed to go see Elisha as much for the production it would cause as for the healing.

You see, these stories are about healing, but not just about the healing really, although that is a good thing, in this story about Naaman, or in the story in the gospel of Mark about the nameless leper. The stories are really about God. The stories are about God’s power and authority; the stories are about God’s amazing and abundant love. The stories are about the wholeness that comes only through Jesus. Mark wants everyone to know that God works in the world. That God is present with us, and that it is God and God alone who is worthy of our worship and praise.

You see, we are so tempted to worship other things, idols we call them. There is no God in all the earth, except the God of Israel, the God of all creation, the God who parted the sea so that Moses could lead the people through, the God who promised Noah always to be there, the God who loves us so much as to give up all power to be in our world as one of us, to be human. The God who heals, the God who offers wholeness.

And yet we are so tempted to worship other gods. The greed and consumer god. The I deserve that kind of return on my money god. The 15 minutes of fame god. The I have to be the very best at something god. The bigger, faster, cable, HDTV, iPhone, always connected god. The immediate information god. I’m not saying these things are bad, I am saying that when these things demand all of our time and attention, they become idols, and we cannot worship God and idols too.

But all of our attention needs to be on God. The leper in Mark’s story kneels before Jesus and says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” And Jesus does. A leper in Jesus’ community is an outcast, unclean and thrown away. By healing him Jesus restores him to the community, and he goes to the priest to make that restoration obvious and clear to everyone else. He must participate in the ritual of cleansing so that everyone can see that he is no longer unclean, no longer impure. It is a testimony to God’s power and authority, compassion and love.

What do you need to be healed of to get your life back? What demon needs to be tossed out, so that you can be restored to wholeness? While that demon rules your life, while that affliction continues to keep you from others, you are not really living. You may think you are, really living, but real life is life that is healed, life that bears the scars of your woundedness, and life that witnesses to the power of love.

We long for that which we cannot have, and we obsess about those things, in effect, we spend our lives being seduced by idols, worshiping idols, and resisting the worship of idols. We spend our lives doing battle with our demons. We come here, to worship and pray and to be made into the body of christ, and we are reminded of who we are and whose we are. We remember that we belong to God.
And that it is in God and God alone that we are made whole, restored to right relationship with God
and with one another. We don’t have to give in to the seduction of the money, or fame, or the speed or the power, because ultimately it is our relationship with God and with others that holds meaning and purpose for our lives.

It is God’s power of love in Jesus Christ that creates us and restores us. It is Jesus’ compassionate touch conferred through you and this community of faith that can heal broken people in this fragmented world. Remember who you are. Remember that Love wins.