La Desesperación, La Pereza y La Esperanza

Despair, Sloth and Hope

Course of Study School – Perkins School of Theology

Bueno. Aquí estamos en el segundo día de la segunda sesión del Curso de Estudio. Fuera hay luz y sol. El arrullo de la tórtola se oye en nuestro país. O por lo menos el sinsonte. Las clases parecen lleno de promesas. Los proyectos de final? ¿Qué proyectos final? Nos encontramos en el oleaje lleno de vida.

Entonces yo quiero hablar sobre... la desesperación. La pereza. Uno de los siete pecados capitales que roe nuestras vidas, poniendo en peligro la alegría que, naturalmente, debe sentirse. Especialmente cuando estamos en el oleaje de la vida plena. ¿Qué dice Dios acerca de la desesperación, la pereza y la esperanza?

So here we are on the second day of the second session of Course of Study School. Outside there is light and sunshine. The voice of the turtledove is heard in the land. Or at least the mockingbird. Classes seem full of promise. Final projects? What final projects? We are in the full swell of life.

So it seems appropriate today to turn to…despair. To sloth. To one of those seven deadly sins that gnaws at our lives, threatening the joy we should naturally feel when we are in the full swell of life. What does God have to say about despair, sloth and hope?

I actually want to start with sloth just because…well, it’s a neat word. Granted ‘sloth’ is not a word we hear much any more and when we do it usually is referring to the cuddly-looking, leaf-sucking beasts that swing in the rainforest trees. But that’s not the kind of sloth I’m talking about. The sloth I’m talking about is, like pride, envy, anger and the other deadly sins, something that is found deep inside and, like them, it threatens our life with God.

Now if someone has ever accused you of being a sloth, of the ten-toed variety, they were probably accusing you of being lazy. That’s the generally-accepted synonym for sloth. Slothful people lie about and do nothing. They refuse to put themselves out for anything or anyone. They just don’t seem to have a whole lot of ambition. That’s how this line of argument usually goes.

Now if that’s the case, sloth might seem to be a problem, and maybe even a character flaw, but we’d hardly describe it as a deadly sin. In fact, in a society where nobody seems to have enough time for anything…when 24/7 is the standard measure of how much we want to be available to work…when families are stretched because of work schedules, ball schedules, music lesson schedules and even church schedules…when everything is rushed…when high stress lifestyles lead to high blood pressure…when there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all that we feel we have to do…when cats are living with dogs…you know, a little bit of sloth might be a healthy thing.

In fact, there is a health researcher in Germany who has suggested just that! Professor Peter Axt, in a paper entitled “The Joy of Laziness,” says, “The benefits of procrastination are grossly undervalued in modern society. People are working longer hours and trying to fit more into every day. But when you are already stressed and anxious, it can be much better to do nothing than rush to the gym for a workout…People who would rather relax in a hammock than run a marathon certainly have a better chance of living to old age.” And they may be smarter.[i] Now that’s my kind of study.

So sloth, if it is laziness, sounds like a pretty minor sin. But what if sloth is something more? Surely it must be since it made the list of the Seven Deadlies. What was it about sloth that made this sin seem like such a threat to our very souls?

Desea iniciar con la pereza. Si alguien tiene alguna vez acusado de ser un perezoso, de la variedad de diez dedos, fueron probablemente le acusa de ser poncho. Ese es el sinónimo de aceptación general para la pereza. Los perezosos son indolentes y no hacer nada. Se niegan a ponerse a cabo por nada ni por nadie. Ellos no parecen tener un montón de ambición. Así es como esta línea de argumento generalmente es.

Ahora bien, si ese es el caso, la pereza puede parecer un problema, y tal vez es un defecto de carácter, pero no es un pecado mortal. De hecho, en una sociedad donde nadie parece tener tiempo para nada ... cuando 24 / 7 es la medida estándar de lo mucho que desea que estén disponibles para trabajar ... cuando las familias están al límite debido a los horarios de trabajo, los horarios de pelota, los horarios de clase de música e incluso los horarios iglesia ... cuando todo se precipitó cuando los estilos de vida ... de alta tensión provocar presión arterial alta ... cuando no hay suficientes horas en el día para hacer todo lo que sentimos que tenemos que hacer ... ya sabes , un poco de pereza podría ser una cosa sana.

De hecho, hay un investigador de la salud en Alemania, que ha sugerido justamente eso! El profesor Peter Axt, en un artículo titulado "El placer de la pereza", dice, "Los beneficios de la dilación son claramente infravalorado en la sociedad moderna. La gente está trabajando más horas y tratar de encajar más en todos los días. Pero cuando ya estás estresada y ansiosa, puede ser mucho mejor no hacer nada que correr al gimnasio para una sesión de ejercicios ... La gente que prefiere relajarse en una hamaca que correr un maratón sin duda tienen una mejor oportunidad de vida hasta la vejez." Y pueden ser más inteligentes. Es mi tipo de estudio.

Así que la pereza, si es indolencia, suena como un pecado bastante pequeño. Pero ¿y si la pereza es algo más? Con toda seguridad debe ser, ya que en la lista de las Siete Deadlies. ¿Qué había en la pereza que hizo este pecado parece ser una amenaza para nuestras almas?

In my first pastorate in Virginia I worked with a young man who was very gifted. He was bright, sociable and had all kinds of potential. He had a lot of things going for him. He had all these things going for him despite the fact that he had a lot working against him, too.

He was being raised by a mother who had overcome her own drug addiction to straighten her life out. She had been through a resurrection of sorts, leaving behind the death that her old ways represented and creating a new life for herself and her two boys. She had done this with the help of family and with the help of God who had given her this new life and who was opening her up to give to others.

This young man, in other words, had a great mother, who had a strong faith, but she didn’t have a lot of money and she worried over her son. He often got into trouble and, even though he was smart, he didn’t get the best grades. Even so, when he graduated from school she worked hard to get him into college.

It was late in the summer before he got a place and they were sure of being able to pay for his tuition. A generous scholarship from the school helped. Then he started school with all of his potential and all of his gifts.

But something happened to him at school. The dark shadows that often overtook him followed him there. Despite all that he had and the support that he had and the promise that this new life represented, he made some bad choices that got him kicked out of school. What finally did it was smoking pot in his dorm room, but something worse than drugs had gotten him. Something worse than laziness. He had given in to his own joylessness and given up on being what even he knew that he could be. What struck him was the sin of sloth.

En mi primera iglesia trabajé con un hombre joven que estaba muy dotado. Era inteligente, sociable y tenía todo tipo de potencial. Tenía un montón de cosas a su favor. Él tenía todas esas cosas a su favor a pesar de que tenía mucho trabajo en su contra, también.

Él estaba siendo criado por una madre que había superado su propia adicción a las drogas para enderezar su vida fuera. Había pasado por una especie de resurrección, dejando tras de sí la muerte que sus viejos hábitos representados y la creación de una nueva vida para ella y sus dos hijos. Lo había hecho con la ayuda de la familia y con la ayuda de Dios, que le había dado esta nueva vida y que fue su apertura para dar a otros.

Este joven, en otras palabras, había una gran madre, que tenía una fe fuerte, pero no tenía mucho dinero y se preocupaba por su hijo. Con ayuda el vino a un colegio. Y él comenzó la escuela con todo su potencial y todos sus dones.

Pero algo pasó con él en la escuela. A pesar de todo lo que tenía y el apoyo que tenía, y la promesa de que esta nueva vida representada, tomó algunas decisiones malas que tiene lo echaron de la escuela. Fumando marihuana en su propio dormitorio, pero algo peor que drogas le había conseguido. Algo peor que la indolencia. Lo que le golpeó fue el pecado de la pereza.

The ancients used to call sloth “sadness” and by that they meant despair -- a deep despair that kept people from living up to their potential. The desert monks of the fourth century referred to it as “the noonday demon” because it crept in in the middle of the day when the sun was at its hottest. It’s the time of day when the life and energy they experienced in the early morning was burnt off by the heat and what was left was a sense of the pointlessness of work in the midst of a desert day. Why not sleep? Why not give up on the work they were given to do?

I know this experience. I know it well. How many times have I met with people at the beginning of a project when everyone is excited by a new idea! We all sit around the table and say, “Yes, we will start an evangelistic campaign!” “Yes, we will draw up plans for a new building!” “Yes, we will read through the Bible!” “Yes, we will floss!” And everyone is intoxicated by the notion and assignments are made, plans are put in place. Then a few weeks later, the energy has flagged. Everyone still agrees that it is a good idea, but the work has ground to a halt. Nothing seems to be moving forward. Sloth has set in. It’s as if there is a great drowsiness in the land.

We all know the old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is for this reason that Jesus didn’t say to folks, “Let your mind transformed. Believe differently. Try on a new mental paradigm.” He did want our minds to be transformed, but he wanted us to do more than that. He wanted us to bear fruit.

Los antiguos solía llamar la pereza "tristeza" y entiende por desesperación--una profunda desesperación que impidieron que las personas viven su potencial. Hay un dicho - el camino al infierno está pavimentado de buenas intenciones. Es por esta razón que Jesús no decir a la gente, "Cree de forma diferente. Pruebe en un nuevo paradigma mental". Él quería que nuestras mentes para ser transformado, pero quería que hagamos más que eso. Quería que nosotros a dar sus frutos.

Este es el punto de la parábola de Juan que hemos leído esta mañana. Cuando Jesús dice que él es la vid y nosotros somos los pámpanos, el siguiente paso es para que los pámpanos producir frutos. Si sólo escuchar la palabra…si sólo escuchamos y creemos…pero no vayamos a vivir la palabra y poner en práctica en nuestra vida, entonces ¿qué buena es la palabra para nosotros o para el mundo? El deseo de Dios es que damos sus frutos y que de esa manera ser discípulos de Jesús.

Bearing fruit is the point of the parable from John which we read this morning. When Jesus says that he is the vine and we are the branches, the next step is for the branches to produce fruit. If we only hear the word…if we only listen and believe…but then do not go on to live the word and put into practice in our lives, then what good is the word to us or to the world? God’s desire is that we bear fruit and in that way be Jesus’ disciples.

Sloth is the sin that threatens that fruit bearing. It is, as Thomas Aquinas said, “that sluggishness of mind which neglects to begin good.”[ii] This is a lot more than laziness. Even busy people can suffer this kind of sin. Wendy Wasserstein, who wrote a satirical book all about how to be slothful, says busy people in our society are the ultimate examples of slothdom. They are übersloths. She admits that it’s hard to imagine: “Any woman who is obsessed with her Palm Pilot, her Blackberry, and her cell phone can’t possibly be construed as” a sloth, but they are. “When you achieve true slothdom, you have no desire for the world to change. True sloths are not revolutionaries…It doesn’t matter if the world evolves, because your purpose is not to get things done. Sloths are neither angry nor hopeful. They are not even anarchists. Anarchy takes too much work. Sloths are the lazy guardians at the gate of the status quo.”[iii]

The lazy guardians at the gate of the status quo. Wasserstein suspects that there is no point to all of our work. It’s a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Are we really producing anything of value? Is all of our activity really leading us somewhere new? Somewhere important? Why are you so busy and how is that working out for you?

La pereza realmente no es acerca de la indolencia en absoluto. Se trata de prestando atención a lo que realmente importa. Él es aproximadamente prestando atención a Dios. Y si usted está sentado en un Barcalounger con un remota de la TV 7 horas en un día o trabajando como un maníaco 24/7 le puede aún ser atrapados en perezoso. O bien, uno puede ser inútil y puede llevar lejos de lo que realmente importa.

Cuando Jesús va con los discípulos en el jardín de Getsemaní a orar, lo qué pasa con ellos es simbólico de lo que ocurre a todos nosotros. Jesús tiene sólo una simple solicitud a Pedro, Santiago y Juan como él sale a orar: "Permanecer aquí y mantener despierto". Pero, ¿qué es lo que hacen? Ellos se quedan dormidos. Sus intenciones eran buenas. Estaban dispuestos a hacer todo lo que Jesús les pide. Pero ellos fueron superados por el sueño.

Nuestro dormiendo toma muchas formas. Nuestra capacidad para responder a Dios puede ser perjudicado de muchas maneras. Y podemos olvidarnos de lo que realmente es importante.

Sloth is the shadow side of pride. If pride is thinking too much of ourselves, sloth can sometimes show up as thinking too little of ourselves and of our abilities. It is failing to claim the capacities that God has given us to be the people we were meant to be. Sometimes that comes across as low self-esteem. Sometimes it comes across as a busy-ness that distracts us from the abundant life Christ calls us to live. Either way, we fail to be what God has made us to be.

But the most devastating effect of despair and sloth is how it saps our joy and saps our hope. When we lose the capacity for hope we have entered into the deadly realm. What have we lost when we lose our ability to take joy in the world around us, to take joy in the people around us, to take joy in our lives, and to take joy in God?

The movie Life is Beautiful depicts the love of a father and son as they are taken off to concentration camps in the middle of World War II. The father is a born comic and he is able to convince his son that they are part of some great contest. It is the father’s ability to maintain his joy even in the midst of the most dehumanizing conditions that sustains the boy and sustains hope.

Jesus, when he went to the cross, was able to remind his followers that no one was taking his life from him. He was laying down his life willingly. He was suffering the worst that the world had to offer, but he was not giving up the joy, the hope and the promise that God had put into the heart of creation. Those things would remain. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he said. “And do not let them be afraid.”

La película La Vida es Bella representa el amor de un padre y su hijo, como son despegados a campos de concentración en medio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El padre es un cómic nacido y es capaz de convencer a su hijo que forman parte de algún gran concurso. Se trata capacidad del padre para mantener su alegría incluso en medio de las condiciones más deshumanizadoras que sustenta al chico y sostiene la esperanza.

Jesús, cuando iba a la Cruz, fue capaz de recordar a sus seguidores que nadie estaba tomando su vida de él. Él fue establecen su vida voluntariamente. Él estaba sufriendo el peor que el mundo tenía que ofrecer, pero él no estaba dando hasta la alegría, la esperanza y la promesa de que Dios habían puesto en el corazón de la creación. Serían siendo esas cosas. "No dejes que vuestros corazones se agitada," dijo. "Y no les permiten tener miedo". No miedo. No desesperacion. No perezoso. Gracias a Dios.

God does not want sour-faced Christians who do not know how to experience deep joy. God wants you with all of your capacities for life and joy and fruitfulness. It doesn’t matter what obstacles you face. It doesn’t matter where you have been or what you have done. It doesn’t matter how far you have felt from God to this point…God is calling you to life. This is our hope. This is our strength. This is the promise that we know in Christ Jesus, who will not be defeated, even by our slothfulness. Thanks be to God.

John 15:1-8 [NRSV]

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

“You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Juan 15:1-8 [Reina Valera 1995]

"Yo soy la vid verdadera y mi Padre es el labrador. Todo pámpano que en mí no lleva fruto, lo quitará; y todo aquel que lleva fruto, lo limpiará, para que lleve más fruto.

“Ya vosotros estáis limpios por la palabra que os he hablado. Permaneced en mí, y yo en vosotros. Como el pámpano no puede llevar fruto por sí mismo, si no permanece en la vid, así tampoco vosotros, si no permanecéis en mí.

"Yo soy la vid, vosotros los pámpanos; el que permanece en mí y yo en él, este lleva mucho fruto, porque separados de mí nada podéis hacer. El que en mí no permanece, será echado fuera como pámpano, y se secará; y los recogen, los echan en el fuego y arden. Si permanecéis en mí y mis palabras permanecen en vosotros, pedid todo lo que queráis y os será hecho. En esto es glorificado mi Padre: en que llevéis mucho fruto y seáis así mis discípulos.”

---

[i] Anastasia Stephens, “Sloth-the cardinal virtue,” The Independent Newspaper, 2001.

[ii] Summa Theologica, II.2.35

[iii] Wendy Wasserstein, Sloth, [New York: Oxford University Press, 2005], p. 104.

Body Building

I’m going to begin today with a word. It’s a very simple word. A very familiar word. It’s not a 5-syllable $50 word. It’s not a word I pulled out of a theology book in seminary. It’s not Greek or Latin or Hebrew or Swahili. It’s just a word but it is one of those words that can make all the difference in the world.


When you’re lazy, you don’t use this word. When you don’t want to think about the consequences of the decisions you make, this is not a word you want to hear. When you think something doesn’t really matter, you don’t use this word. When you just want to be entertained, you don’t want this word.


But if you think your choices make a difference…if you think there is something more to the Christian life than just the entry point…if you think there is something for us to do after we sing, “Here I am, Lord”…if you think there is some walk to go along with the talk…if you think that there may be something more to this journey of faith than a few steps across the room and a few tears at the altar rail…if you don’t think that Jesus rose so you could pose…if you believe that standing on the promises is more than sitting on the premises…if you want…desire…need…thirst for…hunger for…yearn for a life worth living in a church worthy of its Savior…have I got a word for you. The word is…wait for it…THEREFORE.


Therefore. Scientists use it to explain their scientific proofs. “Given all of these complex calculations, THEREFORE e=mc2.” Politicians use it to explain their resolutions. “Whereas King George is a tyrant, THEREFORE be it resolved that we are independent.” Children use it to explain their behavior. “Since I am hungry, THEREFORE I am going to take a cookie from the cookie jar.” And Christians use it…well, how do they use it?


“As you THEREFORE have received Christ Jesus the Lord…” That’s the beginning of the reading from Colossians that we had for today. Do you recognize it? As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, THEREFORE there are consequences. There are things that flow from that. There are QEDs. There are implications. There are subsequent provisions. There is more.


Shane Claiborne, a Christian activist who lives in Philadelphia but who grew up in East Tennessee says that he grew up in a Christian tradition that encouraged him to give his life to Jesus but did very little to guide him in what to do next. I have given my life to Jesus, THEREFORE I am going to do…what? Claiborne, in the book The Irresistible Revolution says, “I must have gotten born again six or eight times and it was great every time. (I highly recommend it.)…I came to realize that preachers were telling me to lay my life at the foot of the cross, but they weren’t giving me anything to pick up. A lot of us were hearing ‘don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t sleep around,’ and naturally started asking, ‘Okay, that was pretty much my life, so what do I do now?’” [The Irresistible Revolution, [Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 2006], p.38]


Shane Claiborne needed a THEREFORE. So he went to live with the poor and the homeless and to love them. We need a THEREFORE. Don’t get me wrong. We need the initial life-altering, head-turning, jaw-dropping, mind-blowing, sin-releasing, redemption-receiving, falling-in-love-with-Jesus thing, too. We need that because otherwise we’ll always have those totally-depressing, low-down, mind-messing, working at the car wash blues. We’ll always be trying to do it on our own power, under our own steam…never knowing what it means to be loved despite ourselves and just for ourselves. But we need a THEREFORE.


“As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, THEREFORE continue to live your lives in him…See that no one takes you captive…” Back in the day, what did it mean to be taken captive? What is this letter to the Colossians trying to say? Were there slave traders going through? Were they being arrested? No, the thing that was going to make them captive was a competing vision of the world. There were mystery religions around them. There were esoteric philosophies. There were powers at work in the world. And they wanted to claim the Christians. They wanted to seduce them into believing lies about themselves. They wanted them to forget who they were.


Let me tell you, you can do a lot of analysis on what these competing philosophies and religions looked like. You can break down the clues in the text and you can figure out what sorts of groups were active in first century Greece. We could get into Jewish splinter groups and Gnostic branches of Platonism. But you don’t need to do all that to understand that the same sorts of forces that were lying to the Christians of Colossae in 60 AD are still lying to the Christians of Franktown in 2010 AD.


Those groups were telling them that their bodies didn’t matter, therefore they could be treated in extreme ways. Those groups said that their identity was not in Christ, that his death and resurrection were irrelevant, that what really mattered was what they ate and how they ate it. What mattered was which festival they turned up at and how they greeted the new moon. Jesus wasn’t it. Something else was.


To which this letter says, “No.” The whole fullness of God dwells bodily in Christ. There is no other thing or person or spirit above him. What a crazy thing to say! Why be so radical? Why speak in such a radical, exclusive way? Isn’t that going to set us apart from other people? Isn’t that going to be a barrier?


“In him you were circumcised.” The writer goes back to the old Jewish ritual that was the sign of the covenant in the flesh. Now we are told that the mark in the flesh, the mark that frees us was Jesus’ shedding of his flesh on the cross.


“You were buried with him in baptism and you were also raised with him through faith in God.” Everyone of those new Christians in Colossae went through the waters of baptism and it gave them a new identity. “You were dead in sin…and God made you alive together with Christ.”


All of this focus on Jesus. Wasn’t it going to make them stick out? Wasn’t it going to make them look funny? Wasn’t it going to make them feel uncomfortable about living like their neighbors? Well, yeah!


THEREFORE don’t let anyone condemn you. THEREFORE don’t believe that your worth or your identity or your self-esteem is tied up with the values of the world because the world can’t offer you any security of position or worth. THEREFORE you are part of the body of Christ and hold fast to the head.


I’m getting ready to go teach in Dallas. I’m teaching local pastors who are serving churches. So every year I try to assign books that will be challenging but will help them see how talk about God is really talk about what we do as people who love God. This year I gave them Shane Claiborne’s book to read. But every year I assign a book called Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon. I assign it because it challenges preachers and lay people to think about what we do as though we are a colony in a strange new land.


We are hearing a lot of talk these days about aliens in our immigration debate today – who’s supposed to be here. Who’s not. But it’s helpful for Christians to remember that they are supposed to be aliens in this land. If it was ever true that Christians could depend on the culture around us to support the lifestyle Jesus commands (and I don’t think it ever was) we certainly can’t today. The blue laws that kept Sunday a distinctive day of the week are gone. People can’t comprehend why we do the things we do…why we would say that Jesus has turned our world upside down in such a way that it changes what we do and how we live in the world. The world is even losing its ability to understand and appreciate Christian practices like giving, like compassion, like humility, like working for justice, like self-denial, like fasting –when is the last time you saw any of these promoted in popular culture?


So what does it take to be resident aliens – people who love the world so much that they won’t facilitate its lies? People who love the world so much that they will embrace the strange truth and strange practices of Jesus? People who live fully in this world, but whose home is never fully here?


We have been talking a lot in these last few weeks about our baptismal covenant. We have talked about the special responsibility we have to be a community that cares for our children and youth and who commit to “surrounding these persons” with care and with nurturing them in the faith. Well, now it’s time for the THEREFORE. Since Jesus is the reason we’re here…since we trust that it’s not our merit that matters, but God working in us…since we are bound to each other as one body…since God is counting on us to be Christ’s body on earth…since all these things…THEREFORE we are going to be a body. We are going to act in ways that draw us closer to one another and closer to God. We are going to pass on our faith as it was passed on to us.


Because if we don’t, who shall we be? A people who have given our verbal commitment to Christ but who never give Jesus our bodies. THEREFORE be the people…God’s people. Thanks be to God.


Colossians 2:6-19 [NRSV]
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.


In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.


Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

The Community That Formed a Prophet

“Brothers and sisters in Christ;

Through the Sacrament of Baptism

we are initiated into Christ’s holy Church.”

Initiated. I’ve got some things to say today. Important things. Things that make a difference in this world. Things that can take sick people and make them whole. Things that can break down walls. Things that can overcome prejudice. Things that can strip bare the powerful of this world and things that can lead even enslaved children to proclaim the power of God. Would you like to hear these things?

Well, to hear them, we’re going to start with the water and those words we say as we begin every baptismal service. “Brothers and sisters in Christ; through the sacrament of baptism we are initiated into Christ’s holy Church.” It all begins in the water. We are initiated.

I was out at Camp Occohannock-on-the-Bay during the days this week as the chaplain in residence. One of the days I was there I was talking with the children and youth about friendship and we were talking about the covenant that drew David and Jonathan together as friends in the stories from the book of 2 Samuel.

Covenant was a serious thing. It was a binding promise. To make a covenant you had some dramatic act. You might take some animals and slaughter them and lay one half of the animal to one side and the other half to the other and the two of you would walk together through them. Then you would turn and point to the carcass and say, “May God do that to me and more if I don’t keep my end of this covenant.” I often wonder what it would be like if we had that sort of ritual when we made promises to each other today. What if every marriage included walking through the carcasses? I can just imagine the wedding checklist – Caterer? Check. Candles? Check. Flowers? Check. Butcher? Check. But you would remember that promise?

The waters of baptism help us remember that we do not exist on our own. We have become part of something bigger. We are initiated into Jesus Christ and Christ’s church.

The liturgy goes on. Through baptism “we are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation.” Incorporated. Embedded in that word is the Latin root for ‘body’ – corpus – from which we get words like: corporeal, and army corps or the Peace Corps, corporation, and corpse. When we are incorporated our bodies are now part of God’s bigger story. The story of Moses and Miriam, Mary and Peter – this is our story. God’s mighty acts of salvation are not just intended for the saints but for me.

“We are incorporated…and given new birth through water and the Spirit.” In the scripture reading from 2 Kings for today did you catch how Naaman was described as he came up from the Jordan River after being healed of his leprosy? It says “his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” The new birth that we are given through baptism is all about the possibility and promise of our lives in Christ. We are no longer defined by the sin and sickness that is a part of every life. We are defined by the action of God in giving us grace to be something more than what we have been, or to become what we were meant to be all along.

So this is one of the important things I have to say to you today: You have forgotten what it means to be baptized. Some of you are living as though you have never been baptized. (And maybe some of you have not been, which means we should talk.) But most of us Christians are living as though we had never been baptized and it is almost like we’ve never been wet. You were initiated into Christ’s holy Church. But some of you have been acting like the Church is a foreign thing. You have one foot in church and one foot out. You treat your Christian identity like it’s some awkward middle name that you’re ashamed of. Like maybe your name is Mergatraud and somebody yells it out across the room and you hide your head because you’d rather go by a less weird name like Bob. But no, you’ve been baptized. You’ve been initiated. You’ve been claimed. And maybe there are things Christians are doing that make you not want to claim them. Maybe you’ve seen churches riddled with hypocrisy. Maybe you’re not sure you know what you believe about God or Jesus because of things that are going on in your life and you feel like you ought to have it all together before you claim this identity. Maybe you’re afraid of commitment. Maybe the preacher’s a little funky. Get over it! If you’ve been initiated you are welcome even with your doubts. If you’ve been initiated you are part of a family that has some strange members and you’re one of them. If you’ve been initiated it can get uncomfortable sometimes and you will stick out in the crowd. If you’ve been initiated you can turn away and go another direction, but if you’ve got your foot in the door come all the way inside because you’re letting the hot air in and Jesus wants your whole self. This is not the hokey pokey, people, where you put your right hand and in and take your right hand out. Put your whole self in and shake it all about! Let your Jesus freak flag fly.

You have been initiated. You have been incorporated – your whole body. You have been given new birth. Some of you are acting like you haven’t been. Like maybe you are a slave to your bad habits. Like maybe you are a slave to your worst impulses. Like maybe you are a slave to the television or the Internet or your video game or whatever it is that is keeping you from following Jesus more closely. Like maybe you’re a slave to the crowd, to your peers, to your friends. Like maybe you’re a slave to your guilt. Like maybe you’re a slave to your bad diet. But guess what? It’s Independence Day and you are not a slave to any of those things. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul says in Galatians 5:1. “Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” You have been given new birth.

But I came today to tell a story about a little girl. All these important things I need to say came because of the story of a little girl. An enslaved little girl. If you weren’t listening carefully you might have missed her in the reading from 2 Kings.

The story is usually called the healing of Naaman by Elisha, the baldheaded prophet we talked about last week. But it really ought to be called the story of the servants.

Chapter 5 of 2 Kings starts out by telling us about a man from Aram whose name was Naaman. Naaman was a leader of a large army. He was a strong man. A brave man. A respected man. God had worked through him to bring good things to his country, which was strange because Naaman didn't live in Israel where God's people lived. He lived in the land of an enemy nation. But God favored Naaman anyway and God favored him even though he had a terrible skin disease. Maybe leprosy. The text is unclear.

Here’s where he find the little girl, though. In Naaman’s house he had a slave girl who had been taken during a raid from Samaria, which is the part of Israel where Elisha the prophet lived. She saw what was happening to Naaman as he became more and more disfigured by his disease. So one day she said to Naaman's wife, “If only he could see the prophet in Samaria! He could cure him of his leprosy.”

Maybe it was just a passing thought. She had no status in society. She had no goods to call her own. She would not have been given credit for knowing anything on her own. But she said something that gave hope. Suddenly the one thing that Naaman lacked in life, a slave-girl knew how to find. And his wife told him and Naaman told his king.

So Naaman went to his king and he said, “I want to be cleansed. And my slave girl says there is a man in Israel who can do it.”

Now the king must have thought he was crazy - first, that he would listen to the advice of a slave girl, and second, that he would try to find healing in the land of his enemy. But Naaman was a respected man, a man who had brought the king many victories, a man who didn't want to be sick anymore. So the king agreed to the trip and sent a letter with him to the king of Israel.

There was a little problem, though, because the king of Aram wasn't really a diplomat. He may have been good in choosing a leader like Naaman for his army, but he was not too good about choosing his words to an enemy king. He just scribbled out a note that said, “I am sending this note with my servant Naaman. Please cure him of his leprosy.”

When the king of Israel read the note he couldn't believe it. Cure him of leprosy? Who did the king of Aram think he was? Was he God? As the king of Israel looked at Naaman with his horses and chariots - when he saw the load they carried, 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold and ten of the finest sets of clothes he had ever seen, when he saw all that wealth and knew the power it represented, he was sure that the king of Aram had set him a trap. It was all a hoax so that when he failed to cure this monster, he would be blamed and a war would result. So the king of Israel tore his clothes, because that what kings did back in the day when things were looking bad. The king of Israel knew that he was headed for an epic fail.

Here’s the thing, though. All of these powerful people - the king of Aram and the king of Israel – had forgotten that it was not kings who healed - it is only God. The person who remembered this was the slave girl who had nothing. Somehow this girl knew where to find dealing. This girl knew how God worked. As Elizabeth Mitchell Clement, one of my friends at the Fund for Theological Education likes to say, “I want to know what kind of community formed that little girl.” I want to know how she was formed so powerfully that she could turn the lives of kings and generals upside down.

There’s something important to say about that, too, but let’s finish the story, first. So when Elisha heard about the king tearing his clothes, he sent a message, saying, “What are you doing?! Send Naaman to me so that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel, and so that he may know that God is here.”

So Naaman drove his horses and chariots to the house of Elisha. And Elisha didn't come out to meet him. He sent a messenger. The messenger had a very brief message for the monster at the door, “Go and wash yourself in the Jordan River seven times and you will be healed.”

That was it. No great tasks that had to be performed. No big price that had to be paid. Nothing that Naaman's power or wealth or influence could buy. He just had to go down to the local river and take a bath.

So Naaman sat there with his horses and chariots at the door of Elisha's house. He sat there with the 750 pounds of silver and the 150 pounds of gold and the ten beautiful sets of clothes which he was going to offer in exchange for his health. He had travelled many miles into the heart of the nation of his enemy. Now this prophet had sent a messenger to tell him to jump in the river!

He was furious. He was in a rage. He stormed away saying, “This man didn't even have the courtesy to come out and see me. I know how these healers work they come out and they stand over you and they call on their god and they wave their hands over the spots that need to be healed and they cure you! He didn't even SEE me!”

For Naaman this was a serious offense. He had gone for a face-to-face meeting with this prophet. The slave girl had told him he should be WITH Elisha. And Elisha had sent him the equivalent of a text message. And, O, the thing that Elisha had told him. Go dip in the river Jordan? That was like going to Cleveland and being told you could be cleansed by dipping in Lake Erie! Naaman knew that there were better rivers back home. The Abana and the Pharpar would do just fine. But the Jordan? That was dirty. That was unthinkable. That was...foreign.

Suddenly it became clear what it was that really made Naaman sick. It wasn't the disease of his skin. It was the disease inside of him. Because even though he was well-respected. Even though God had blessed him. He couldn't see the way to healing because he was blinded by his own power and his wealth and his prejudice.

Naaman headed for home in a furious rage. He probably would have kept going except for…his servants. Just like the slave girl in his home - they didn't have any status. They didn't have anything to call their own. There was no reason to assume they had anything to say worthy of listening. They took a risk in offering their advice to Naaman - especially when he was so angry. But they called out to him and said, “Master, think about this. If the prophet had told you to do some big task, you'd have done it. So why not give this little thing a try? Why not take a bath on the off chance it might work? You've got nothing to lose.”

So Naaman went down to the river Jordan. And he left behind those horses and chariots he brought from home. He left behind that 750 pounds of silver and 150 pounds of gold and ten beautiful sets of clothes. He left behind even his own clothes and, far from home, in the land of his enemy, he went with nothing into the waters of the Jordan. Not once, not twice, but seven times he went under that water. And the seventh time, when he came up it was like being born all over again. He felt alive. And as he looked at his skin it was a clean and new as the day he came into this world. Naaman praised God and ran back to Elisha - and this time Elisha greeted him personally because now he knew the power of God.

Now the Jordan River should ring some bells for you. It’s the river the people of Israel crossed to come into the Promised Land. It’s the river John was baptizing in. It’s the river Jesus went into when he was baptized. People who go down into this river seem to come up with new life and new possibilities. This Jordan River has special waters. This baptismal water is different from all the other waters of the earth. When we are initiated through this water we have a new life.

So here’s the other important thing I have to say about that little girl. She seems to come out of nowhere in the story. But she didn’t come from nowhere. She was formed by a community that had dedicated itself to finding God in the world. She had experienced trauma. She had been ripped out of the fabric of her home by raiders. She had lost all of her possessions and all of her family. But she had not forgotten who she was. The community that formed that slave girl prophet had given her a gift that could not be taken away from her. The community that formed that prophet had given her a faith that she could share even in the midst of tragedy and suffering.

“We will surround this person with a community of love and forgiveness.” Do you recognize these words? “We will surround this girl...that she may grow in her trust of God.” Do you hear what we say as a community in baptism? “We will surround this boy that he may grow in his trust of God and be found faithful in his service to others. We will pray for him…pray for her…pray for them that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life.

You’ve got things you need to hear as an individual. You’ve been initiated. You have forgotten. You need to go back to the water to remember who you are. But there’s something big you need to hear here, too. You are not just here for yourself. You are here for somebody else. We are getting ready to baptize a slew of babies here in the next few months. We are going to take them to this font and we’re going to say these words. “We will surround this child.” What is that going to mean? It means that you are here to surround Addelyn Henry and Emma Willis and Tate Annon and Emmaline Henderson and every other young person who is initiated into Christ’s holy Church along with you. This is why it can’t take our hokey pokey efforts. It takes our whole self.

Today we are moving into a new kind of understanding of the way we work with children and youth. It builds on the things we have been doing over the past few years but it will not work unless we all remember that our freedom in Christ, just like our freedom as citizens, is built not on the idea that we are free to do whatever we like, but on our freedom to fully participate in the larger body. Peter has a new job description as he works with our age level ministries, but it the work of faith formation for our children and youth is one that will take teams of us, all of us, claiming a role and ensuring that church is more than just a place that is good for you (like cod liver oil!). It is a place where we can discover God for our healing and for the healing of the whole world.

Thanks be to God.

2 Kings 5:1-14 (RSV)

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.

Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little maid from the land of Israel, and she waited on Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, "Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."

So Naaman went in and told his lord, "Thus and so spoke the maiden from the land of Israel." And the king of Syria said, "Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel."

So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten festal garments. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, "When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy."

And when the king of Israel read this letter, he rent his clothes and said, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of leprosy? Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me."

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, he sent to the king saying, "Why have you rent your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in the house of Israel."

So Naaman came to with his horses and chariots, and halted at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored, and you shall be clean."

But Naaman was angry, and went away, saying, "Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the rivers of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage.

But his servants came near and said to him, "My father, if the prophet had commanded you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather, then, when he says to you, 'Wash and be clean'?" So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.