2nd Kings 5.1-3, 7-15c
It’s not obedience that saves us. It’s god!
It was 1970, the year I turned fifteen. That summer, my friends’ grandpa died. After the funeral, the family had a dinner at their home across the street from ours. When the youngest saw me, he ran over to tell me all about the “funeral party” – as he called it – they were having. After he shared all the details, he was about to head back home, when he stopped and asked me a question. “Where do you go to church?” It’s as if it only then dawned on him that he’d never seen us at his church. Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic. I told him we belonged to Christ Lutheran. He got a sad look on his face, said, “Oh, you’re one of them ….”
I’d grown up with him. And his brothers. And sister. And that’s the only time we talked about religion. Three years later, it all changed. My family moved to Phoenix. I finished highSchool. Started college. When I was at Arizona State, it was all anyone talked about. Religion, that is. Not in the classroom, but along the mall. Sit there, for any length of time, and someone was bound to hand you a tract, ask you if you’re saved, and talk to you all about Jesus. It was more than a little intimidating. Especially for a Lutheran kid, fresh out of Western PA. One thing I learned pretty quickly … never, ever, bring up the fact that you’d been baptized as a baby! It didn’t gain you any points! But I guess it was all a part of the journey that brough me here. Not here, to Washington State, but here, called and ordained. But it was funny. When I read through the passage from secondKings. it was those long-ago conversations that came to mind. About baptism. About being saved.
Now, in all fairness, this story – about Elisha and Naaman – isn’t about baptism. Not foremost. Not first. But it does resonate. It does reverberate. You see, Naaman is one of the movers and shakers of his world. One of the high and mighty. Only problem … he had leprosy. Not Hansen’s Disease that usually comes to mind. But the eczema, the psoriasis kind. Naaman was a great man, we’re told, in high favor. But because of his skin condition, he was always on the outside looking in. Anyway, taking the advice of his wife’s servant girl, he goes to Elisha. And the prophet tells him to wash seven times in the Jordan River. And when he hears Elisha’s treatment, Naaman’s infuriated. Incensed.
Basically, Naaman considers it “beneath” him. Too common. Too easy. There, just, has to be more. Wash in the Jordan! Seven times! Anyone could do that! EVERYONE could do it! Naaman was expecting something magical! Something mysterious! Something miraculous! Climb the highest mountain, the prophet should have told him! Swim the deepest sea! That’s what Naaman expected! The extraördinary! The exceptional! If just washing in the Jordan seven times was all it took … Well, what kind of god was that!
But that’s why Elisha told Naaman to wash. There is no proving to it. No earning. No deserving! And that’s why we baptize – why god baptizes – babies! Making sure the bar is so low that no one is left out! That no one is excluded! It’s our way – as run-of-the-mill, everyday people – to keep the bar high. It’s our way of making sure we’re better and others aren’t! That we’re in and they’re not! It’s exciting to draw lines in the sand! Dividing. Separating. But that’s not what god does.
That’s not why god’s here. That’s not why we’re here. To pick and choose. Be picked or be chosen. God is – and god’s people are – in the business of including! Of making sure no one is left behind! And that doesn’t happen when you focus only on the smartest and the strongest, on the most prosperous and most popular! In Scouts, one of the first things we were taught was that it isn’t the fastest that sets the pace. It’s the slowest. That way, everyone makes it to the destination! Together!
That’s why Naaman was told to do something everyone else could. He took it as an insult. As a slap in the face. But the prophet meant it as an expression of love. And that’s why we baptize – why our god baptizes – infants! Babies! That’s what love, for us, looks like! What it sounds like! What it feels like! True, infants don’t understand what’s happening to them. But they don’t have to! And yes, they won’t remember what happens! But, that isn’t necessary. Not in order to be loved! We’re saved just like Naaman was made clean … out of the goodness and the greatness of god’s own heart! We don’t baptize to pay off god. Somehow to make god love us. We baptize to show off god’s grace! To flaunt god’s mercy! God’s grace! And the lower the bar, the better!
Baptism – like believing – isn’t there to separate us from others! The good from the bad! The saved from the damned! God’s from notGod’s! It, simply, doesn’t work that way! God sets the bar so low no one’s lost! Sets the bar so low no one’s overlooked! Sets the bar so low no one’s forgotten! That’s the goodNews, the gospel, of this story!
The only thing that matters is god! The only thing that matters is god’s grace! God’s charity! God’s love! Not our strength! Not our understanding! Not our obedience! Not even our believing! None of that’s important! None of it matters! The only thing that’s anything is god! God and a bar set so low that no one even notices that it’s there!
But of course, we’re people. And we don’t like that. We don’t think it’s just. We don’t think it’s fair. And like Naaman, we rant. And we rage. We stomp off wanting more. To be the masters of our fate. And captains of our souls. We want the bar set high. Or high enough. To let us over but keep others out. But that’s not the way god does it. And that’s not the way god’s people do it, either. It wasn’t Naaman who made himself clean. It wasn’t the prophet. It wasn’t the water. The only “thing” that saved Naaman was god! The same is true for us, as well!
The bar, my friends, has been set …
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!