Four Good Questions

Sometimes questions are more important than answers — and this week was one of those times …

 Four Good Questions

2 Kings 5:1-14  Mark 1:40-45 

What I bring you this morning from these stories of leprosy and healing are four important questions. Let me warn you right now, I am not bringing you answers to these questions.

As I once told our graduating seniors, there are two kinds of churches in the world – answer churches and journey churches. Answer churches find faith in certainty, in timeless doctrines and long traditions, and they look to their pastors for instruction in those doctrines and traditions. Journey churches find faith in the messy business of living, where things are neither certain nor consistent. I don’t need to tell you which kind of church we are. So today I am just bringing you questions for us to ponder along our journey together.

The first one comes from the king of Israel. Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram had presented himself to the King of Israel in search of healing, because he had heard that there was a great healer in Israel. “Am I God, to give death or life…? … Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me” [2 Kings 5:7] I am always uneasy when a person faced with a life and death questions declines on the basis of not wanting to be God. God, it seems to me, has little problem with questions of life and death – God chooses life. So “Am I God” is not the question I want to focus on this morning.

Rather, consider with me the implied question to Naaman – Are you just trying to start a quarrel with me? I wonder how often we misinterpret what people ask of us. I wonder how often someone is asking for healing and we hear a feud brewing instead.

The second question comes from the servants of Naaman. Naaman had gone to the prophet Elisha who, instead of greeting him in person and laying on hands, had simply sent a message to him to go to the river Jordan and wash himself seven times. Naaman was outraged – outraged that Elisha had failed to come to him, and outraged at the idea that the waters of the Jordan were more healing than the waters of his own country, the rivers Abana and Pharpar.

His servants challenged him: “… if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much, when all said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” [2 Kings 5: 13] I wonder how many of us have people in our lives – family, friends, co-workers – who would challenge us in that way? I wonder how many of us would be willing to challenge someone we know who seems unwilling to do the small, simple things required of her/him?

And if we were challenged, I wonder why it is so much easier to undertake a difficult healing regime than a simple one. I wonder why we trust things that are complicated more than we trust things that are simple. I wonder if this is the phenomenon that scholars of religion report: faith traditions that make more and stricter demands upon their members garner more loyalty than those who make fewer and milder demands. I wonder why we are so suspicious of what is straightforward and un-complex.

The third question comes from the man with leprosy who came begging to Jesus. It is not precisely in the form of a question, but Jesus treated it as a question and so will I. “If you choose, you can make me clean.” He said. [Mark 1:40] My colleagues who have studied the Greek text tell me that the word translated as “choose” is actually somewhat stronger in the Greek than in English. It implies an investment of the will, a determination to act. The man with leprosy is asking whether his condition warrants that kind of soul investment from Jesus.

I am reminded by this question of how many good causes we are confronted with – how many legitimate needs and compelling stories. This is a question that is often asked of us, and I think we are called to grow in our capacity to discern an honest answer to it. Put simply, there are more good things to do than we have the time, energy, resources, and passion to do. I wonder if this question – “if you choose” ought to be one that we ask ourselves more often than we do.

Jesus answers this man in the affirmative: “I do choose.” [Mark 1:41]. But uncharacteristically, the text tells us why he makes this commitment: “moved with pity.” [Mark 1:41]. We are not fond of the word pity in our time, and for good reason. It is often used in condescending and unhelpful ways. The Greek word here might also be translated as compassion; in fact, it is the same Greek word that describes the motivation of that Samaritan traveler who stopped to help an injured man on the road to Jericho. Here again the nuance is important: this is not intellectual, distant concern for someone; this is gut-wrenching empathy for the suffering of a person. It is something we experience in our own bodies. If some news makes you hold your abdomen and lean over, then you are feeling this kind of compassion.

It is in this compassion that I find our fourth question for this morning – in our words rather than in the words of the text or the words of Jesus. I wonder, out of all the suffering in the world, which are the sufferings that touch us in this dramatic and visceral way? What are the injustices, the cruelties, the spiritual toxins that make us stop and turn and act?

I told you at the outset that I had no answers to these questions, and I truly do not. What I do have is a deep regard and respect for them. Listen again:

• Are we hearing something as quarrelsome that is really an invitation to healing?
• Are we willing to do the simple things that are asked of us as disciples and as members of the church?
• Are we willing to ask one another to do those things, and to hold one another accountable for our answers?
• Do we have the will to respond to the needs that are put before us?
• Among all of the needs and issues demanding our attention, which ones will we give our hearts and souls to?

It seems to me that these are precisely the kinds of questions we ought to be asking ourselves – asking about our own lives, asking about our faith community, and asking about our wider world. May God bless our wrestling with these deep and troubling questions.

Amen.

Prayer for February 15, 2009

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

Gracious God, who loves all and forgets none, we bring to you our prayers for all your children.

For all whom we love, watch over, and care for …

For all prisoners and captives, and all who suffer from oppression, that you will manifest your mercy toward them, and make all hearts as merciful as your own …

For all who bear the cross of suffering, the sick in body or mind or spirit …

For all those who are trouble by the sin or suffering of those they love …

For all who are absorbed in their own grief, that they may be raised to share the sorrows of others, and know the saving grace of the cross …

For all who are perplexed by the deeper questins of life and overshadowed with doubt, that your light may guide them …

For all who are tried by temptations or weakness, that you mercy may be their strength …

For all who are lonely and sad in the midst of others’ joy, that they may know you as their friend and comforter …

For the infirm and aged and for all who are dying, that they may find their strength in you and light at evening time …

For all forgotten by us, but dear to you …

O compassionate God, hear our prayers, answer them according to your will, and make us channels of your infinite grace …

All these things we pray in the name of the one to whom all hearts are open, even Jesus, the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …