Date: 6/16/2004
Time: 11:08:09 AM
Naaman, a Syrian general, suffers from leprosy. In this passage Elisha miraculously cures his illness, but only after Naaman realizes, with the help of his servants, that his real problem lies with his pride.
Date: 6/17/2004
Time: 12:06:51 AM
I am terrified to imagine myself preaching on July 4th of someone as great, powerful and mighty as Naaman "rescued" from his plight by a mere servant girl.
Story Teller
Date: 6/27/2004
Time: 7:28:31 PM
Naaman listened to the voice of his young slave girl and his servants. Both were the voices of unknown and no name, no rank. They were not great people. To hear their voices of unknown, Naaman had to put himself down and bend his pride.
He struggled between those voices and his own pride.
He also had to take off all his fency clothes to wash himself in the Jordan and be clian. His fency clothes could cover his leprocy, shame, and his illness. His fency clothes showed his high rank and his military authority. Under his fency expensive clothes, his skin was inflamed, the watery discharged, with skin symptoms of leprocy.
Before the Jordan, to be cleaned, to be healed by the power of God, he had to take off all his coverings, high position, authority, pride, rank, wealth, and his power.etc. He also need to become himself with his naked body.
God knows who I am, God knows true myself, I cannot cover me and pretend myself before God. I cannot come to God with my earthly power, rank, and welth.
I just think about the scriptures and wrote about the thoughts. I.D
Date: 6/27/2004
Time: 7:42:12 PM
Nathan now has to go to the people that his army conquered. I cannot imagine George Bush or one of the American generals going to Iraq for some sort of cure.
Since this is first Sunday of the month we will celebrate communion. I plan to emphasize communion as a means of grace in the Wesleyan tradition, which will make a nice tie in with transformation of Nathan. We will celebrate communion using method of intinction, holding out open hands for server to offer bread. This is much like the way Nathan had to ask for help, empty hands (without being able to pay for healing in return).
C-MO
Date: 6/28/2004
Time: 3:42:40 AM
This is much like us and Christ. My (our sin) needs healed. Accept Christ in My (our) hearts, repent and be baptized. Simple, but it is hard to get past ourselves in order to give Christ control. People look to people answers (elaborate and complicated)to people problems. Often God answers are simple, filled with love and grace!
Date: 6/28/2004
Time: 6:25:56 AM
For those also considering the theme of putting down pride or the inability to pay for healing. Enjoy! C-MO
From The Sacred Journed by Frederick Buechner
But when it comes to putting broken lives back together--when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls--the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do--to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst--is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own. Surely that is why, in Jesus' sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle's eye because with his credit card in his pocket, the rich man is so effective at getting for himself everything else he needs that he does not see that what he needs more than anything else in the world can be had only as a gift. He does not see that the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even from le bon Dieu himself, a helping hand.
Date: 6/28/2004
Time: 5:04:36 PM
I love the post that says Naaman had to strip himself of all that represented his station in life in order to be cleansed in the waters. How difficult it can be to come before God in a helpless, vulnerable state. We don't like to be seen in that way. We want status, honor, respect; humility is a difficult pose. But, Jesus says: "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Don't come before God full of pride and all puffed up with your excellence, but with humility, and as another poster said: "with open hands, empty of all of our worldly goods." Good beginnings for this powerful passage. Thanks for the insights. pb in ny
Date: 6/28/2004
Time: 9:07:55 PM
Sacred Journey, not journed Naaman, not Nathan fancy. not fency.
the spelling police
Date: 6/29/2004
Time: 9:01:22 AM
Naaman would not do what Elisha told him to do. He was willing to do something difficult or great but was not willing to do the little things untill his servants talked to him. It is the little things that make the difference if our live and our example. The question is are you willing to do the little things such as not getting mad when someone cuts you off in trafic, or not getting upset when you don't get you way. Are hyou willing to just walk with our lord day by day and having a great relationship letting him lead you little steps.
JWS
Date: 6/29/2004
Time: 1:52:53 PM
Notice that the king of Israel thought the letter was asking something impossible, perhaps looking for an excuse for a military invasion. This monarch was thinking of his own resources and not about God, so he began to mourn. Elisha, however, said "let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet [of God] in Israel."
Both the Israelite king and the Aramean commander are expecting a display of superior strength or ability. In other words, they were expecting "big business."
But God often works in quiet ways. I am struck by the role of the various servants in this story - the servant girl, the messenger sent by Elisha, the servants who appealed to Naaman to reconsider.
Do we have the opportunity to invite others to look for the quiet ways of God, in a world which puts so much stock in economic and military might?
Date: 6/29/2004
Time: 2:28:48 PM
The recent post noting that God often works in quiet ways was by
platypus on the Potter's wheel
Date: 6/29/2004
Time: 2:54:28 PM
The big July 4th discussion seems to be happening over on the gospel page, but I've chosen this text and am also struggling with the holiday. Normally I would put my foot down about a couple of things, like the singing of "My Country Tis of Thee," which is not even stretchable into an appropriate song. But I just arrived here less than a month ago, I have a music director from a different denomination who's used to free reign, and I just figure it's not smart to monkey with July 4th on my fourth Sunday here.
I do, however, find good stuff in this story to link with our understanding of ourselves as a country. The danger of pride, not the grateful kind, but the arrogant kind, is so real among us. Attention to the voices of the weak and willingness to be shown another way--these contribute to real strength, whether you're a person or a country. I have to find a way to say it, but anyway that's the way I'm headed.
Laura in TX
Date: 6/30/2004
Time: 7:47:37 AM
ID: Please don't allow the spelling police's incredible lack of cultural sensitivity to silence you. I, for one, welcome the insights that you shared, and your thoughts in response to the passage, even if they weren't in "perfect English." Thanks for the voice that you bring to this discussion - please feel free to say more. Sam in Miami
Date: 6/30/2004
Time: 10:03:41 AM
I am struggling with how to address the July 4th - ness of this Sunday. The thing that keeps nudging me about this text is the number of people who had to step over boundaries--national and social boundaries--to assist with Naaman's healing. The slave girl was captured from Israel--national boundary. She spoke up to her mistress--social boundary. Naaman had to go from Aram to Israel--national boundary. His officers had to entice him to accept Elisha's advice--social boundary. And so on. I have decided to call my sermon--"Crossing Boundaries to be Healed"--but that is as far as I have gotten. I have consented to include the 2 national hymns included in our hymnal--but only after using two others that speak if God's sovereignty over all. Maybe the message on this July 4 is that the boundaries that we humans put between ourselves are just that--human boundaries. God is not "bound" by our boundaries. And now I seek a comment about our nation along those lines--being sensitive to our conservative congregation, yet sensitive also to the word and work of God.
Date: 7/2/2004
Time: 4:28:28 AM
One possible link this scripture has with the 4th of July is Naaman's desire to take a shovel full of soil with him, as if God only resided in the place where Naaman experienced God. Devotion to God can and is exercised in all of the countries of the world. God blesses all of the people of the world, the servants, the leaders, the neighbors,the old, the young, the cantankerous, and the joyful. God's power is exercised not only in this country that claim's itself to be 'one nation under God' but in every country in the world. All of creation is God's to redeem. Trying Again in Vermont