Friday 23 October 2015

Six keys to greater wholeness

"In all things transitory resteth no glory" -
a good household motto and a key to wholeness
Most people want to be better people. We want to improve – our prospects, our wealth, and above all our well-being. But we tend to think in terms of technique – what will help me do this or stop that – and we tend to look for relatively quick fixes. One of the Bible’s classic stories of healing has some important – and challenging – clues to well-being, or wholeness, which are neither techniques nor quick fixes but are pretty essential.

It is the encounter between Naaman and the prophet Elisha, although it all starts with an unlikely, anonymous au pair. A young woman – probably a teenager – had been abducted from northern Israel by an Aramaic (Syrian, in our terms) raiding party, and sold into slavery. She became a maid to the wife of a senior military commander, Naaman.

And at some point Naaman had a problem. He contracted a disfiguring skin disease that could have made him an outcast. The text calls it leprosy but the term was used for several skin conditions. True leprosy today is a curable disease of skin and nerves but it isn’t definitely known to have existed before the second century BC – and Elisha was operating in the ninth century. But whatever it was, Naaman was fragile, and his immune system needed help. And he probably ran the risk of losing his job and status, if he was thrown out of society through the fear of contamination.

1. Listen!

So he did the right thing. He listened. To his wife. She had herself listened to her maid who said that if Naaman went to Israel, a prophet there would heal him. But would you as an experienced and well respected national leader listen to a foreign teenage au pair advising you how to solve a personal medical problem? And that you’d have to go to her country to do it? It would have sounded like a naive plot so she could go with the entourage and escape back to her home.

But Naaman listened, and decided to act on her advice. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote “Christians are talking when they should be listening. He who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be listening no longer to God either.” Listening is a key ingredient of wholeness. You never know where or how God may speak through another person.

2. Wait!

So Naaman set off for Israel’s capital Samaria and did what anyone in that situation would do. First he made sure he could pay for the treatment. He loaded his wagon with gifts. And secondly he went to the king of Israel with whom at the time Syria had a truce. He assumed that Elisha would be part of the royal court. Which was a snag. He wasn’t. In fact, the king thought the visit was a clever ruse to break the truce and pick a fight.

So Naaman suffered what many of us suffer when we pray, for healing or anything – delay. We go looking for help and we’re met with either silence or a brick wall. He’d come a long way. He was probably tempted to turn round and go back home. Just as when nothing happens after we pray, we too are tempted to give up. But Jesus, of course, told us to be persistent in prayer. To wait patiently on and for God.2 Waiting is anathema to us. We know what we want and we want – and expect – it now. But there’s no such thing as a spiritual credit card to buy a bargain in God’s shop window. Waiting is essential to wholeness. Naaman paused, waited. And Elisha stepped in and called Naaman to visit him.

3. Let go of pride and status

Naaman’s hopes rose. And then were dashed again. Elisha refused to see him. Instead he just sent his servant with a message to wash seven times in the river Jordan. Naaman was furious. He was a man of status. He expected to be received with courtesy, deference even. He was also a man of grand gestures – he was a military strategist. At the least he expected some visible sign, some dramatic ceremony to effect healing. And the Jordan? Not much more than a muddy ditch. The rivers in Syria were fed by melting snows and were clear and pure. Even Naaman knew that dirty water wasn’t always health-giving.

He went off in a huff because his natural pride was dented. Elisha was reminding him that beneath his worldly status and achievement, he was just a man. A fragile man, who needed help. Humility, like listening and waiting, is a key ingredient in the recipe for wholeness and vital in every situation for which we pray. Humility isn’t just about confessing our sinfulness in contrast to God’s holiness, perhaps mouthing a confession in a church service while thinking of nothing more than a forgotten appointment. Humility is standing in silence before the eternal creator God, acknowledging his power and authority, knowing, feeling we’ve no right to special treatment, and placing ourselves in his hands come what may.

Naaman was lucky. He had good advisers. Once again, he listened. They told him he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. It wasn’t a big deal. Letting go of pride and status never is a big deal when we get down to it. In fact, it’s liberating. It’s a burden off our back. So he went.

4.  Do what God says!

He did exactly what he was told. Obedience is another key ingredient in wholeness and healing. If you’ve ever had a course of antibiotics, you’ll know that you’re supposed to finish the course even if you feel better after a few days. You have to be thorough, to make sure you’re free of the bacteria that invaded your system. Similarly we’re called to be obedient to God in every part of our lives. In detail. How can we expect his help in one area if we’re ignoring his wishes in another?

So Naaman washed, seven times. Seven in the Bible signifies completeness. And I guess he didn’t rush up and down the bank, dipping his toe in seven times. It reads as though he washed. Came out. Dried. Changed. Then went down and washed again. Seven times. With no sign that it was doing any good – until after the seventh time.

5.  Be grateful!

He was healed. Imagine the relief. But notice the response. He went back to thank and reward Elisha. Elisha refused the gift – it was God who’d healed him – but the act of going back was important. Remember Jesus’ encounter with ten lepers? All were healed but only one came back to say thank you, to express gratitude. And to him alone, Jesus said “your faith has made you whole”.3 He received something more than a clean bill of health. He was changed on the inside too; he became a better person, and by implication found God in a personal way. Gratitude is a forgotten source of peace and wholeness.

6.  Be gentle!

But Naaman hadn’t quite finished. He asked for soil to take home so he could worship God. Bodily healing wasn’t an end in itself – it led to the greater wholeness of Naaman finding God. Israel’s God was still regarded as a tribal God so having Israelite soil meant God would be where Naaman was. Elisha didn’t challenge that theological inaccuracy although he could have done. He recognised that Naaman’s faith was real but weak and imperfect. Now was not the time for a sermon.

And he even accepted that Naaman, in his official role, would have to take part in cultural ceremonies that were directed to non-existent deities and at which Naaman would cross his spiritual fingers, as it were, and think of the true God. Elisha was OK with that too. The fiery prophet was exercising gentleness towards a new believer: another key to both our’s and others’ wholeness.

Listen. Wait. Let go of pride and status. Be thorough in your spiritual life. Be grateful. Be gentle. It won’t make you perfect, but you will feel more fulfilled and you are likely to be of more use to God and to other people.

Think and talk

1. Take time to listen. Set aside time each day when you can just be silent in God’s presence. Don’t jabber on about your needs or go through a shopping list of requests. Just “Be still and know I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

2.  When you are waiting for God to act, what do you feel? Anxiety or trust? How might you discover more of the latter and loosen the hold of the former over you?

3.  Humility is recognising that we have no special claim to preferential treatment.

4.  Read Galatians 5 19-26. Which of the negatives do you need to let go of, and which of the positives do you need to work on if you are going to be thorough in your Christian life?

5.  A good spiritual exercise is to find at least five things (secuolar therapists suggest 10!) that you can be grateful for at the end of each day. You’ll be surprised at the difference it makes to your life.

6.  We expect other people to think and act exactly as we do, but they don’t because they have different backgrounds, understandings, personalities and experiences. Who do you need to be gentle with this week? Look at Jesus’ example in Matthew 12:18-20.

References

1. The story, the longest account of a single healing in the Bible, is in 2 Kings 5.

2.  For example in Luke 18:1-8

3.  Luke 17:11-19
 
(c) Derek Williams 2015. Material in these posts may be reproduced for personal or group study with appropriate acknowledgement.