SERMON Magic

Epiphany 6 (B) (2009):2 Kings 5:1-21; Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45

We have all had encounters with magicians and magic, haven't we? And there is something intriguing, isn't there? Something even seductive. Intriguing, even when, as rational human beings, we know that what we see happening isn't really happening. Seductive, because a part of us wants to believe it is.

Unless one counts Jason and Beth Shutter's wedding, Wicker Park Lutheran's most memorable recent encounter with magic happened shortly after I came here when Jason's dad, Pastor Daniel Shutters, brought his magic show to a Sunday morning service. He's really good. In one of his tricks, he had me try to get him out of handcuffs -- when in fact he had already done the job himself. Someone got a picture of my being completely fooled. To this day, I have no idea how he did it. And when I asked him, he just smiled and looked mysterious. Some things remain a mystery. Magic intrigues.

There are elements of this intrigue in what we just heard. Elements of intrigue in the accounts of two lepers, each of whom is cured of his disease. In the one case, we hear about the commander of great foreign army who bathes in the river Jordan seven times, and his flesh is restored like the flesh of a young boy. In the other case, we hear about Jesus who is moved to great pity and chooses to answer a leper's request for cleansing, touches him, and says, "Be made clean!" Immediately, we are told, the leprosy leaves the man.

That is the kind of white magic that was practiced by magicians all over the ancient near east when Naaman was commanding the King of Aram's army. Every king and pharaoh had magicians. Remember the magicians in the Egyptian pharaoh's court when Moses and Aaron first confront the pharaoh about leaving? All the sticks turning into snakes? It's one of the better scenes in the movie, The Ten Commandments.

At the time of Jesus, there were itinerant wonder workers all over the Roman empire -- magicians who went around healing and exorcizing demons. The apostles are continually bumping into them in the book of Acts -- converting them in some instances, overpowering them in others.

So, in both cases, what we seem to have are dazzling instances of the magical. Until we look closer.

On closer inspection we discover that what the ancients called leprosy is not the bacterial Hansen's Disease leprosy that we know -- a now treatable leprosy that is highly contagious if it is not treated. There were cases of Hanson's leprosy -- or rather the aftermath of Hansen's leprosy -- among beggars whom we encounter when we are in India. Even after being cured, they frequently are among the untouchables. Outcasts and unemployable. Their plight is grimmer than their disease.

We now know that the first case of Hansen's leprosy probably did not hit the near east until hundred or so years after Jesus died. What Naaman and the leper whom Jesus encounters have is probably some sort of scaly skin disease, perhaps like psoriasis. Something perhaps as trivial as Athlete's foot. We know this because clothing, linens, and houses that became mildewed or moldy were said to have leprosy as well. Whatever Naaman's and Jesus' leper's skin problem is, it is not contagious. No one then thought it was. Medically, it was not a big deal. Medically, the magic is less intriguing.

But the thought of magic is seductive. Naaman wants magic and that's why he immediately wants to dismiss the treatment offered by Elisha -- treatment that has none of the trappings of magic. First, he is sent to Elisha who does not even see him. Then, he is instructed through an intermediary to wash in the river Jordan. Naaman is furious. Remember what he says?

"I thought that for me [remember: Naaman is important!] he [meaning Elisha] would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not . . . the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?"

Where, Naaman is asking, is the magician? Where are the incantations, the flourish of Daniel Shutter's cape? Our author tells us that Naaman turns and goes away in a rage.

No, this is not magic, this washing seven times in the river Jordan.

But what about Jesus' making the making the leper clean? That, surely, has all the marks of a first century Wonder Worker. One-on-one contact between the Healer and the healed. Real touching. An exorcizing command and the leprosy leaves the man. Why isn’t this magic?

The answer lies in what is being cured. The leprosy is not being cured. Medically, the leprosy is probably trivial. No, something far more serious is being cured. In first century Judaism, persons with skin diseases were ritually impure -- just as the clothing, linens, and buildings with mildew or mold were. The scales and mildew were seen as evidence of internal corruption. The book of Leviticus devotes no less than two chapters to the ritual treatment and cleansing of leprous conditions. And until and unless the condition was cured, the person could not worship at the temple or even live or eat with other Jews.

This is not just random discrimination. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob demanded that God's people be a holy people, wholly acceptable to God. No less. Leprosy destroyed that wholeness and holiness. That’s why individuals with leprosy were considered "unclean."

And that's one reason why what Jesus does is not about magic. The leper has just heard Jesus' urgent proclamation that the kingdom of God is near. He cannot be part of that kingdom or partake of its messianic banquet unless he is first declared ritually cleansed. That's why he comes to Jesus and says, "If you choose, you can make me clean." He does not say "If you choose, you can cure my leprosy." And Jesus does not cure or heal him. Jesus says, "I choose. Be made clean!"

But there is another reason why what Jesus does is not about magic -- and also a reason why Jesus is not playing a first century Wonder Worker here. Jesus tells the man to go to the temple to be declared cleansed, to offer the necessary offerings, and once again to be ritually pure. In other words, Jesus is fully acknowledging the Mosaic law applies to God's people. Even more, he is affirming that God is at work here. And he re-enforces this when he specifically orders the man not to tell others about his cleansing. Above all, Jesus is saying that the outcasts -- India's untouchables -- will be cleansed and made whole. They, too, will be included the kingdom of God.

And something similar happens with Elisha and Naaman. Elisha is not playing the equivalent of the Aramaean magician that Naaman, the gentile, expects. Elisha does not even see Naaman before he is made clean so there can be no confusion about the source of the cleansing. There are no incantations. There is no cape waving. Just the simple directive to go bathe in the water of the Jordan and be clean. And when Naaman is cleansed, it immediately becomes clear to him that Israel's God, the one true God, has restored his flesh. And what happens is that Naaman, the gentile, tells Elisha that he will now worship no other God. And because, at that time, Israel's God could be formally worshiped only in Israel, Naaman takes Israeli soil with him back to Aram.

Jew and gentile are made holy and whole. Without Wonder Workers or magicians.

And that happens today. In many ways.

It is happening throughout India in ngo clinics -- including Christian ones. Persons with Hansen's leprosy are not just cured but they are made whole through rehabilitation. Not only they, but the countless -- and they are countless -- untouchables who live on the streets and are cared for and are made holy and whole by the care.

It is also happening in London's financial district in churches open during the week -- churches that have become healing centers where physicians work along side social workers who work along side priests and lay workers to promote healing (not curing, but healing) and wholeness.

But the more I am drawn to the work of India's clinics and healing centers, the more I realized that, even apart from formal clinics and centers and trained sisters and lay persons, holistic healing happens here as well. Old and young, infirm and vigorous, everything in between, we come as individuals to this church and this community of faith to know the healing presence of a creator who desires the wholeness of all creation. The creator God who restored Naaman and cleansed the leper. A presence known in human touch and in real bread and real wine and real water.

But this wholeness is also about inclusiveness. About the acceptance of others who and how they are. It is also about the health and wholeness of all of us as a community. We are made whole, just as the leper who comes to Jesus is made whole, so we will be a holy people and can live out our true calling to be the body of Christ -- a calling to actively work for healing and wholeness in this country and the world. In the end, there is no magic in that. In the end, there is only, as always, the mystery and reality of God's grace. Amen.

February 15, 2009

Ruth VanDemark, pastor

Wicker Park Lutheran Church . Chicago, Illinois