Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For some reason, this story gets left out of those chosen for Sunday scripture texts. It's listed in Lutheran liturgy guides only as the alternate Old Testament lesson, for today. I like the story, so I decided it was time to mix things up a bit.

We have before us the story of Naaman, an important man, a proud man. And a man afflicted with leprosy. Naaman is an elite and successful general, desperate for healing before his disease is unmasked and he is cast out of the society to which he has become accustomed.

And we have before us a God who heals; even when the healing is an offense to those in power; even when the one healed is unappreciative, pompous, and undeserving; even when the one healed is an enemy and enslaver of the people of God; even when the means of healing is offensive to the one healed.

The story is so remarkable that even Jesus makes reference to it in his inaugural sermon, recorded in the gospel of Luke. You will recall that he entered the temple in Nazareth, unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and read the prophecy of good news, release, healing, and justice. He then sat down and said, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." He also said this: "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." (Luke 4:24-27)

Jesus seems to have understood the significance of Naaman. One wonders why this story from 2 Kings gets only an alternative mention in our Sunday texts.

The way that Jesus uses this Old Testament healing story suggests that those who think they have exclusive hold to some privilege or other in the eyes of God are sadly and tragically mistaken. As he says, God came not to an Israelite widow, but to one who lived in Sidon (a city of Phoenicia), and God healed not a leper of Israel, but Naaman of Syria.

It's not about privilege, is it? It's about our wayward and faltering pilgrimage towards faith. It's about the ragged human convoy of divergent perceptions, piqued honor, high-minded posturing, insecurity, good humor and basic generosity wending its way to insight and faith.

Naaman is a proud man who muddles toward health, toward a restorative knowledge of God and himself. But he makes progress only by ragged fits and starts, undeservingly, haltingly. He has a clear goal—a cure for the disease that threatens his career, his place in human company, his very life. The people who care about him appeal successfully to that concern, but the pull of other passions almost derails him. Naaman craves respect almost more than he wants health. He is so sure he knows what he needs, he almost refuses what God wants to give.

Almost. But not quite. When he doesn't get the attention he thinks is his due, God waits, letting him vent and strut. No lightning bolt consumes him in mid-rant, no disapproving angel descends. God waits until Naaman disabuses himself of the odd human propensity to work against our own good. And when, after stalking off, he relents, we see in him what God has seen all along—a man of faith.

And so it was all along. We'd be wrong to regard his healing and conversion as something completely new, as a miracle. What God waits for in Naaman is the fitful progress of a transformation under way in him even before he sets foot on the soil of Samaria or in the muddy stream called the Jordan River—a slender opening, first apparent when the great warrior takes advice from women and overcomes his disgust at needing help from an enemy's god.

Grace has established a pulse in him—irregular, perhaps, but not arrested by his rage. When he finally gives up, lets go, obeys his servants and washes in the water, there isn't a lot more healing for the river to do. All that remains is for Naaman to meet, knee-deep, the God who engineers his healing and presides over his life. Awash in the revelation, Naaman, "a great man" from the start, becomes God's man for good.

Why the prescribed alternative reading for this morning stops where it does, I don't know. Here's the rest of the story:

Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before (Elisha) and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant." But he said, "As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!" He urged him to accept, but he refused. Then Naaman said, "If not, please let two mule-loads of earth be given to your servant; for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the Lord. But may the Lord pardon your servant on one count: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow down in the house of Rimmon, may the Lord pardon your servant on this one count." He said to him, "Go in peace."

Naaman has come a long, ragged way. The man who derided the stupid river in Israel now packs his mules with Samaria's dirt so that at home he may worship on holy ground.

There's still a long way left to go. It's not as if Naaman will never preen or sulk again. But for now, God seems to think he's made enough progress. Maybe that's why Elisha does not invoke God's awesome jealousy when Naaman, sensitive to the compromise entailed in serving his king, asks for permission to bow on occasion to his master's god. It's as if God is willing to compromise for the sake of those who are walking slowly towards discipleship. Perhaps, given the erratic character of the human procession toward the holy and the deadly pitfalls lining the road, God isn't touchy about the occasional concession to the status quo.

Dealing with human weaknesses is part of everyone's daily struggle with faith. We muddle along. It's what we do, and we hope that God will have mercy on us for it.

We know Naaman. We know all the irritating and endearing, weak and tenacious behaviors in this story—altruistic aims, big ideas, bad tempers; pulling rank, taking offense, throwing tantrums, pleading and cajoling, seeing reason, changing your mind, eating crow. We've all asked for blessings in the face of unavoidable compromises. So to watch God leave Naaman alone while never leaving his side is a huge relief. It is also a strong antidote to perfectionism, a reproach to a thousand daily judgmental impulses, a cause for gratitude and praise.

God outwaits us while in weakness healing begins. God outwaits us while we locate the fissures of mercy in the heaped debris of fear and anger—and learn to breathe the Spirit's air. We change and grow, believe and love by grace, the best we can. We are going to the river, whatever the reason or unreason that moves us; we're going to wade right in. Knee-deep in unaccountable love, we'll meet the God who gives us all our ragged healings and presides over our life. (adapted from J. Mary Luti, "Muddling Through" Christian Century, September 23-30, 1998, page 859)

Not long ago, I was part of a conversation about how hard it is to get good help. Everyone I talk to lately who has anything to do with hiring people to do work for them has the same complaint. Folks wonder about how many chances they ought to give their workers before firing them. How many late mornings are acceptable? How many missed days before their jobs become history.

One of us in those conversations said a line that I've heard and said many times recently. "We live by grace and mercy, or we don't live at all." That is the truth, the most basic truth, the most important truth that will ever come our way.

The story of Naaman does us the great service of bringing us back to this truth. Once we get past our offense at Naaman's obnoxious self-importance, his arrogance, and his pride. Once we get past our offense at God's willingness to heal the likes of this murdering oppressor of the people of God. Once we get past our very selves. Then we begin to understand that we are Naaman, and that without the kind of mercy and grace shown to Naaman, neither would God's unaccountable, patient, unrestrained mercy and grace be able to touch us.

We begin to understand just how wide is the mercy of God. It is for all who put aside pride and follow our Lord's simple command, "Wash, and be clean."  —  Amen.