The Need to Get Small

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

2 Kings 5:1-14
Once, on a vacation with Ann’s family, we found ourselves in a massive two-storey sporting goods store that seemed to have a good sale on things like sweat pants, T-Shirts, and tennis shoes. But this was a sale with a twist. To take advantage of the full discounts the store was offering, customers had to sing along with karaoke accompaniment, their voices and video images beamed all over the store packed with customers for everyone to see.

That was such a humiliating prospect for one of my brothers-in-law that, in spite of his being a thrifty guy who always looks for good deals, he was content with a smaller discount than he would have gotten had he sung for just two minutes.

Our son Philip and I felt no such hesitation. We grabbed a couple of microphones and sang one of the all-time hokiest pop songs ever: The Carpenter’s Superstar. That’s the song that Chris Farley and David Spade sang at the tops of their lungs in Tommy Boy. “Don't you remember you told me you loved me, baby? You said you'd be coming back this way again, maybe. [Here's my favorite part] Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh baby. [People actually get paid for writing stuff like this.] I love you. I really do.” Phil and I sang and cha-ching, we got our full discounts.

Now, this did happen in Las Vegas and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless you’re a preacher looking for a good sermon illustration. But how many of you think that you’d sing for a packed store in order to get a discount on some clothes or shoes?

And how many of you are too Lutheran to do that?

The truth is that most of us will do almost anything to avoid public embarrassment…even me. What’s behind that?

There are lots of potential reasons, many of them altogether healthy and appropriate. But one unhealthy reason that people avoid being publicly embarrassed, I think, is the fear of belittling themselves or of being belittled by others. We are social beings. Our reputations are important to us. And the Bible agrees that they should be. Proverbs 22:1 says that, “A good reputation and respect are worth much more than silver and gold.”

But sometimes a legitimate desire to enjoy a positive reputation becomes a paranoid refusal to take risks, to try new ventures, or to honestly admit things like...

“I don’t know,”

“I don’t know how,”

“I don’t understand,”

”I’m afraid,” or

“I need help.”

We hate the idea of appearing small or helpless. And men, let’s face it, that’s especially true of us. One person has suggested that a good definition of men is, “The gender that refuses to ask for directions.”

And yet, as I read the Bible, one of the things God seems to keep insisting on is our need to get small.

Not small in achievement.

Not small in dreams.

Nor small in self-esteem.

But small compared with God. Small enough to call God Lord and to take directions from God alone. Small enough to admit that we need God for life in this world and life in the world to come.

We see that theme again in our first lesson for today, taken from Second Kings. It centers on something that happened in the life of a proud man who was widely hailed as a person of power and importance in his country. Naaman was a commander from the country of Aram, a place you and I know today as Syria. This incident took place sometime during the late ninth century BC. It happened about one-hundred years after God’s people, the nation of Israel, had split into two different kingdoms because of their hunger for power and because they couldn’t get along any more: Judah, with its religious and civic life centered on Jerusalem, in the south, and Israel, whose religious and civic life centered in Samaria, to the north.

Naaman’s country, Aram, was a powerful and frightening neighbor for Israel. As our lesson notes, Naaman often took his armies into Israel and kidnapped people to be slaves. For this and, apparently, other exploits, Naaman was a BMOC—Big Man on Campus—in Aram.

Our lesson underscores how big Naaman was in several places. He was, we’re told, “commander of the army,” “a great man and in high favor with his master [the king],” and “a mighty warrior.” You didn’t mess with Naaman.

But Naaman had a problem. He suffered from leprosy. In Biblical times, the word leprosy was used to describe a whole host of different diseases that caused skin lesions or loss of feeling, especially in the extremities, hands and feet. For people who lived in those times, leprosy was a more than a physical ailment. It was also a spiritual and social affliction.

In popular culture, people regarded leprosy as a curse from whatever deities in which they believed. Even in Israel and Judah, among God’s people, once a person was certified as suffering from leprosy, he or she was considered dirty and unfit for fellowship with God or people. For fear that others would somehow contract their disease, lepers had to leave home, family, and work behind. They were barred from worshiping. People often threw stones at them to keep them at bay. So that others could see and avoid them, lepers were required to wear torn clothing, leave their hair disheveled, and shout out, “Unclean! Unclean!” when they walked down the street. The leper lived a lonely and isolated life.

Either Naaman’s leprosy had not gotten so horrible or his status as a hero in Aram was so great that he was not yet forced to live in isolation. But it must have been humiliating for someone so powerful to deal with the whispers of condemnation behind his back, the averted eyes of those who stood in judgment of him, and the prospect of being sent away with no army to command and no one to look up to him.

Our lesson says that a little girl, a slave from Israel working in Naaman’s household, took pity on her master. She suggested that he go to Israel and see God’s prophet, Elisha, who had taken over the ministry of the more famous Elijah in about 848BC. Elisha, she said, could cure Naaman of his leprosy.

Naaman was just desperate enough to ask his king for permission to go to Samaria—Israel—to seek a cure. Going to Israel in itself must have seemed humiliating to Naaman. But as we read on, we see that he hadn’t gotten small enough in his own eyes. Both he and his king assume that it will be the king of Israel who will free him from his leprosy. He takes gifts—including silver, gold, and clothing—along with a letter from his king asking for a cure. The king of Israel is sure that it’s a pretext for picking a fight. He knows that he can’t cure leprosy and if he can’t, he’s sure that Aram will attack his country.

But then Elisha the prophet gets wind of Naaman’s visit. Elisha sends word by way of a servant that Naaman should come to his place. Naaman expected to be given the royal treatment by Elisha. But instead, cooling his heels outside of Elisha’s house, Naaman is given Elisha’s instructions through a servant. “Go, wash yourself seven times in the muddy Jordan River.” This is the last straw for Naaman, utter humiliation. How small should he be expected to become? The Jordan, he complains, is a creek—or a crick—compared to the great rivers back in Aram!

Finally though, Naaman is convinced to follow Elisha’s directives and he is healed, this great man suddenly having the “flesh of a young boy.” Naaman learned something that Jesus would tell His disciples some nine-hundred years later, “Unless you have the faith of a child—until you get smaller than God and trust in Me—you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Naaman humbled himself to receive the healing God offered through His prophet. More importantly, this foreigner came to believe in God, entering the Kingdom of God. You and I need to be small enough to embrace the great promises of Jesus to be with us today and to give all who repent for sin and trust in Him eternity.

We also need to subordinate ourselves to Christ to lead the kinds of useful lives God has in mind for each of us. This is a lesson God has had to teach me repeatedly.

Years ago, I chaired the planning committee for the assembly of the Northwest Ohio Synod of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It involved planning everything surrounding the annual get-together of about 200 churches and it turned out to be an extraordinary event. People left the assembly excited. The feedback was almost universal as people told us, “That’s the best and most useful church convention we’ve ever attended.” In spite of all the good feelings though, I was bummed. The bishop hadn’t taken the time to tell everybody what a wonderful job I had done, or how hard I had worked, or how it had been my vision that had been executed in that convention. (Can you imagine that?) But one day, as I was sitting in my office, praying, a thought crossed my mind, a thought I’m certain came from God: “Who were you doing all of this for, hotshot, you or Me?”

Naaman learned that all the honors of the world mean little. But he also learned, as many of you have in a lifetime of following the God we know in Jesus Christ, the truth of James’ words in the New Testament: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up" (James 4:10).

May you be lifted up as you surrender each day to Christ. Amen