Dr. James C. Howell
2 Kings 5
July 3, 2016
Well it's only fair to warn you at the outset that often on this Sunday closest to July 4, I tend to sink into a bit of a grumpy mood. Some of it is just church attendance and the summer period, you know, like we're here, but then a lot of people aren't here. And the myth by the way … this just gets on my nerves … the myth is that everybody's out of town. But I know that this is not so. Many Sundays after church, I'll see somebody at lunch or somebody on the street. And sometimes they realize that I noticed they were absent and they'll say very helpful things to me. Like a couple of weeks ago someone said, "We got up this morning and we decided we would just stay on the porch and drink our coffee." Thank you, for that. Two Saturday nights ago, Lisa and I went to see Ira Glass down at Blumenthal; we're coming out of Blumenthal, we see a couple from the church. The guy says to me, "Well as you can tell I won't be at church tomorrow." But then the time comes as it gets closest to July 4... Now this just gets on my nerves because I know all these Americans who love to talk about freedom of religion, soldiers died so that we could have freedom of religion and as best I can tell we use that freedom of religion not to come to church. It's the lowest attendance Sunday of the entire year. You'd think if we treasured that freedom of religion, it would be the highest Sunday of the year. I'm just on a little rant.
All July 4th things also gets on my nerves because we just get these little … I'll be done in a minute … just let me work this out of my system. Cause you're here you get extra credit for coming today; so you're good. So July 4th, I have a cousin, she has already posted on Facebook July 4th is when we remember soldiers who died for their country. That's Memorial Day. On Memorial Day, she posted this is the day we remember soldiers who served in the military. And I said, no that Veterans Day. It's just so hard. And then we get mixed up anyway because we talk about freedom. I don't know why this just so bothers me. People say soldiers died for our freedom and so what do we do to commemorate that? We drink beer, we eat hotdogs and we shoot off fireworks. This just seems dumb to me. If there's something that's noble, we should do something noble. So a number of years ago when my children were little I decided … because we always get together, the extended family, all the cousins, everyone's together … I decided that we shall do what families used to do in the 1800s. We shall have a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Why are you laughing? So we gather the family together and you can just imagine my little nieces would be rolling their eyes; my poor children were really humiliated because it's their dad insisting on the reading. I would read and they would yawn and people would go to the bathroom and so after a number of years I decided I'm going to just not do it this year and see if anybody asks. No one has asked for the return of this.
July 4th, for my money there's really nothing more precious about it than what happened in 1826. Adams and Jefferson, I mean, fierce political rivals; they loathed one another. Abigail Adams even got in on the act, right, she said, "My husband is an oak, and Jefferson is a willow." That's pretty good. But after they both were out of office, Adams wrote Jefferson a letter and it said I think we should explain ourselves to one another before we die. So they began a correspondence and they became very close friends…And then they died, isn't this amazing … they died on July 4th on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Isn't that just amazing? And to me that's what politics in America really ought to be about, that you have people who disagree fiercely over what ought to happen, but they can love each other, they can be friends.
All right, the rant's out of my system. Back to Naaman and 2 Kings 5. This is a fascinating story. This is a story of Naaman; he was a mighty man of valor, a military hero. He was great among the Syrians. It says that Naaman was a mighty man but he was a leper. It's always something, isn't it? He was a mighty man, but he was a leper. We could say he was one of the most prominent attorneys in the city of Charlotte, but no one knows his son hasn't spoken to him in three months. She is a great tennis player at the club and hosts wonderful parties at her house, but no one knows she was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He's the life of the party; everybody loves having him around, but no one knows he's battling depression so severe he didn't get out of bed yesterday. She is a wonderful person; we just love having her around. But what no one knows is that her family is totally out of money and they're in debt and it's just scary. Or he's just the best neighbor that we've ever had, but even the neighbors don't know that he has a serious drinking problem. He just can't stop. It's always something.
I think about Naaman, he's such a great man; I think he thought that his status would be the way to get things fixed. We all do that. A lot of us in this room we count on our status, our power, who we are, to repair what's wrong with us. I do this myself at times. My son says, "Dad you got your people." And my people are you name it, like anybody you need I've got a people for it, right? So if you say I've got a problem with my eyes … oh call my friend Steve, my eye doctor, he's great. I've got his cell number right here, you know. Or my gastroenterologist, I've got his cell number; that sounds pleasant doesn't it? I've got all my people for everything and I don't have just any doctor, I've got the best doctor. You don't want just any urologist; you want the best urologist. This is how we are. We've got our connections; we've got our status. Recently, as a matter of fact, I needed a doctor and I didn't have a people in his specialty. So I had to ask around, like who do you go to? And somebody … this is so interesting … somebody said here's the perfect guy to go to. I said, "Why is he perfect?" He said, "He's accustomed to treating important people." I hope he was accustomed to treating what's wrong with me. Important people. We're people of influence.
But this does not work for Naaman; it's just so interesting. Naaman is a leper. He must have covered it up successfully. Like you just couldn't just let people know that you're a leper cause they'd have shunned you; they would avoid you. So he's a mighty man, but yet he's a leper. He must have kept it up, he kept it covered up well enough that, but then finally he really wants some help; no one else has been able to help. And this little slave girl in the household, she was part of the booty of war, she's supposed to serve him and she actually did on this day cause she said Mr. Naaman, there's a prophet in Israel named Elijah. He can heal people. And Naaman, I guess, was desperate enough to go and try so what he did was actually pretty interesting. He goes rumbling down to Elijah's house, which we can assume was just something like a shack someone in the middle of Sumaria. And Naaman comes and he's got his entourage and he rumbles up with his chariots and his steeds and all of his assistants; it's very impressive. And he gets outside Elijah's house and he sends somebody to the door and they knock on the door and say Naaman, the great man is here. Elijah doesn't come to the door. He sends a note, right, like this would be as if somebody knocks on my door one day and somebody says uh, Dr. Howell, President Obama is in your driveway. And I would say I'm not coming out, I'll just send him a note. Now some of you Republicans think, good call. So let's change the metaphor … Governor McCrory pulls up in my driveway and somebody comes and says the Governor … Of course, I would come out for the governor; of course I would come out for the president. If the president wanted me to come to Washington to lay hands on him, I would happily do such a thing. Why does Elijah do this? I think he realizes that Naaman's big problem is not leprosy; it's pridefulness, pridefulness. That's what he needs to be cured of. It's probably what we need to be cured of. The little note that he sends out says go and bathe in the Jordan River seven times. The Jordan River's just this little muddy creek. You don't want to get into it. It's a humble thing that is asked of Naaman; his ego is so large. He has to be humble. This is the key for us.
When I was in seminary I had a professor, Bob Cushman, taught theology. And I loved this phrase, we all memorized it; he said, "Faith is the conversion of the will through the crumpling of pride." Gotta write that diwn. Faith is the conversion of the will through the crumpling of pride. We have to let our pridefulness be crumpled before God can heal us. We need to be humble. Now it sounds silly to say go be humble; that's wrong. It's not go be humble, like you can be humble. It is OK. You carry around this albatross, don't you, that like I'm important and I'm connected; I'm James Howell; I have my people. It's just a lot of pressure always to have to be together and cool and great man like Naaman. And what God says is that you don't have to do that. You don't have to carry that albatross around on your shoulders any longer. You can just put it down, you can be humble. You can say I'm, I'm actually weak; I'm actually broken; I'm actually vulnerable; I don't have all the answers; I'm really kind of a lost soul. If you can bring yourself to do this, it's so liberating. It's so freeing.
Speaking of freedom, we get this thing confused, don't we? We think that freedom is I do whatever I want to do. Somebody says a soldier died so that we can be free and that means we can do whatever we want to do. And that just makes no sense at all to me and theologically it's really so wrong. We think that we are free, but the fact is according to the Scriptures … this is so interesting … according to the Scriptures you actually aren't free even if you've lived every day of your life in the United States of America, the land of the free. The Bible teaches us that you are not free; you are a captive to yourself. You are a captive to self-indulgence. You are a captive to mortality; you are a captive to your own habits; you are addicted to all kinds of things. But if I say to you today don't be materialistic and you say well OK, I'm not going to be materialistic; you won't make it to lunchtime. You're just stuck. We just are stuck being the people that we don't really want to be or the people that we thought we wanted to be. We're not free at all. What the Bible teaches us is that you are a captive, you are in shackles. What God's Spirit does is, God's Spirit comes and sets you free. You weren't free before, but the Spirit sets you free and why does the Spirit set you free?
Palmer, who is our Duke summer intern, preached a wonderful sermon at 8:30 right here in this pulpit and I'm hereby stealing her material. She quoted that prayer that you read at the beginning of the service where we pray … it's so interesting … we prayed, free us for joyful obedience. Free us for joyful ... you aren't free. You aren't free; the Spirit frees you and the Spirit doesn't free you so you can do what you want to do from now on. The Spirit frees you so that you can obey Jesus. The Spirit frees you so that you can do God's will. The Spirit frees you so that you can be God's servant. The Spirit frees you so that you can be rid of that albatross of importance and you can actually be humbled and healed and there is just so much joy and so much life in all of that. Winston Churchill, he always said these funny things, right. One time a friend was talking about someone in Parliament and said, "He's a humble man." And Churchill said, "And he has much to behumble about."
So in the beginning when I said Naaman was a great man but … I say what's your, what's yours? And you probably thought ahh. I suspect there's actually a list though. You have much to be humble about. There's a lot that's broken; there's a lot that's crazy in here. God says good; that's my opening to heal you. You're freed for joyful obedience. Much as what I did on March 1, 1986; Lisa and I came to this very church and we were married right here. And somebody could say, well, boy, that's the day that you lost your freedom. I would say I was not free until that day. I mean the year before I could go where I wanted on vacation and I could eat dinner when I wanted to. I could do all that stuff; I could hang out with whoever I wanted to, but then I married Lisa and I don't feel my freedom is infringed upon. I feel like I was finally set free; I was set free to be in commitment. The Spirit sets us free to be in commitment to God.
Here's the last thing in the sermon and this is the hard part and you may not like to hear it. I've been thinking a lot about pridefulness and how it just is the death of us. I was in a meeting the other day and I've been in a lot of meetings like this over my 13 years as your pastor and all of my career in ministry. There's a group of leaders around the city of Charlotte, educators, business leaders, church people, all kinds of folks. We were talking about what's wrong in the city of Charlotte, you know, what are the problems in education and what are the problems in the economy; why is there not social mobility in Charlotte and why do we have racial tension and why, all these things we're talking about it. And everybody's giving the usual kind of, churches need to work together and we need to fund these initiatives and we need to go to the other side of the town and do this, and tutor and all, all the usual stuff that we talked about and then there was this young, African-American man who made this blistering speech that would have made your hair curl. Cause he stood up and he said,"The problem is not in west Charlotte." He said, "The problem is with those rich, White people." And he went on and on. He said, "Those rich White people," he said, "you tell them in their churches that they have arranged the world to their advantage and to the disadvantage of others." He went on and on and on. Every White person in the room was just kind of trembling and he kept talking about rich, white churches and everybody kept kind of looking toward me.
And when he was done, part of me wanted to leap to your defense. I started by saying, "I preach to those wicked White people every Sunday, and they're well intended. They really want to do good. They don't understand …" You know what happens to us? I just thought about this … is that when we hear anything like that, when we hear what's wrong in the world you know how we react? We react with pridefulness. We hear that there's poverty, we hear that there's not educational equity, we hear whatever it is that we hear and we react with pride. We say well it's their fault, or they should just do this or whatever it is that we say. We just got our shtick going and it is prideful. And I suspect that when Jesus looks down at us and we think about the problems of the world, Jesus does not wish for us to respond pridefully, but rather humbly.
You know Elie Wiesel died … this is really interesting; he died yesterday. And he was in Charlotte three times in recent years and I got to see him each time that he was here. I feel really fortunate and blessed by that. One of the times, he was here I actually had lunch next to him. That's really hard, like you're thinking hey that's cool, you had lunch with Elie Wiesel. Well it's hard; what do you talk about? Right, like, "Hey Elie, how was the Holocaust?" That's not a good question. And you say, "Hey, I enjoyed reading Night. That's a good book." Anything you say just sounds trivial cause he's such a great man, he's such a great man. You know what Elie Wiesel did … this is really important … Elie Wiesel showed us what humanity is capable of. And humanity is capable of terrible things. Humanity is capable of just hurting other people; humanity is capable of having deep prejudice against people that are different and it mutes into hate. Humanity is capable of awful things, but Elie Wiesel also showed us what humanity is capable of and we are capable of doing good. We are capable of doing better; we are capable of changing the world. Elie Wiesel, after he got out of Auschwitz, he said that his plan has always been to devote his life to one thing only. That is to help all of us to look anywhere where there is suffering or injustice or poverty, you name it, whatever is wrong; whatever is not the way God designed things to be we are to look at that and ask what can we do to change it. How can we stand up for those who are hurting? What, O God, are you asking us to do to change the world? Not responding pridefully by blaming everybody. We have influence and we use our influence for ourselves. Wiesel would say you have influence, use it for others. This is why God has put us here. Not prideful. Being humble, being humble.