2 Kings 5: 1-17 (links validated 1/23/24)

Speaking of jumping, 1982 was a good year. Not only for French wine and my parents who got a lot more than they bargained for in this little bundle of joy but because 1982 is when Eddie Van Halen first put pen to paper and wrote the famous glam rock song, “Jump.” He wrote the song about a person afraid to love. They didn’t want to get hurt again; they didn’t want to feel the searing pain of disappointment or the weight of grief and loss… but they needed to. The course says, “You might as well jump…”

For the past several years, Time magazine, known for their annual list of the “100 most influential people” has published a supplementary list of the world’s most influential teens. In one way or another, each person listed in Time’s most influential list (both versions: top 100 and teen), by employing a combination of their resources and their resourcefulness in light of their life circumstances, has gained attention on the world stage. From the mostly white upper middle class victims of a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida turned political activists; to Indonesian sisters Melati and Isabel Wijsen who orchestrated a recent beach clean-up in Bali, collecting 65 tons of waste; to Thandiwe Abdullah, 15 year old co-founder of the Black Lives Matter LA Youth Vanguard; to musical and acting savants, the youth on Time’s list boast different levels and types of resources...

Glenn Tinder was raised according to the standards of Christian Science. He writes about his experiences in an article entitled, “Birth of a Troubled Conscience,” in the April 26, 1999 issue of Christianity Today. Tinder insists Christian Science is nowhere near Christianity. It’s not even centered on healing, either, or on the achievement of health. What Christian Science says is that there simply isn’t any sickness. It’s an illusion. We’re all healthy. Christian Science goes on to deny the existence of all evil, sin and fallenness...

First recorded by the Louvin Brothers in 1959, “The River of Jordan” is now a country gospel standard that has been covered countless times, especially at bluegrass festivals. Just a note: the song’s second verse mistakenly identifies Namaan as a king (he was the commander of the king’s army, in fact), and Ira Louvin seems to mispronounce Elisha as Eliza—an error that I hear repeated in a lot of other recordings (either that, or Elijah)...

We often overcomplicate things. Rube Goldberg was a widely-known cartoonist in his day, popular enough that he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for his cartoons and sought after as a spokesperson. Today we know him for his machines - wildly complicated inventions that used levers, pulleys, animals, balloons, and more to perform relatively simple tasks. His contraptions were so popular that his name has become synonymous with the idea of making something simple quite complicated. Like wiping your mouth with a napkin...

A good deal of my personal idiomatic dictionary revolves around the Simpsons, but only really from the period of about seasons 5-9. I quit watching the show with any regularity while I was in college, but it had long since done its job to embiggen my vocabulary with perfectly cromulent words. During season 8 there was an episode entitled “Bart after Dark,” in which Bart, after breaking a gargoyle at what turns out to be a burlesque house, has to work the front door in order to pay off the damage. Hilarity ensues, of course, especially when Grandpa Simpson comes through the front door.

Maya Angelou famously reflected, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” How often do those sharing our lives for mere moments transform us? Why didn’t that slave girl remain silent? Wouldn’t it have been smarter for Naaman’s servants to keep their opinions to themselves? In a room full of future preachers, why would a professor praise . . . me?

I’ll trust that you, dear reader, have already read the full account in II Kings. However, let’s make sure with a whiz-bang quiz: Naaman heads for Israel by: Riding on a fast chariot Astride a sturdy camel Driving his aging Outback Naaman carries: A sword sharpened to kill A spear easily hurled a hundred yards A smartphone with a low battery Naaman wears: A scowl and billowing robes Leather sandals fashioned by the finest craftsman Eddie Bauer no-wrinkle shorts What’d you choose on your quiz? I picked #3 every time because, regardless of Naaman’s lack or abundance of Biblical detail, when I read about him, I see me. Yup, I have a Subaru. Darn that iPhone, I should charge it. And my lovely wife wishes I wouldn’t wear those shorts to formal occasions. Naaman, like me, and like you, needs a cure...

I had a conversation a while back with someone who had good health insurance and considerable personal wealth. He had recently traveled a long way to undergo a very specialized surgery for a life-threatening disease. He was telling me that his prescriptions cost him several thousand dollars out of pocket per month after his insurance paid what it would pay. I asked him what people in his situation would do if they didn’t have a lot of money. He shrugged. It was a powerful shrug. He probably meant it to say, “I don’t know what they’d do,” but it really said, “They’d die.” They would die because they aren’t privileged and wealthy enough to have access to the kind of care he received. Many reports inform us of problems associated with a lack of access to healthcare or the cost of healthcare in the United States...

The last couple of weeks have been awful, filled with hatred and violence. But in the midst of that there have been rays of hope and love. After the shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the shooter, a man who had murdered 11 Jews and injured many others, was taken to Allegheny General Hospital. Even while in the ambulance and in the emergency Room, he kept yelling that he just wanted to kill Jews. Well, in the ER, his attending doctor was a Jew. His nurse was a Jew. They cared for him as they would anyone else. Jeff Cohen is the president of the hospital. He lives a couple of blocks from the synagogue, where he is a member. He heard the gunfire. He was concerned for his mother, who he thought ma have been in the building. Yet Cohen went to the shooter’s hospital room. He asked how the man was doing and if he was in pain. The man said that no, he was fine. And then the man asked who he was. He said, “I’m Dr. Cohen. I’m the president of the hospital.” The FBI agent guarding the patient told Dr. Cohen, “I don’t know if I could do what you just did.”...

In 1926, a man named Robert Greenleaf joined AT&T, one of the biggest corporations of its time. He had been told by one of his teachers that corporations were not doing a good job of serving their employees or their customers and this young, idealistic man decided that he would try and work steadily and quietly to try and change that. He rose within the organization, visiting the 200 or more subsidiary “Ma Bells” and other organizations within the umbrella of AT&T. What he found was that the companies that were thriving were places where leaders tried to serve their employees, clients and customers rather than companies where the leaders were “in charge” and demanded that everyone do what the leader wanted. When Greenleaf retired in 1964, he began writing about his experiences and insights. In 1970 he published an essay, The Servant as Leader, in which he articulated his ideas...

Sister Joan Chittister, writing in the Roman Catholic tradition, has some wonderful, evocative stories to tell. One of them is about a priest who once traveled to see a renowned spiritual teacher, to spend a time on retreat with him.“Master,” he said upon arriving, “I come to you seeking enlightenment.”“Well, then,” the master said, “for the first exercise of your retreat, go into the courtyard, tilt back your head, stretch out your arms and wait until I come for you.”Just as the priest arranged himself in that uncomfortable position, the rains came. And it rained. It rained the rest of the afternoon. Finally, the old master came back. “Well, priest,” he asked, “have you been enlightened today?”“Are you serious?” the priest asked, in disgust. “I've been standing here with my head up in the rain for an hour. I’m soaking wet. I feel like a fool!” “Well, priest,” said the master, “for the first day of a retreat that sounds like great enlightenment to me.”...

("Naaman is like the man in an old joke who is caught in a flood and goes up on the roof, where he intends to wait for God to rescue him...")

Chuck Swindoll tells about a missionary-lady who was sitting by her window as she opened her mail. In one letter she found a crisp, new, ten-dollar bill. She was pleasantly surprised, but then she noticed a poorly-dressed stranger, leaning on a post by her window. She couldn't get him off her mind. Thinking that he might be in greater need than she, she slipped the bill into an envelope and wrote, "Don't despair." She handed the envelope through the window to the man. He read the note, smiled, tipped his hat and walked away. The next day she heard a knock at the door. There the same man handed her a roll of bills. When she asked what they were, he said: "That's your sixty bucks, lady! ‘Don't Despair' paid five to one!"

("A few years ago I read an article by a woman named Catherine A. Thiemann entitled A Simple Heart in which she said: '[Voluntary simplicity] starts with a simple heart. And a simple heart starts with exploring why you are here on earth...")

("In our North American society, image is everything, money talks, power rules, and so most people don't bat an eye over advertisements for cars, clothing, and BBQ grills that promise that this is the product that will help you reach the next level. A recent ad for the Range Rover SUV simply says, 'Higher Ground'...")

"An expert mechanic in a small town worked on an older car for one of his customers. Finally he had to admit defeat and announced that it could not be repaired. The owner agreed and the mechanic asked on of his employees to tow it to the junkyard..."

Author and poet Maya Angelou, in talking about the history of slavery in this country, states that on many plantations the slaves were not allowed to laugh. There was a rule against it. So when the urge to laugh became uncontrollable, when the urge to laugh became absolutely irrepressible, they had what they called "the laughter barrel." At the moment when they couldn't hold it in any longer they would, under the pretext of getting something out of the barrel, lean way down inside and let it all out. They would laugh and laugh and laugh. Now, Maya Angelou goes on to say that what was behind such a strange rule was — fear. The plantation owners feared that if the slaves were allowed to laugh, they might laugh at the masters. Or, worse yet, the laughter of the slaves might become so infectious that the masters would start laughing with the slaves. And how can you laugh with a person one day and have that person be a slave the next?..

Timothy Garton Ash tells of being in a school in Brazil. Brazil is a country that has traumatized with deforestation and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. He states that “the rich enjoy virtual immunity from the local police, and the local police enjoy virtual immunity for anything they might do to the poor, who also happen to be mainly black. Most murders go not just unpunished but uninvestigated. In a school in the poor district of Sao Paulo he asked the students, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “A policeman!” shouts out one 11-year-olod boy. “Why?” “So I can kill people.” He makes shooting gestures with his hands. Bang! Bang! A girl in the third row then speaks up, “I want to be a doctor.” “Why?” “I want to save lives.” He did not say what her name was. She was simply one of those unnamed young girls whose story needs to be told so that we can have hope for God’s world.

("A friend of ours in Benicia had once been homeless and somebody helped her get herself back on her feet...")

("I would like to start by saying how uncomfortable I felt about coming to speak to you today. The more I thought and prayed about it, the more I was aware that what I would be talking to you about was the very situation I was afraid of. You see, I have what some would call the 1994 leprosy-I have AIDS. But God is good...")

The Harvard economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen is now eighty-eight, but he still remembers the day when he was eleven years old, when a laborer named Kader Mia stumbled into his family's yard in Dhaka, bleeding from knife wounds and begging for help. His father rushed Mia to the hospital, but he eventually died. Kader Mia was a Muslim who was murdered by a Hindu thug. He was one of the thousands of Muslim and Hindu people who died in riots that erupted in British India in the 1940's. What interests Sen about his childhood memory is how even though most of those rioters shared an economic class identity as poor people, they nevertheless demonized each other with an "identity of violence." They reduced their shared humanity to the single factor of religious antagonism. In his book Identity and Violence, Sen observes how much of the violence in the world today is fomented by an illusion in which we mischaracterize each other by a "sectarian singularity."...

Robert Caro has been writing principally about Lyndon B. Johnson for the last 40 years and LBJ was himself an artist in the exercise of political power. Johnson was tall enough that he could tower over most people, bend them backwards a bit, and give them “The Johnson Treatment,” thumping their chests with his index finger to demand they do what he wanted. And they usually did. Society tells us that this is what true greatness and power are all about. But is it?

Perhaps the most grateful person I’ve ever heard of was an old woman in an extended care hospital. She had some kind of wasting disease, her different powers fading away over the march of months. A student of mine happened upon her on a coincidental visit. The student kept going back, drawn by the strange force of the woman’s joy. Though she could no longer move her arms and legs, she would say, “I’m just so happy I can move my neck.” When she could no longer move her neck, she would say, “I’m just so glad I can hear and see.” When the young student finally asked the old woman what would happen if she lost her sense of sound and sight, the gentle lady said, “I’ll just be so grateful that you come to visit.”...

I was a child, not yet in school, when I first saw the red dirt of Oklahoma. Driving across what my father proclaimed to be “the state line,” he told us kids to look at Oklahoma’s iron-infused red dirt. We had gone to visit distant relatives, and it was my first time out of Kansas. I remember because when we later first visited farming cousins in eastern Colorado, my father again announced that we had crossed a state line. I protested. “But the dirt looks like Kansas!” “What do you mean the dirt looks like Kansas? This is Colorado.” It might have been my mother, who stepped in to explain that state boundaries were not drawn in dirt. No, they are much more arbitrary than that...

“The Doctor” was a movie starring William Hurt as a physician who is diagnosed with throat cancer. As a teacher in the med school, he is used to people following his commands. He is in control and in charge, and he is not used to being a patient. As a patient, he finds that he has to do a lot of waiting. He is treated like anybody else and has to go by other people’s schedules, not his own. He is not used to feeling unimportant; he is not used to all the indignities of being a patient. In the course of his treatment, he becomes friends with a fellow patient who teaches him a great deal about living and about dying. He makes a full recovery, while she does not. When he returns to his teaching position, one of the first class projects is to assign a bed to each student and to attach a hypothetical disease to each of them. Each make-believe patient has to undergo all of the tests associated with that disease. The nurses, much more familiar than doctors with the day-to-day care of patients, seem pleased by this. This doctor was not only cured, he was healed. He experienced a conversion of sorts, and returns to his profession, both a changed man and a much better doctor...

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