RIVERS I HAVE KNOWN
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Text: 2 Kings 5:1-14
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
The mighty Mississippi as it moves from the Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, dividing our nation into East and West. The Colorado as it flows from the towering Rockies, bringing the deserts to bloom. The Red River, sluggishly meandering from the Texas panhandle, forming the Oklahoma-Texas border, flowing eastward across Louisiana to join the Mississippi. The stately Hudson in its shaded valley, running southward from the Adirondacks until it joins the East River in the bustle of New York Harbor. The Potomac, gazing with bemusement on the nation’s seats of power. The beautiful Ohio, carrying coal from Appalachia to the nation and beyond. The Snake, winding its way from Yellowstone, across Idaho, through Hells Canyon, before emptying into the Columbia which then carves its own magnificent gorge on its way to the Pacific. The roaring waters of the Feather, Russian, Sacramento and Tuolomne , each falling precipitously from the Sierra, spreading winter snows across northern California to water redwoods and summer crops.
Floating in an inner tube down the clear, cold waters of the Boise River on a hot summer afternoon. The enigmatic Little Wood River of central Idaho that comes frisking out of the incredible Sawtooth Mountains, skipping by Cathedral Pines, that Baptist camp of my youth, only to disappear into the ground before re-appearing miles later in the springs of Hageman Valley. Riding the rapids on a raft down the American River with a lively company of friends. Jumping from the bridge into the freezing Merced on a scorching July day in Yosemite. Rivers, in way or another, I have known – and, yes, in many ways, America to me.
In all this litany is there any association with rivers you have known? From the beginning of time rivers have been bearers of mystery and magic, myth and mastery, movement and marvel. Langston Hughes says that he has “known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of blood in human veins.” In the end, he affirms that his own “soul has grown deep like the rivers.” Is it any wonder then to consider that rivers have the power not only to provide the livelihoods for regions, but also to define people and to inspire poets, musicians and artists to some of their greatest work? Are we surprised to know that rivers have been a source of cleansing and healing throughout time? What rivers have you known that have been sacred to you?
Because this is the Fourth of July, the day we celebrate the birth of our nation, I have focused on some of the many rivers of our country, but there are other rivers that bring amazement and peace, comfort and challenge, life and death all around the world. Of course, there are too many to name them all. What drew me to this focus on rivers is the reference in our ancient words.
This text is one of those wonderful Bible stories – filled with dramatic tension, colorful characters, fascinating action, intrigue, surprise and, of course, an important moral or two. It would make a great movie.
The key characters are a great general, a couple of kings, and an important prophet – oh, and some unnamed little people. Naaman is a honored warrior and close confidante of the king of Aram. Part of the intrigue in this tale is that it was Elijah, the prophet of Israel who anointed Hazael king of Aram. Today’s text says that it is also God who has given Naaman his great victory over Israel. There are ancient assumptions about how provincial God is that are being challenged and undermined in this text. God is shown to work on a much grander scale than those who thought they knew God ever imagined. Naaman’s victory has brought an end to the reign of Ahab and Jezebel and to the house of Omri in Israel. Presumably there is some sort of uneasy peace in between the houses of Hazael in Aram and Jehu in Israel, though some scenarios seem never to change in this conflict-ridden region.
Naaman has it all – power, wealth, influence – and, some sort of noticeable skin disorder. His disease has not rendered him a pariah in Aram as it would have in Israel, but surely it was a troubling source of shame for the great man. Apparently he had found no relief at home. At the peak of his power and influence, he was a man laid low by pain. He was suffering. One of these minor characters, an unnamed slave girl from Israel (without whom we would have no story at all) moves Naaman south to seek out the prophet in Samaria.
In perfectly proper protocol, Naaman shows up at the court of Jehu with a letter from Hazael that simply says “I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” What follows is a little comedy of errors. Jehu takes the letter literally and goes into a tizzy, tearing his clothes and crying, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?” The irony of his is cry is in the arrogance of one who must at least have considered for a moment that he might actually heal Naaman before coming to the crashing realization that he is powerless in these matters. So, he’s then convinced that Hazael is trying to trap him into another war. “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” Here is also a little commentary on what happens when a literalist jumps to conclusions.
Fortunately, a note from Elisha arrives just in time to save the day and allay Jehu’s anxiety. This is not a matter of state to be handled in the seats of power; this is a matter of human healing and wholeness that belongs in the hands of the prophet of God. Jehu is only too happy to send Naaman and his treasure caravan off to find Elisha. But here again protocol and the expectations of the rich and powerful are thwarted. Not only does Elisha insult the general by refusing even to come out to meet him, he instructs him to go bathe in the river Jordan. This is more than the general’s pride can bear. He explodes, “I thought that for me he 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 Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” So he turned to go away in a rage.
But again these unnamed minor characters save the day. “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” “Since we’ve come all this way, wouldn’t it be wise to at least give this simple folk remedy a try? Really, what is there to lose?” What indeed, except perhaps a little pride and a touch of belief in power and position to save one’s life – oh and a challenge to the notion that one can fix things by throwing money at them. As Naaman learns humility, as he sheds the trappings of power and wealth, as he wades naked and scarred into the shallow, muddy Jordan, he finds the scales falling away. His flesh becomes like that of a young boy. He finds not only healing but renewal. He finds redemption and a relationship with the God of the universe that he did not even know he was seeking. In the wise words of Joseph Campbell, he discovers that “We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come”(Joseph Campbell, quoted in Kate Huey, "Surprising Prophets," ucc.org, July 4, 2010.) The great Naaman is quite transformed as he comes to new wisdom and wholeness. How can one who is sick to death be healed? How can one who is old be born again? “…truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (John 3:4-5.)
Here is this amazing spiritual power to be found in the river of God – a river “ancient as the world and older than the flow of blood in human veins” yet with the capacity to make all things new. Certainly one might say that Naaman’s soul was deepened in that river as his body was transformed. It was not one of the wonderful rivers of Damascus that healed him, it was the relatively insignificant, shallow, muddy Jordan that made him whole. It was not his power, prestige or wealth that transformed him, it was the minor characters who helped him to see.
The thing that struck me in this reading that might speak to us on a patriotic holiday is the schooling of Naaman’s sense of privilege and xenophobia. Surprising prophets, unexpected truth tellers and instruments of grace, minor characters and rivers, make all the difference. In the eyes of God, are generals any more important than servants? In the reign of God is the power of position and wealth more valuable than the power of graceful humility, deep compassion and the love that washes clean? In some of our patriotism do we run the risk of overvaluing our corner of God’s good earth at the expense of other corners that God has created and loves? Are we vulnerable to exercising U.S. power, wealth, privilege, in such ways that the scars of our wounds and residue of our diseases will trouble us all our days? Or are there rivers we may yet know that hold the capacity to heal us, make us clean, whole and healthy - inside our own skin, yes - but also in our relations with those we mistakenly label as other, as alien, as enemy? Can we come to accept fully as instruments of God the poor, the marginalized, the foreigner, those who challenge us to be more than narrow-minded chauvinists? Will we open ourselves to sisters and brothers throughout the world who can lead us to God-graced humility and God-infused life, shared justly, mercifully, compassionately, lovingly with the whole creation? May the healing rivers of God, in whatever obscure places we find them, flow in us, around us and through us until we are whole, renewed by God’s spirit. May we then also join joyfully in redeeming and renewing all creation.