And Naaman apparently is accustomed to being a person of consequence. He expects the people around him to show him the proper respect and deference and fear. He is used to giving orders and having them obeyed. In the game of posturing and posing and throwing one's weight around that was a staple of politics in Naaman's day--and in ours, too--in the art of being important, Naaman is pretty darn good. And he expects everyone around him to recognize that he is pretty darn good.

But--Naaman has leprosy. Now the biblical word we translate "leprosy" here was in fact used to name several different skin diseases, not just the Hansen's disease we today name "leprosy"; so we can't be entirely sure just what kind of skin condition Naaman has. And from the context of the story, we can infer that Naaman's skin disease hasn't gotten very bad yet: Naaman is able to function, he can travel, he can command his armies: the disease has not yet reached a debilitating stage. Nevertheless, in the ancient world skin diseases were very bad news: whether Hansen's disease or not, "leprosy" was considered highly contagious and difficult to treat: which meant that people who had it were typically isolated, quarantined, outcast, and they could look forward to a long and painful deterioration and death. Naaman seems at this stage to have gotten some concessions: he's been allowed to keep his wife, and his household, and his servants, and his job--so he's not a total social outcast yet. But I imagine Naaman is not very welcome at the royal court; the king and the nobles probably don't want to be too close to someone who is contagious; people might respect him but I doubt they want to be near him; all of which means Naaman probably does not get to enjoy the perks and prestige that are properly due his position. And for a man of Naaman's pride and self-importance, that must hurt a lot. For all Naaman's power, here is something he can't control; for all Naaman's ability to defeat the enemy on the battlefield, here is an enemy he can't overcome; for all Naaman's expectations of heroic consequence, here is something that cares not a bit for his stature and his prestige and his self-importance. Naaman, war leader of Aram, finds this an intolerable situation.

And it is into this intolerable situation that God sends healing grace. A slave taken on a raid into Israel tells Naaman about a prophet, a mighty man of God, a wonderworker, who is to be found in Samaria (at that time the capital of Israel), and who could certainly cure Naaman of his leprosy. So Naaman goes to his king, and gets a letter of introduction to the king of Israel, and puts together an entourage befitting a dignitary of his importance, and brings a gift of gold and silver and festive garments--which in those days would have been enough to buy a small kingdom--and Naaman goes off to Israel to be healed. He expects to arrive at the royal palace, and have the king come out to meet him, and summon forth the wonderworker, who will lead a ceremony of great pomp and circumstance, and call upon his God, and wave his hand over the infected spot, and cure Naaman in the sight of all the people--thus proving once again that God has given Naaman a great victory, that even disease cannot become Naaman's enemy and survive.

But of course that's not what happens. When Naaman arrives in Samaria, the king there has no idea what's going on--he thinks the whole thing is a pretext to pick a quarrel, an excuse for starting a war. Elisha, the miracle-worker, isn't even there--he's not at the palace, he's at his own house. And when Elisha gets word of what's going on, he doesn't rush to the palace himself, but he sends a messenger to say "Send Naaman to my place, and I'll see him." And when Naaman gets to Elisha's house--presumably a place far less important and consequential than the palace--Elisha doesn't even come out in person, but sends a servant to tell Naaman to go wash in the Jordan River seven times. Wash. No ceremony, no pomp, no circumstance, no waving of hands, no public miracle. Take a bath. And in the Jordan: a small, unimpressive mud-ditch of a river, nowhere near as magnificent as the Abana and the Pharpar rivers Naaman knows in Damascus. If all Naaman has to do is take a bath, he might as well have stayed at home. This is certainly not what Naaman had expected. This treatment by Elisha only adds insult to the injury of his leprosy. It's more than Naaman can take! So, in a fit of pique, Naaman turns on his heel and is about to leave for home, writing off the whole stupid journey as a bad idea.

And that's when one of Naaman's servants, perhaps a foot soldier, speaks up and addresses his commander in a way he might never have dared before: "If the prophet had asked you to do something hard and difficult and heroic," he says, "you wouldn't have hesitated. Why not do something simple, and see if it works?" And for once in his life, Naaman puts aside his pride and his privilege and his grandiose expectations--and he goes to the Jordan, and he washes, and he is made clean.

The thing I love about our First Testament story today is the way it shows God using very ordinary means to accomplish extraordinary ends. Something so simple as washing in a river becomes the channel through which God's creating and re-creating and healing energy can enter Naaman's life. Something so simple as the ordinary, everyday activities of living can be the openings for God's grace to come into our lives. But at the same time, this story shows how we have to be ready to perceive God's grace, how we have to be open to recognize God's extraordinary presence in the midst of ordinary things. Naaman has to cut through his pride and his self-importance and his expectations before he can receive healing in the simple act of washing. And we often have to set aside our sense of privilege, and our conviction of our own importance, and our expectations--our grandiose or our anxious expectations--if we are to be open to God's healing and shalom and well-being offered to us in the simple gift of each present moment.

And that ability to set aside our sense of busy-ness or importance or expectation in order to attend to God in the present moment--that's something that can be learned. It's not just a talent of the spiritually advanced, but it is a skill, and a discipline, and a practice of faith that you and I and anyone can begin and develop and grow in with experience. So I invite you to do precisely that; I invite you to adopt and develop that practice in this coming week. Every day this week--maybe even several times a day--take a moment when you're right in the middle of something and pause, mentally step back from whatever it is you're doing, disengage from the sense of urgency or busy-ness or attachment that the moment seems to demand, and just ask yourself "What is God doing right here, right now? What movement or energy or inspiration is the Spirit drawing forth from me in this particular action? What moment of love or healing or justice or compassion or joy is God creating with me right now?" Try this spiritual exercise: in the middle of doing some ordinary thing, put your expectations aside and be open to the extraordinary grace God is giving you just then. If you make that a practice of prayer, I can bear witness it will release some amazing energy into your soul.

And speaking for myself, I know I am going to need that kind of soul-energy in this coming week. I've got quite a week ahead of me: traveling to Michigan tomorrow and Tuesday, traveling to Omaha for a provincial synod Thursday through Saturday, and in between, on Wednesday, trying to fit into one day all the office stuff I'd usually spread out over several days. And I know lots of you have weeks like that coming up too: things going on at work, things going on at home, deadlines to meet, task lists to check off, vacation trips to get ready for, or, if you're just getting back from vacation, a week's worth of work to catch up on. It seems like these days we are all caught up in a cycle of busy-ness, we are all being driven by a sense of the importance and the urgency and the necessity of lots and lots and lots of things to do. And I know that, for myself, when I get caught up in that sense that everything is important to me and I am important to everything, it can get kind of exhausting, it can wear me out, it can make me cranky, it can make me heap lots of expectations on everything I do and then be deeply disappointed when none of my expectations seem to work out. When I get caught up in that cycle of self-importance and expectation, I suspect I get every bit as disagreeable as Naaman was, with a spot of dis-ease in my soul just as nasty as the spot of disease on Naaman's skin. And I suspect I am not alone in catching that dis-ease.

So for me the practice of setting aside expectation and attending to grace is going to be a life-saver in the week to come. Cutting through the busy-ness and looking for extraordinary peace and shalom and healing in ordinary moments is going to help me keep my sanity and my spirit in these next days. Simple things like watching the sunlight glint off the water of Lake Superior when we're in Eagle Harbor for a day, or having time to talk with Lee and Maggie while we're sharing so many hours in the car, or hearing a favorite song on the car stereo, or finding satisfaction in getting some good work done at Wednesday's Vestry meeting, or connecting with other church people at the synod and getting a real feeling for the larger mission and ministry and prayer we all share--simple, ordinary moments like these can be openings into the extraordinary presence and peace of God. Those are the kinds of things I'm going to be looking for this week. What will you be looking for? What moments will you take to set aside expectations and to attend to God? What ordinary actions will open up for you into extraordinary grace? And if we practice such attentiveness this week, what practice might we grow into in the weeks to come?

Naaman, war leader of Aram, found healing by cutting through his expectations and attending to the extraordinary energy of God flowing through ordinary human action. The Good News for us today is that we can do that too, we can make that a pattern of our prayer, we can make that a practice of our faith, we can let that be healing for our lives. Amen.