Feb 15, 2009 - "Healing Our Anxious Discontent"

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Epiphany 6
February 15, 2009
W. Gregory Pope

Series: Healing

HEALING OUR ANXIOUS DISCONTENT

2 Kings 5:1-16; Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45

These are anxious times. You don’t need to hear the unemployment, stock market, and housing numbers again. You also know not many economists expect a turnaround for at least a couple of years. Such an atmosphere has its frightening hold on us. When we hear of people losing their homes, we begin to worry about losing our homes. When we hear of job losses, we begin to worry about our own jobs. I am so pleased with a group of people within our church who have gathered to begin a ministry of helping people find jobs. You can read all about it in your bulletin insert (after the sermon, of course). It is a timely ministry for these days. I hope you will spread the word and give the brochure to those you know who can benefit from it.

A few days ago as the bad economic news kept coming in, it was weighing heavy upon me, and I felt certain it was weighing rather heavily on you. And so I decided to turn the focus of today’s sermon away from the Gospel lesson on leprosy to the Hebrew lesson on leprosy. I find it to be a healing story of anxious discontent. Shakespeare wrote of “the winter of our discontent.” And indeed it is such a season for us. I pray this morning we find here a word from God for these anxious days.

It’s hard to know how to deal with disappointment, discontent, and anxiety about the future. What do we do when things don’t work out like we hoped they would, when we find ourselves unable to get what we want?

We are a people raised in a country told to expect to get what we want if we work for it. Some expect certain things as a matter of privilege. Part of what is making these difficult economic times so hard is that so many Americans have had it so good for so long. We’ve become spoiled. But as President Obama said this week, “That party’s over.”


We are tasting the anxiety that many people in our world live with all the time. Lifestyle adjustments are going to have to be required of almost all of us. Adjustments we might just find to be good for us. Someone relayed to me a quote this week from a seminary president who said, “Never waste a good recession.” Meaning, use such a time to simplify your life and do not go back to the collection of excess when times turn around. But many of us do not like the idea of not having what we want.

I

For the longest time Naaman didn’t get much practice dealing with disappointment, because he got everything he wanted. Naaman was a five-star general in the Syrian army welcomed in the oval office without even knocking on the door. He received every honor that military skill and good fortune can bring. As the leader in a string of victories, this Secretary of Defense was living every soldier’s dream.

Then the rug is pulled out from under him. They’re just a few white spots, but he has no way of knowing if or when it will get worse. He keeps his hands in his pockets, afraid that people will see what’s happening. He has to do something. He is desperate at the thought of contracting leprosy. Something dramatic needs to happen soon.

There just happens to be a Jewish girl who works in Naaman’s kitchen. And one day she mentions that there’s a prophet back home in Israel who can cure leprosy. At first Naaman says, “No, we’ve got doctors here in Syria,” but then he decides it’s time to see a specialist. And soon he’s on Air Force One with a blank check and a letter from his king asking the king of Israel to heal Naaman.

When Jehoram, the Israelite king reads the letter his hands begin to shake: “How am I supposed to cure leprosy?” So Jehoram begins pacing around the throne room about to fall apart when he gets word that Elisha, the court chaplain, wants to see Naaman.

Naaman leaves the palace in a parade that roars down the side streets - motorcycle escorts, flags fluttering from each vehicle, and the secret service running behind. Naaman’s confidence returns. Something big is about to happen. The procession comes to a halt in a cloud of dust in front of Elisha’s little cottage. And Naaman waits, expecting the prophet to be awed by his guests and to come out bowing and scraping. The dust begins to settle as he honks the horn with a long blast.

Finally the door of the cottage opens and someone walks out, but it’s not Elisha. It’s the houseboy with a stupid suggestion: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times,: he tells Naaman, “and you’ll be fine.”

Naaman is beside himself. “Who does this prophet think he is? I just came from the palaces of two kings and this backwater charlatan sends out a kid. Why should I bathe in a filthy little ditch when there are beautiful clear streams back home in Damascus? If I needed a bath, I’d use one of the six bathrooms in my house. I can’t believe I came all this way for this.”

So here he is. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to get an appointment with a world famous skin specialist and now the doctor, who hasn’t even examined him, sends out a prescription through his PA that says to take seven dips in the Trinity River and don’t call me in the morning. Naaman cusses and scratches and tells the entourage “We’re going home!” Naaman didn’t get what he wanted, so he will sulk rather than take what falls short of his expectations.

One of his servants timidly speaks up. “Sir, as long as we’re here, I mean, if the prophet had said what you wanted him to say, then you would have done it, right? Isn’t it worth a try?”

So they go to the muddy water of the Jordan. And when Naaman comes up out of the water the seventh time, he looks like an ad for Palmolive soap. Naaman is so grateful he converts on the spot to Yahweh, the God of Israel. He reaches into his suit pocket for an inch of hundred-dollar bills, but Elisha says he’s a prophet, not a dermatologist, and refuses to take any money. Another prophet like Jesus would be refusing to benefit from another’s healing.

Do you see what almost happened? The simplicity of the directions almost kept Naaman from following them. To have to do something that he felt was beneath him almost caused him to miss out on a gift from God. It’s easy to turn down and to scoff at what seems ordinary when we’re hoping for something special. And when we’re not getting the treatment we think we deserve, when what we’re getting is less than what we hoped for, it’s easy to be disappointed.

II

We all have to deal with the disappointment of not getting exactly what we hope for, because we all want more, don’t we. There a few things we wish we could change and control.

Seven pastors were at a minister’s conference eating lunch. And one of them said, “Okay guys. We’re far from home. We’re all friends. What would you be if you could be anything in the world?”

One of them began: “When I was in college I wanted to be an architect, but I didn’t think that I could do the math. Now some days I think that I was smart enough after all.”

A second minister said: “My favorite part of being a pastor is visiting sick people. Every time I walk into a hospital I wish I was a doctor, instead of a pastor.

Another said: “Whenever I read a book by John Grisham or Anne Lamott I think, ‘You know, that’s the life.’ And the only thing that keeps me from being a famous writer is a complete lack of talent.”

The fourth minister said: “I dream of being a pastor, but I always dream of being the pastor of some other church.”

Then another said: “I just want to be a rich church member who calls the pastor on Monday morning to complain.” (That pastor just needs to take Mondays off like I do!)

They all went around the table admitting that every now and then, they all wish for something else.

It has been said that for every path taken there are ten not taken at which we glance over the shoulder. Most all of us have fantasies about living in different places, with different jobs, and different people. Perhaps you’ve thought about being a tycoon on Wall Street or a justice on the Supreme Court or a professor at a prestigious university or a lifeguard in Hawaii.

And when any of us see an old classmate who’s done well, how often the green-eyed monster rears her head. The other possibilities, the bigger dreams, what might have been, cross everyone’s mind. But preoccupation with the cards in someone else’s hand always leaves us dissatisfied with the cards we’ve been dealt.

Our dreams always exceed our grasp, so we get the mistaken impression that we’ve failed because our lives aren’t everything we imagine them being. Dwelling on who we are not causes us to doubt and denigrate who we are.

And especially in these anxious economic time, if we spend too much energy wishing for what we don’t have, then we won’t see what we do have. We will miss the small joys we’ve been given because we’re waiting for joys that probably aren’t coming. We overlook the people we should love because we’re dreaming of someone else more perfect who we’ll never get a chance to love.

Missionary doctor Albert Schweitzer said, “Plenty of people write to me in the hope of getting some spectacular work to do, and at the same time they fail to see the worthwhileness of the immediate duty God has given them.”

Some of the best gifts God gives aren’t wrapped like we think they should be wrapped. But we shouldn’t be so certain which are the best gifts until we open them.

Some of the most popular books in recent years have titles like “Life’s Little Instruction Book.” We might initially assume that they are filled with sage wisdom on the meaning of existence, but what we usually find are suggestions like:

compliment three people every day
watch the sunrise
remember other people’s birthdays
over tip the breakfast waitress
be good to your pastor

The small things in life are sacred. The keys to contentment and joy are simple truths that we already know. They won’t cure your economic woes, but they might bring healing to your soul and joy to others around you.

Fulfillment isn’t found in the places we’re not, but in the midst of everyday ordinary experiences that just might become extraordinary. How did those great philosophers of rock ‘n’ roll, the Rolling Stones, put it: “You can’t always get what you want, but you find sometimes, yea sometimes, you get what you need.” [1]

From time to time, we’ll think about the job, the family, the money, or the personality that we don’t have. But when we finish thinking about everything we don’t have, we need to see what we do have. From time to time, we’ll wish we were talented, rich, and famous, but at the end of the day God invites us to want more than anything else . . .

to be Christian
to be the person God wants us to be
to be good at what we have in us to be good at
to give thanks for the good gifts already in our hands
to love the people we’ve been given to love
to discover that God is not somewhere else, waiting for us to arrive,
but that God is with us in this place and in these people.

This is the hopeful perspective to which I would call us in these days. Because as that great spiritual guide John Claypool often said in this very room: “Despair is presumptuous.”

When we could worry about what might happen, or be disappointed in what has happened that we did not want, why not instead, look around at what we have and be grateful.

In this winter of our anxious discontent:

Let us lean on one another.
Let us share our anxious hearts with one another.
Let us share what we have with one another in our time of need.
Let us pray that world leaders will seek economic solutions that are just.
Let us listen to the simple words of servant-girls and house-boys.
Let us be faithful in the small things.

Let us turn our trust away from the American Dream and place our trust in the One Who Holds Us All in hands of divine care,
the One who cares more for our souls than our bank accounts.

Let us open our hearts to what new thing God may do in our lives and in our world. It might just be for our healing after all.

______________________

1. The Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, Let It Bleed, 1969