Go in Peace

Call to Worship

Call to Worship

 To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths. A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

1  Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;

all day long an attacker oppresses me;

2  my enemies trample on me all day long,

for many attack me proudly.

3  When I am afraid,

I put my trust in you.

4  In God, whose word I praise,

in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

What can flesh do to me?

5  All day long they injure my cause;

all their thoughts are against me for evil.

6  They stir up strife, they lurk;

they watch my steps,

as they have waited for my life.

7  For their crime will they escape?

In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

8  You have kept count of my tossings;

put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book?

9  Then my enemies will turn back

in the day when I call.

This I know, that God is for me.

10  In God, whose word I praise,

in the Lord, whose word I praise,

11  in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

12  I must perform my vows to you, O God;

I will render thank offerings to you.

13  For you have delivered my soul from death,

yes, my feet from falling,

that I may walk before God

in the light of life.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016. Print.

Primary Text

Primary Text

15 Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant.” 16 But he said, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused. 17 Then Naaman said, “If not, please let there be given to your servant two mule loads of earth, for from now on your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but the Lord. 18 In this matter may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon your servant in this matter.” 19 He said to him, “Go in peace.”

Intro:

This text is, of course, part of the larger story of Na'aman the Syrian, who was a skilled and mighty general of the Syrian army. Na'aman became afflicted with leprosy, and the Syrians had no way of dealing with it. The king of Syria sent an envoy to the King of Israel. We read in

5 And the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”

So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. 6 And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

The King of Israel reads the note and, of course, panics, because he has no way of curing Na'aman, but the Syrian army is powerful and he knows that if he fails to get Na'aman cured, it could start a war that Israel would be hard pressed to win.

Anyway, word gets to Elisha, the prophet, and he sends word to the king saying "send him to me." So Na'aman goes to the house of the prophet, with his mighty entourage with him. Now, it was custom in those days for the one being visited to come out of the house to meet the visitor, and the more important the visitor was, the further away from the house you would meet them. It's kind of a way of saying "I was so excited to see you I couldn't wait for you to get to my home." So Na'aman, who is a majorly important figure in world politics, expects the prophet to rush out of his home to meet him, but instead, Na'aman gets all the way to the prophet's door before being greeted, not by the prophet, but by his servant, Gehazi. Gehazi says "Go and wash in the Jordan river seven times, and you will be clean." Then Gehazi disappears back inside the house.

Well, Na'aman is furious, not only at not being greeted, but at being told he's supposed to go take a bath. In verse 11, we read

But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. 12 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 and went away in a rage.

It's Na'aman's servants who come to him and convince him to do what the prophet has said.

This is a fantastically rich passage, and I'm not even pretending to do it justice here, because you all want to go home sometime today, and anyway, I want to focus on one particular part, which is coming up soon.

Anyway, Na'aman decides to go and do what the prophet told him to do. He goes to the Jordan river and dips himself seven times. When he comes up the seventh time, he's cleansed of his leprosy, just as Elisha had promised.

So he returns to Elisha and, right there, converts to the worship of the God of Israel. he says

Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant.” 16 But he (that is, Elisha the prophet) said, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused.

And here we're getting into our primary text for the day... Na'aman asks for two mule loads of dirt, so that when he worships the God of Israel, he can do it on Israeli soil. There was a common understanding in that day that the gods were regional, that they could only hear the prayers of the people from their nations. The idea of an ever-present, omniscient God such as the Hebrews worshipped was not a common one.

Here, in asking for the soil, Na'aman makes a mistake. He assumes that the God of Israel can only hear him if he's in Israel, so he brings a bit of Israel back to Syria with him. It's almost funny. Na'aman has just personally experienced an actual miracle… it’s unlike anything he has ever experienced... he's been cleansed of leprosy... and he falls back on his own understanding of how the gods work. He relies on his own belief that the God of Israel can only hear him if he's in Israel.

And the prophet, Elisha, God’s primary representative in the world at the time, is standing right there, watching.

So then Na'aman speaks again;

"In this matter may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon your servant in this matter.”

In verse 18, Na'aman says "I'm going to have to go into the temple of another god, and I'm going to have to kneel there, because I escort the king into that temple, and he will expect me to kneel. But when I do, may The LORD forgive me." Na'aman uses the Holy NAME of God and asks for forgiveness.

Now, what should Elisha say? What would you say? What would I say?

Now, don’t miss this: Na’aman has just said "I'm going to worship the LORD, the God of Israel, but I'm going to do it based on a false assumption that He can only hear me when I'm on Israeli soil. Also, I'm going to kneel down in the temple of a pagan god, but I don't actually mean it."

It's a hard question. What if someone is wrong on a point of theology that seems really important? Can we get to heaven if we don't believe in the Trinity? Can we get to heaven if we don't go to church on Sunday? Can we get to heaven if we have wrong beliefs about God?

Or, to put it another way, can someone ELSE go to heaven if THEY have wrong beliefs about God? We've got all of our theology all perfect, of course, but that person over THERE has some really bad ideas. They're wrong about a lot of things. Maybe they think the earth is flat. Maybe they think the earth is round! Maybe they think the earth is billions of years old. Maybe they think the earth is only 6000 years old. Maybe... maybe.... maybe.

How do we respond?

If it's a Facebook post, usually we jump in with both feet saying something like "Here's why you're not only wrong, but also stupid." We can be harsh and cruel when we're dealing with other people on the Internet. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe because they're not standing in front of us, and it's hard to empathize with a name on a screen. Maybe because we are so eager to prove ourselves right, to assuage our own doubts or our own guilt, that we're willing to offer the other person's feelings up as a sacrifice to our own egos. Maybe we speak harshly to people because we are afraid that what we believe isn't right, and if we can convince ourselves that someone else is wrong, that makes us somehow more correct?

Maybe we live in fear because we realize how important this stuff is. This isn't missing a high school dance. This isn't even like missing a court date. Eternity is at stake here, and we tremble in fear at the possibility of getting this wrong. So we channel that fear into anger, and lash out angrily at those who think differently than we do.

Sometimes, being in the ministry can be difficult. I have been told, by sincere followers of Christ, on no less than three occasions in a single year, that not only was I preaching a false gospel, but that I was leading my congregations to hell with me. I was on the receiving end of that fear. I was the target of that anger.

I was told that I didn't read the Bible, and that I didn't care what it sad. I was told that I was making things up. I was told that I had no relationship with Jesus.

I was, in other words, the one who was "wrong."

And who knows? Maybe I was wrong. I try very hard to not get this wrong... I really do. I don't want to fail in my mission to preach the word, and I don't want to fail in my mission to teach my congregations and those who hear me.

So the question become this: How do I know if I'm right? I read my Bible, of course, I pray, I listen to great teachers and preachers, but even they don't always agree on everything, and they all read their Bibles and pray.

(improv ending)