The Simple Life

 

Pastor David Hansen

6th Sunday after Epiphany

February 15, 2009

2 Kings 5:1-14

Mark 1:40-45

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

Once there was a sales person travelling down a rural road, perhaps in an area not too different from Prairie Hill. 

Feeling lost, the salesman spotted a girl of about 12-years-old by the roadside.  Walking up to her, he asked, “Pardon me, but how far is it to the Robinson Farm?”

And she looked at him thoughtfully.  “Well sir,” she said, “if you keep going the way you are headed, it's about 24,996 miles.  But if you would just turn around, it's about four.”

There is this shared trait among people: we look for the most difficult way to accomplish everything. We take simple tasks, and then we complicate them … adding steps, and elements, and challenges.

We build complicated escalators, when the stairs work just fine (of course, the escalators are broken half the time). Some areas use simple backyard wells, while others are connected to a complicated network of waste water treatment, water purification and filtration.

One of my hobbies is golf – an experiment in the most complicated ways to get a ball into a hole.

We love the complicated things!  In fact, we love complicated things so much, that we distrust simple things. Just look at the General named Naaman in today’s reading.  Naaman is desperate to be healed, and yet … the advice given to him by Elisha – go and wash in the river – is so simple that he almost won’t follow it.  It’s too simple.

And, friends, at the end of the day, we are Naaman.

We too are desperate to be healed – although we rarely use that language.

We want to have a deep and meaningful relationship with God.  We often suffer from broken and hurt-filled relationships with family members. We watch as marriages all around us fall apart, and perhaps wonder about our own.

We go to work every day, yet feel as if we accomplish nothing. We struggle with addictions; to alcohol, to food, to caffeine and nicotine, and perhaps to other things as well. We go to bed at night feeling empty, or inadequate.

… the list goes on and on.  We have all sorts of names for all of our problems.

But at the end of the day, what we are seeking is healing.  Wholeness.  The sort of health and meaning that can come only from God.

But, just like everything else in our lives, we make it so. darn. hard.

We buy books and magazines on relationships, on spirituality, on self-fulfillment.  We struggle on our own, never asking for help.  We repeat the same patterns over and over again – fighting with the same family members or falling into the same addictions.

We make it all so complicated.

Friends, I want to let you in on a little secret this morning: It is all so very simple.  Scripture tells us again and again that what we are seeking – that healing and happiness – is actually quite simple.

Three little steps:  Ask.  Listen.  Obey.

Let’s go back to Namaan.

Naaman the Syrian was sick.  Not just kind of sick, he had come down with leprosy.  No getting around it, and no coming back from it.

And then, one of his captured slaves says to him, “Go ask Elijah.”  And so he does.  Elijah tells him to go and wash in the river.  Naaman hears him, but it’s all too simple.  He almost won’t do it – in fact, he’s angry that it’s so simple.  But, after some arm twisting from his servants, he obeys.  And he was healed.

Ask.  Listen.  Obey.

Of course, we struggle with each one of those steps.

Far too often we are too proud, or too embarrassed, or just too stubborn to ask for help.  And so we struggle on our own.

We cannot get help, if we do not ask for help.  And we can’t do it on our own.  We like to think that we can.  We love the model of the “self-reliant American” – the one who pulls himself up by his own bootstraps.  But the fact is, we can’t do it on our own.  To continue to try will only result in more defeat.

And so the first step is to ask God to help us.  Anything from a beautiful and poetic prayer, to a heart-felt “Help me God,” to a wordless sigh in God’s direction. 

Ask.

And then listen.  We would not have a phone conversation without being able to hear the person on the other end, and God is no different.  It is not a conversation if we can’t hear God.  Be still and listen.  Pay attention to others around us, for God may speak through them.

Far too often, our conversations with God are completely one-sided.  We tell God what we want him to know, or what we want him to do, and then we ignore God until we are disappointed because we didn’t get the results we wanted.  That’s not prayer – that’s not conversation – it is just a list of demands.

Many people today feel like God is not speaking to them.  I would argue that they are not listening.

Listen.

And finally, obey.  If we struggled with the first two steps, we practically fall over at the last one.  I love Naaman here.  Naaman is told what to do, and then?  Then “he turned and went away in a rage.”  We hate to be told what to do.

We love to be the ones in control.  We want to be the ones making all the decisions.  We want to have choices and options.  The last thing we want to do is just follow directions.

Why do you think boot camp is so important for the military?  We don’t naturally follow orders – we have to be taught to obey.

And yet, what good is God’s help if we will not obey?

How will God heal us, if we do not follow God’s direction?

Obey.

Three steps.  It really is that simple – and that difficult.

Ask.  Listen.  Obey.

What is ailing you? Where is the pain in your life today? How do you need healing?

Stop fighting.  Stop hurting.  Stop trying the same quick-fixes that didn’t work before and won’t work now.

Turn around.  Turn back to God.

Ask God for help.

Listen for God’s word to you.

And obey God’s will for your life.

The end result may not be perfect. It may not be what we want or even what we expect.  The healing God desires for us may look very different than it does in our imaginations –   But our God is the God of healing and wholeness.  Our God aches when we ache and hurts when we hurt.  We are his beloved children, and he will take care of us. 

If we will let him.

Ask.

Listen. 

Obey.