October 12, 2025 - Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Humility and Healing

October 12, 2025  Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Second Kings 5:1-14
“Humility and Healing”
Douglas T. King

Once upon a time in a village there was a longstanding rumor of the existence of the most enchanted garden in all the world.  There were endless stories of its grandeur.  Purportedly, the flowers bloomed in every color of the rainbow.  Every fruit imaginable hung from its trees and was always in season.  The water in its stream was the sweetest you had ever tasted and quenched your deepest thirsts.  The birds tweeted the melodies of Mozart.  It was said to be found deep in the forest behind a set of immense doors covered in gold and encrusted with jewels.  

Two VIPS of the village decided that they would seek out this enchanted garden.  They brought along a servant boy to carry water for them.  The trio searched far and wide into the furthest depths of the forest.  They went out beyond where anyone had ever gone before.  But they found nothing.  In the end, exhausted, they trudged on back toward the village.  

They were about to step out of the forest when the servant boy noticed two plain, wooden doors.  How had they missed these doors so close to the village?  Most likely because they were not all that fancy or imposing.  The two VIP’s shrugged.  There cannot be anything important behind them.  They were about to continue their journey home. But the servant encouraged them to knock anyway.  They walked up purposely to the doors and rapped on them with thunderous power.  A voice from the other side called out, “How may I help you?”  The first VIP answered, “I am the mayor of this village and I am enquiring as to whether the enchanted garden lies behind these doors.”  “It does indeed,” came the response.  “As mayor of this village I have great power and can grant you whatever you wish.”  There was nothing but silence from behind the door.  The second VIP nudged the mayor aside and said “let me handle this”.  He called out “I am the wealthiest person in the village.  I can provide you with great riches.” Once again there was no response.  

The two VIPS looked at each other in stunned and outraged silence.  They had never been refused anything in their lives.  And now, they are not being granted entrance beyond these pedestrian wooden doors?  They turned on their heels and began to march away in disgust.  But the servant boy did not follow them.  He walked up to the doors and timidly called out, “May we please enter your enchanted garden?”  The doors immediately swung open, revealing a paradise beyond what words can describe.  The doorkeeper smiled and said, “I could not figure out what all this talk of power and riches was about.  Why did you not just ask to enter?”

Our story from the book of Kings tells us of another VIP who is in search of something valuable.  Naaman is a man of immense power, influence, and wealth.  He has much of what the world has to offer at his fingertips.  But for everything he possesses, he does not possess the ability to heal himself.  He has a skin disease that affects his physical health and comes with significant social stigma.  It does not state it in the story but Naaman had surely tried every possible cure he could obtain, all to no avail.  We wonder if he had any hope at all of being healed.  

But then a young girl from Israel, that he had captured and taken as a slave, offers a possibility.  Naaman is so desperate for a cure that he decides to listen to this powerless nobody and travel into the land of his adversary in search of relief.  So, off he travels with the tools that have always served him well in the past, the traditional forms of power, political influence and money.  And he presents himself to the most powerful person in Israel, the King.  The king, seeing this in terms of traditional forms of power, panics because he has no answer for Naaman. However, Elisha the prophet does have an answer and invites Naaman to come to him and receive healing.  So Naaman arrives in all his glory, complete with a parade of horses and chariots, and weighty expectations of a royal welcome and a full-blown Broadway show.  But there is no red carpet.  There is no grand hocus pocus.  In fact, the prophet does not even bother to make an appearance.  A mere messenger informs Naaman that to be healed all he need do is bathe in the nearby less-than-impressive Jordan River seven times.  The offended Naaman, promptly and proudly turns on his heal and storms off.  But his servants seek to slow him down and cool him off.  They convince him to momentarily set aside his prejudices and preconceived notions about how healing can occur.  And to lay his ego aside as well.  Naaman relents and does indeed bathe in the Jordan seven times, and yes, he is healed.

This ancient story has much to teach us about the pathway to healing.  I will leave the discussion of healing of physical ailments to the physicians in the room, but I can speak to the healing of our psyches and our souls.  One of the first things that strikes me about this story is the division between those who understand the pathway to healing and those who do not.  Naaman, the high and mighty commander and the King of Israel have no clue as to how healing can occur.  They assume the means of healing come through power and privilege because that is what has served them in their lives.  The slave girl and the servant are the ones who direct the action toward healing.  Without power and privilege they see the world through a different lens, a lens that allows them to see how healing can indeed be achieved.

Now the storyline is not as simple as those with power and privilege are bad and those without power and privilege are good.  If that were the case, just about everyone in this room would be in trouble.  What is revealed is that power and privilege can be an impediment to finding the pathway to being healed by our God.  Those with power and privilege have often reached that place by being confident and assertive in their belief that they have the answers and ability to solve all problems.  And with the power and privilege they have, they often acquire a sense of entitlement about how they should be recognized in the world.  

Naaman showed up at Elisha’s doorstep ready to be recognized for the important person that he is and pay for his healing, and perhaps like any paying customer, expect to be thanked for his business.  He was looking for a transaction that would continue his understanding of himself as someone in control and always in charge of his life.  The servants, who see the pathway to healing, understand what it is to not always be in charge of one’s life.  

Some forms of healing only come on the pathway of humility.  This is the case for the deepest hurts in our lives.  We are not talking of skin conditions or physical ailments of any kind.  We are talking about the aches and pains we find in our hearts when we wake up at three AM and cannot get back to sleep; the regrets we carry; the fears that haunt us; the hurts that are years old but are still very real for us; the deep loneliness that may find a home within us at times. For all the things we have accomplished in this world, for all the things we have rightly earned, there are some things that only God’s grace can heal.  The only way is by being enveloped in the divine’s loving arms, receiving ultimate acceptance, and experiencing the revelation of just how precious and valuable we are as God’s children.  

The pathway to grace is not through our accomplishments.  Grace is not earned.  Grace is set right before us each day, in fact it is so intimately close to us it is easily overlooked as we seek solutions that are farther afield.  All we need do is ask for it.  When we turn toward God and acknowledge our need to be made whole; to be forgiven; to learn our true value in God’s eyes; all manner of healing is offered to us.  And our opportunity to do this is as simple and common as our weekly prayer of confession.  It can be the most life-changing couple of minutes of our week.  When we are honestly present before our God in all our vulnerabilities and limitations we open a space within ourselves for God’s Spirit to enter and renew us, refresh us, and heal us.  

We live with a consistent choice in our lives.  We can stand on our pride and remain beholden to all the ways we are wounded by the world and ourselves.  Or we can present ourselves in all humility before the God right before us and allow grace to free us.  For those village VIP’s it was learning the power of the word please.  For Naaman it was risking looking silly, bathing in a local river.  For us it is honest and heartfelt prayer before our God.

My advice?  Come on in, the water’s fine.
 
Thanks be to God.  Amen.