Let us pray: O God, may these words which I speak be ones which tell of you and your love and your call to act justly. Amen.

There is an important series of questions that I’ve learned to ask whenever a story of healing is encountered in the bible. These questions include: What actually needs to be healed? What did the healing accomplish? Who received the benefits from the healing? What can we learn about our own need for healing?

Well, as you heard, there were two stories of healings among the passages assigned to this week in the common lectionary. What happens when we apply those questions to these stories?

The story of Namaan is an extremely fascinating window into human nature and the idea that in any given situation there are often multiple levels of meaning at play. We are told that Namaan was a very successful military campaigner. But military might can be laid low by physical concerns. Despite his prowess and accomplishment in his military career, there was one skirmish in which he was not successful, namely the battling of a physical condition in the form of a dreaded skin disease. As we consider these stories from the bible it is always important to remember that in the biblical world view there was a much closer relationship understood between physical condition and spiritual health. Illness or physical ailments were understood to be a sign of not being right with God. So, as we hear this story about Namaan, there is a sense that the one thing that is keeping Namaan from being a truly great man, was this physical condition. To the people of the day, and to Namaan himself, this was something that was keeping him from leading a completely successful life.

However, if it was all that simple the story could have been told very succinctly. Namaan had a skin condition, Elisha healed it, and consequently Namaan believed in the God of Elisha. Story over. In fact, that might be the one sentence summary of the story. But it’s not the whole story, and because it is not the whole story, there is much more that we are intended to take from it.

First of all, it was a young foreign servant girl that pointed out that a healing might even be possible. Healing number one - she was actually believed. She told her mistress who told her husband who told his boss, who wrote a letter. There’s a pretty strong implication in the story that healing was accomplished because a series of people were willing to trust the opinion of a young woman who would not normally be given much credibility. That could say something about the extent to which are willing to go in order to find healing for illness. Discussions about the current state of health care in Canada should take note.

Well, the king of Israel received the letter and as we discover, in his mind this letter is not a simple diplomatic request. Despite the lavish array of gifts that came with the letter, it is perceived by the king as a threat to his power. It sounds like more healing needs to happen here, and it does. Elisha, a prophet in the king’s court hears about the king’s distress and suggests that there is simpler interpretation of the request in the letter.

Now the focus changes back to Namaan. He is given a simple prescription - go bathe in the river Jordan. Such a great heroic man with such a horrible condition could not possibly find healing from such a simple course of action - the Jordan river after all. A great man would do better by far to bathe in Damascus rivers which have far more going for them. But his bubble of self-importance is quickly burst, again from a rather unlikely source. His servants called him on it. And as we heard, the prescription was followed and the disease was healed.

A wise commentator once said that healings in the bible are to be understood as healings of disease, where disease is to be considered in its root form - dis - ease. In other words, stories of healing need to be considered for the way they help us first to discover where things are not at ease - where things are in turmoil or lack centredeness, and then for how the stories of healing help to bring back some clarity and understanding for the situation.

Clearly there was more than Namaan’s skin condition that needed healing. Attitudes about where wisdom, power and status come from were also ready for a healing touch. Hopefully, as we hear the story, our own attitudes and preconceived notions are also part of the resulting checkup.

Our gospel story this morning also told a story of healing. On the surface, this story seems much simpler than the one we heard about Namaan. A man comes to Jesus suggesting that if Jesus so chooses, he could be healed. Jesus does make that choice but in so doing, asks the man to keep the incident quiet. As we heard, this is not possible. The man freely and widely tells everyone about the miracle of his healing. The gospel writer Mark, uses this incident as another in a series of situations which serve to alert the religious authorities about this man Jesus who was going about invoking the power of God, and thus threatening the power of those religious authorities who claimed it for themselves. There is a curious set of cross-purposes at play here as we hear the story.

However, other layers need to be added to this story of healing. Jewish purity laws were very hard on people who had obvious and visible skin conditions. Not only would such people be outcasts from the ability to work, engage as a member of a family and participate in religious observance, but anyone having contact with them would be also be put in that situation. Therefore people suffering in such a situation were very clearly social outcasts. Healing was not only the promise of restoration of physical health, it also meant the possibility of restoration to or inclusion in the social and religious community. It was a big deal. No wonder the man was compelled to go against Jesus’ wishes not to broadcast this healing.

The dis-ease here of course is one caused by attitudes of exclusion. In a time when physical ailments were seen as a sign of a broken relationship with God and when physical conditions could be used to exclude people from the mainstream of religious and social community, it was necessary for physical healing to occur as a sign of the need for attitudes to be healed as well. The same purpose needs to be accomplished for us, even though we may not understand physical conditions in the same way. What about our own attitudes that exclude people, that leave them on the margins. How do they need to be healed?

Stories of healing form an important and significant portion of the scriptural record. There is much more to be said about old and new attitudes about healing. I have only touched on a very small part of what could be said. For example, several times this morning I was on the verge of suggesting that the separation between old and new attitudes around healing is not as great as we might have thought even a few years ago. However, that is for another time. What it does reveal, is that there are layers and layers of meaning to be taken from all of these stories. They are always more than skin deep. Amen.