A New Creation

Ever wondered what you’d say if you found a genie in a bottle and were offered three wishes? What do you want? What do you really want? What seems so vitally important that you would spend one of your precious wishes for it? Our scripture texts this morning give one answer. See if that answer fits you.



First there is the army general Naaman, For him, the answer is obvious. He wants relief from his loathsome disease. We may need to linger a moment and be clear about that disease. What Naaman suffered was a skin disorder that the Hebrews called Tzaraath. Thought to be contagious, lepers were quarantined and shunned by society as a whole. Hansen’s disease, the medical name for leprosy, while similar, is not contagious once treatment begins and need not be shunned. Naaman’s affliction was not only painful, it was a source of shame. Thought to be incurable, the sufferer was condemned to a life of isolation and self-loathing. Naaman’s wish is for healing and restoration to human society.



A second man is involved in this story, Jehoram, king of Israel. His is a different affliction. He has been approached with a king’s ransom of tribute for the purpose of securing healing for a valued army general, Naaman. His problem? Jehoram is not a faith healer and he has no idea how to heal this general. Therefore he wonders, “Why are they coming to me? Is this a set up? When I am unable to heal this general, will they use this as an excuse to attack my kingdom and destroy me?” Probably a rescuer, someone to get him out of this hot water he finds himself in. As Shakespeare has one of his kings remark, “Heavy lies the head that wears the crown! Saying “No” to kings is not normally a healthy thing to do.



Our third player is the apostle Paul. His wish is clear and unwavering - a new creation. Not a do-over, not things as they’ve always been without the uncomfortable complications. Not my wistful sigh as I contemplate the figures on my scale, the obvious result of my recent binge on ice cream and chocolate cake. Why can’t I be like those other people who can eat all they want and never gain weight? Many an alcoholic can truthfully say “I’d like to be sober” but on closer inspection this wish might better be phrased “I’d like to be able to drink as much as I want without the usual unpleasant consequences.” It’s the plight of the child who is not really sorry for stealing cookies from the cookie jar. The regret comes from having been caught!



Paul found his treasure in becoming a new creation. “The old is finished and gone. We have become new creatures in Jesus Christ.”



Obstacles to the New Creation



For Naaman there were several obstacles: his expectations, his pride, his social position, his xenophobia, his arrogance. This is a successful man accustomed to VIP treatment. He is not only on speaking terms with a king, he has been given royal treatment by that king. The amount of money he carries to Jehoram is truly staggering. Even though kings can be insanely generous (visit Blenheim palace in England, the palatial country estate of the Duke of Marlborough and gift of Queen Anne, and you can see what kings are capable of) but they do not bestow such gifts capriciously. Naaman had to have been worth the expense, just as John Churchill was at the battle of Blenheim. Naaman was a VIP of great magnitude and he expected the very best treatment. Being told to take a bath in the River Jordan, not the cleanest of water and certainly a mundane treatment that could have been done just as well back home, was an insult to his position and reputation. “I may be a leper, but I’m a high-class leper.”



A contemporary situation might be the popularity of resort type rehabilitation centers where the rich and famous can maintain their style of living while seeking recovery How difficult it is for them to achieve the simplicity and humility required for sobriety. . Blessed are the poor who know they are poor, blessed are the despised who have felt the sting of social ostracism. The well-to-do can find recovery, but the path to new life must first take them through the rigors of ego-deflation, and few are willing to undergo that humiliation when they still have the wherewithal to buy whatever they want.



Another problem is one of expectation and intellectual arrogance. Many cannot find healing because they have already determined: a) what the “real” problem is, b) how it should be dealt with and c) what the outcome should be. Both William James in his “Varieties of Religious Experience” and Soren Kierkegaard speak of the blessedness of the simple believer, the one who knows his or her need and puts that need in the hands of a God they can trust. For the rest - and these two distinguished scholars counted themselves among them - knowing ahead of time what should be done and how it should be carried out, keeps us from receiving the healing we need.



In our story, a young slave girl makes the obvious observation, “If you’d been asked to do something difficult, you’d have done it without question. Why can you do something so simple as washing in the Jordan?” Why not indeed.



Paul would have applauded her commonsense. The Galatians have also taken on the arduous task of obeying the Jewish law, as if such effort would insure salvation. Wrong. The law was never meant to save us, it’s only use was to show us how far short we’ve fallen of true goodness. Our help is not in our arrogance and contempt for the “common people” so to speak. Our help is in a God ready to do for us what we can never do for ourselves.



The New Creation



The chief obstacle remains - what do we really need? Is it the Oscar, or the Pulitzer Prize? Being President of the United States, or singing a perfect high C on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera? Is it the Nobel Peace Prize or accumulating ten million dollars in your bank account? Is it marrying your Prince Charming or the girl of your dreams? It’s rather like that game I remember playing when I was a child: the Game of Life. One set up a goal toward which you strove. There were three categories: wealth, fame or love. I always chose “Love” figuring without that the other two would be meaningless in the end. As I played the game, I found that the wisest strategy was a prudent mix of all three. Even so, I don’t ever recall finally winning.



Naaman learned humility was the prerequisite for healing. Only when you admit you’re down and out can you begin the task of recovery and healing. Life is tricky - it’s the game we win by losing, we give up to get up, it’s when we die to our old life that we really start to live the new one. King Jehoram showed amazing good sense when he

took the advice of his advisors and called in a competent miracle worked names Elisha. In his way, he had to learn the same lesson Naaman learned: humility. That sometimes our greatest obstacle is our own misguided pride. But Paul could have taught them something more: the real prize was not clean skin or escape from attack by an outraged king. The real prize was a new creation. We are broken people who have been healed, not so we can keep on doing what we did before (without the bad consequences!) But so we can embark on a new reality, becoming God’s people in a new and always unexpected way.



Now that can be an uncomfortable goal too. After all, the old way of life is the familiar way. We understand how the old life work. Daring to become new means all bets are off. The addict gets clean and sober and has to learn a whole new way to face life and the world. The man who loses his wife and must learn how to live by himself on his own. The pianist who loses an arm in battle and learns to play again with one hand. Oh dear, the list is endless because everyone of us has had a life-altering even that forced us to take on a new creation.



For Paul that new creation was what we needed all along. CS Lewis wrote an intriguing parable called “The Great Divorce”. In it, souls in hell are given permission to have one day in heaven. Not just one day, they are invited to stay for eternity there. But most of the souls don’t like it. It isn’t what they’re used to. One soul is a positive mother who has only come to heaven to get the soul of her son and take him back to hell with her where she can take care of him for all eternity. Another soul is a minister who is teaching a Bible study in hell and considers himself indispensable back there. Still another has a personal demon he considers his closest friend, one he can’t imagine living without. In every instance, angels are there pleading with them, encouraging them, trying to convince them heaven really is their natural home. They just have to stick around and let their souls get used to it. Nearly all the souls return to hell, the place where they will feel most comfortable, most “themselves”, most at home.



Paul saw through that lie. He’d lived it, and he earnestly begs the Galatians to see through it too. We are the stuff of a new creation, one we can’t begin to comprehend on our own. If we will but surrender our own preconceived notions, if we’ll trust beyond our eyesight, if we’ll dare to become new, then we can discover what it means to be most fully and truly and completely alive. God grant you the faith to become new creations in his eyes! Amen.