"Thus and So Spoke the Girl from Israel"
#91-48Presented on The Lutheran Hour on July 28, 2024
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2024 Lutheran Hour Ministries
Reflections
Text: 2 Kings 5:4
Early in His public ministry, before He was betrayed by Judas, before He was arraigned by Annas the high priest, before He was condemned by Pontius Pilate the Roman governor, there was a name that almost got Jesus killed: Naaman, the Syrian. The mere mention of Naaman enraged them. Why? Because God gave His favor to a person who didn't deserve it. Of course, somebody might say that no one really deserves God's favor. That's the meaning of grace, right? But somehow, as it's recorded in the Gospel of Luke 4, Jesus' hometown neighbors in Nazareth forgot this and they tried to throw Him off a cliff.
How did it happen? Author Skye Jethani, in his devotional series, With God Daily, suggested that it happened because of what he calls The Fallacy of the Single Story. What's that? An example of it was illustrated in a study conducted in England. Football fans (or for us Yankees, soccer fans) completed a questionnaire.
The questions were written to identify the Manchester United fans in the group and to reinforce their allegiance to Manchester United. Each participant was told that the next part of the study involved watching a film about soccer in another building. While the participant walked to that building, an actor hired by the researchers and pretending to be a jogger would run past, fall, grab his ankle, shouting in pain. Now, sometimes the jogger wore a red Manchester United shirt. Other times he wore a green Liverpool shirt, the rival soccer club to Manchester. Now, as you might've guessed, the Manchester United fans almost always helped the jogger when he was wearing Manchester red, but when he was wearing the rival shirt, Liverpool green, they very rarely helped. They stopped only 30% of the time. Now, why were these diehard soccer fans so callous to their rivals? The Single Story Fallacy.
The Single Story Fallacy is when I reduce another human being to a role in a single story, my story. I see that person only as a rival. I don't see him as the son of a mother who's suffering from dementia, or as the husband whose wife just suffered a miscarriage. I don't see the little boy who was once the star of his local soccer club. I don't see the awkward teenager who got cut from the team. I don't see the old friend from college or the gifted engineer who designs ventilation systems. I don't see the pet owner whose dog thinks he's the greatest human being on the planet. I only see an irritation, in my story.
It seems that Jesus' hometown neighbors in Nazareth saw Naaman the Syrian in a single story. They saw a foreigner who didn't deserve God's favor, and maybe it was because they'd gotten in the habit of viewing their oppressors in a single story. The Romans, after all, were ruining their country, threatening their families and values, their schools and their churches. And wherever the people of Nazareth looked, they saw threats. Threats to their security, to their status, to their institutions. Fear does that to people.
A teacher from the Middle Ages named Thomas Aquinas said that the soul of a fearful person becomes like a city under siege. She sees invaders surrounding her. She pulls back her diplomats and citizens. She walls herself up inside the city, gathers her forces, raises her guard. Fear contracts into a storyline of self-preservation. And if self-preservation is our only story, we read those who raise our suspicions as a threat. So when Jesus, during His Sabbath day sermon in Nazareth, mentioned Naaman the Syrian to illustrate a point about the surprising and undeserved nature of God's grace, He raised their suspicions and they ran Him out of town and tried to throw Him off a cliff. This is the fallacy of the single story at work, and it was also at work in the account of Naaman.
Now, do you remember this story from Sunday school? Or maybe you never went to Sunday school; either way, you can read it for yourself in 2 Kings 5. Here's the recap. One day the King of Israel, God's people, gets a letter from the King of Syria. The letter says, "Dear sir, my servant Naaman, the commanding general of my army, has leprosy. I'm sending him to you. I hear you can help him. Sincerely, the King of Syria." And how does the King of Israel read this letter? As a threat, of course, because it's the only story he can see, the story of God's enemies, because that's what the Syrians were-- enemies of God and His people who deserved every bit of judgment they got. God Himself said that they'd be judged, because Syria was a violent tyrant who served only herself. The King of Israel knew that Syria was bad news, and he concluded that this letter couldn't be the bid for help it purported to be. It had to be a threat, because that was the only story he knew.
But God, the Bible says, God had a prophet in Israel, and God knows the backstory, not only of Naaman and his king and his nation, but also the backstory of all humanity. Your story and mine. God knows that humanity had become like the child in the Still Face Experiment.
In 1975, Dr. Edward Tronick presented the results of the Still Face Experiment. In the experiment, a child about a year old sitting in her high chair interacts playfully with her mother. The mother is expressive, bright-eyed, smiling when her daughter smiles, looking to where her daughter points, responding warmly to her bids for attention and affection. But then the researchers ask the mother to put on a still face. Not angry or disappointed or condescending, just... still. Almost instantly the child becomes agitated. She tries to get her mother to react, to reciprocate. When this fails, the child tries again. She screeches. She arches her back, she cries out, she contracts, withdraws, turns away, lashes out, loses control, collapses.
The Still Face Experiment remains one of the most replicated findings in developmental psychology. The experiment shows how human beings long to be seen, to be known, to be connected, but also that inside of us there is deep-seated insecurity. We come out of the womb harboring fears that everything can and will be lost in the blink of an eye. We all know that we were made for connection, but also that every merely human connection will eventually let us down, so we grow suspicious. We contract, turn away, lash out, or lose control. It's been a part of our experience ever since we tried to fit God into our contracted storylines.
Maybe you've heard versions of these contracted stories: God is angry because we are a mess. God will be happy if we get it together. God has left us to our own devices. Now, there's a thread of truth to each of those. The Bible calls it the truth of God's law, the truth of God's judgment, God's settled opposition to our self-chosen separation from Him. But it's not the whole truth. It's only part of the story.
And what's worse, there's another story about God out there, a story without a shred of truth that's been circulated since the Garden of Eden that says God is holding you back. God is threatened by you. You don't need God.
Fitting God into our contracted, distorted storylines doesn't change God, but it does change the way we see. Instead of seeing what we might've seen—a bright-eyed, beaming Father filled with love—we see the blank face that is God's sorrow over our separation from Him. We see the steadiness of God's opposition to the lie that we don't need Him. We see His still face and read on it indifference, malice, hatred. And now, everywhere we look, we see insecurity inscribed in the story of humanity, lashing out, losing control, contracting, collapsing.
But long ago, God had a prophet in Israel. The Bible's Book of 2 Kings 5 tells us a prophet who speaks a word from God to redirect us, to call us back. "Why are you afraid?" The prophet says. The king of Israel had gotten this ominous letter from his rival in Syria. What's he up to? What's he on about? Is he starting something? But the prophet, whose name is Elisha, in so many words says to the king, "Why so suspicious? Why so threatened? Why are you so sure this is bad news? Let Naaman come to me so that he may know God has a prophet in Israel." And Naaman, the general, the commander of the armies of the enemy of God, comes. He came expecting a high-powered event, a mountaintop moment. He was ready to pay top dollar for a life-changing experience. But Elisha doesn't even leave the house. He sends a servant to talk to Naaman. "Go wash in the river Jordan and your flesh will be restored," he tells him. This offends Naaman's sense of self-importance.
But eventually, at the urging of his companions, he complies and is healed. And through his upset expectations, Naaman is getting to know the one true God. The God who wants to connect with him right where he's at, just as he is, undeserving, the God who made him and sees him and knows him and loves him enough to die for him. The God who is here for you. And God, it turns out, was there for Naaman even before he left home. Before Naaman took his religious pilgrimage, before he got to see the celebrity speaker, before he tried buying a life-changing experience, he had seen the light of God's face back home in his household. Do you remember how Naaman heard that there was a great prophet in Israel? It was the witness of a slave girl from Israel. 2 Kings 5 tells us that Naaman's armies on one of their raids had kidnapped her, tore her out of the arms of her mother and father, took her hundreds of miles from her homeland, made her their slave.
And this girl, she had every reason to hate Naaman, to want to see him suffer, to get what he deserved, but she didn't. Somewhere in her heart she found herself caring for him. Was it Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe. Or maybe she didn't see him in a single story but in the light of something bigger because she'd grown up hearing the stories of the one true God at home and in Sunday school or Sabbath school. And maybe, when she saw Naaman suffering from this disease, from leprosy, it reminded her of something she knew but couldn't quite articulate: a deeper spiritual sickness that afflicts all of us, keeps us from seeing God's face. Maybe she saw the pain on Naaman's face and trusted that God had placed her here, not by accident but for a purpose, to tell Naaman a more expansive, all-embracing story because God had embraced her and her people even when they didn't deserve it. Even in national and institutional failure, even when they would reject and kill their Messiah Jesus, even then, their crucified and risen Lord would make His face shine on them.
So it started back at home with a little gospel light shining in a dark place from a little servant girl that God would use to connect with Naaman, to catch him in the net of His kingdom.
Years later in Nazareth, Jesus embraced that single thread of Naaman's story because Jesus embraces every story, every individual narrative thread that has been, is now, and ever shall be, yours included. Maybe you've been crushed under the blank stare of the universe. Maybe you've retreated in fear. Maybe you've lashed out, lost control, contracted and collapsed. But Jesus put me in this place to speak to you today to call you back. He offers forgiveness, healing, restoration, resurrection, a kingdom that has no end. He offers Himself.
He's writing your story into His so that you would be washed in the river, baptized into His death and new life. He's making us, His people, into what His father promised we would become, a light for a world that is crying for help. Jesus came to make God's light shine on us so that in us all people might see the face of God. I've seen a video of that Still Face Experiment. It's painful to watch the child crying out for her waiting mother, even though it only lasts a couple of minutes. The child can't help but feel unseen, misunderstood, invisible, and it may be symbolic of how a lot of people feel these days.
Journalist David Brooks writes in his book, How to Know a Person, "I often find myself interviewing people who tell me they feel invisible. Black people, feeling that the systemic inequities that afflict their daily experiences are not understood by whites. Rural people, feeling that they are not seen by coastal elites. People across political divides staring at each other with angry incomprehension. Depressed young people, feeling misunderstood by their parents and everyone else. Privileged people, widely unaware of all the people around them, cleaning their houses and serving their needs. Husbands and wives in broken marriages who realize that the person who should know them best actually has no clue. Many of our big national problems arise from the fraying of our social fabric. If we want to begin repairing the big national ruptures, we have to learn to do the small things well."
In the Still Face Experiment, it only takes the smallest loving gesture from the mother to make her child light up again. I pray that these words reach you this week as a gesture from the God who sees you and loves you and knows your name and was willing to die for it—not on a cliff in Nazareth, but on a cross outside of Jerusalem. Naaman came to know God because, as he said in 2 Kings 5:4, "Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel." And I wonder, who will come to know God this week because of you? In the name of Jesus. Amen
Reflections for July 28, 2024
Title: A preview of "Archives August"
Mark Eischer:
You're listening to The Lutheran Hour, and we're here with our Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler. Here we are, the end of July. We're looking ahead to August, and in September we begin our 92nd season of broadcasting.
Michael Zeigler:
Ninety-two years for The Lutheran Hour. Pretty amazing.
Mark Eischer:
It's incredible. And what a gift that we've been blessed to be stewards of, all these many years.
Michael Zeigler:
Which means we've got more work to do. So if you've been a regular listener, you know that we use August to prepare for that new season. And during the month of August, we revisit some classic sermons from the past. We go into our archives.
Mark Eischer:
Could you speak to the theme or the idea that we're using to organize the sermons that we chose for this year's Archives August?
Michael Zeigler:
Sure. It started with a detail that kept coming up as we were doing our read-through of the Book of Acts this last summer. If you read through Acts carefully, something you might notice is how these first Christians ordered time, how they thought about the different seasons, how they organized the passing of time.
Mark Eischer:
Kind of like a calendar.
Michael Zeigler:
Right. These Christians organized their time very much like the Old Testament people of God did, around the Holy Days, the feasts that God had given them. For example, there's Passover in the spring when they remembered how God rescued them out of slavery in Egypt so that they could be a light for all the nations. There was Pentecost in the early summer, which was a harvest festival, reminding them how they depended on God for their wellbeing. There was in fall the day of Atonement and the feasts around that, which was a time for them to reflect on their failures and repent, and to remember that God had promised to cover their failures and forgive their sins.
Mark Eischer:
Do we find these mentioned in the Book of Acts?
Michael Zeigler:
We do. Passover is the most obvious. Passover is the feast that was going on when Jesus was crucified and when He rose from the dead, then 50 days later is Pentecost. That's when the Holy Spirit descends on the early church and empowers them. And there's also a passing reference to the Day of Atonement in Acts chapter 27 when Paul's starting his voyage to Rome. It's just called the Fast, but he's referring to the Day of Atonement. And there's other references that would indicate that these feasts are still important to these early Christians.
Mark Eischer:
Important—but St. Paul also says they're no longer mandatory now that Christ has fulfilled them.
Michael Zeigler:
Correct. Colossians chapter two, verse 16. Paul says, hey, don't let anybody judge you over these things, these observances of Sabbaths or feast days, because these things are just a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. So if we're going to learn anything from these ways that God's people organize time in the past, we need to do so holding on to Christ and with the freedom that we have in Him.
Mark Eischer:
And how does this inform then the sermons we selected for August?
Michael Zeigler:
We decided to pick four classic sermons that represent different seasons of our life in Christ. So we have seasons of hope in God's promise that he would send the Christ and that he will send the Christ, that Christ will come again. That's what we do in the season of Advent and Christmas, seasons of faith in God's promise fulfilled. That's the time of Lent and Easter, which is Passover, and then seasons of growing and the love of God by the power of His Spirit, (the) season of Pentecost.
Mark Eischer:
So then, mark your calendars and join us next week as we begin Archives August.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
"O Word of God, Incarnate" arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
"O God of God, O Light of Light" From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
