The Other Side of Concord Bridge: What is Mission?
David C. Myers
February 15, 2009
Epiphany - 6
II Kings 5:1 - 14
Isaiah 52:7
Acts 1:6 - 9
Text: "But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, 'I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!'". . . II Kings 5:11
Many of you know that Deb and I spent 11 years living in Lexington, Massachusetts. If you are even a remote fan of American history you will know that Lexington takes great pride in being the spot where "the shot heard 'round the world" was fired on April 19, 1775. Each year there is an elaborate re-enactment of the battle that took place on the Lexington Green between the British and the Minutemen. And even after 238 years of practice, every year at that re-enactment at Lexington, the Minutemen still lose to the British - until the battle moves on to Concord. You may also remember that battle, a few hours later. The British are marching about 2.5 miles west from Lexington fresh from their victory there, and as they are about to cross the Concord Bridge they suddenly realize on the other side there are many Minutemen - not marching in neat rows, but coming out of hiding in the woods to surround them. And there the Minutemen prevail, but the War of Independence was begun - or began to culminate.
It was interesting to be an eleven-year citizen of Lexington during that annual event, for what I saw was a tremendous narrowing of focus, largely from a town of highly educated people that have a much more expansive understanding of the world than do most towns.
This was never brought home to me quite so clearly as it was on Patriot's Day, 1985, when Ema Wright, a young woman from Newcastle, England who was living with us for the year, was both quite intrigued, amused, and a bit offended at the importance we put on the event. We, on this side of the Atlantic, call the battle as the "shot heard 'round the world."
Ema told us in England the British don't look at it quite the same way. As a matter of fact, British history books call it the "Concord Affair" or the "skirmish of April 19th."
It's amazing what a change of perspective can do to your ego! - from the other side of Concord Bridge. It can be both amusing, but also very instructive. While I certainly have not travelled the world like some of you, my first hand glimpses into the cultures of other lands reveals that even though there are differences it does not mean that one is superior to another.
I think that there are times that we can broaden our horizons by taking that short walk across Concord Bridge to understand that other countries have "hopes and dreams as true and high as [ours]". In 1775 it was England that was on the other side of Concord Bridge. Today there are many countries, and many cultures - even within our own country, even within our own municipality - that are on the "other side of Concord Bridge."
And this has everything to do with mission. How do we, like Jesus instructed us in the Story of the good Samaritan, be neighbor to those we meet? Remember that the "hero" of the story was the Samaritan, a member of a cultural group of people who were perhaps the most hated enemy of the people of Israel in that time, who saved the rich person.
The story of Naaman can be instructive. To briefly summarize, Naaman was commander of the army of the King of Aram (Syria). To say that Israel and Syria were cooperative neighbors might be a bit akin to saying that Israel and Iraq are cooperative neighbors. The Aramean army had conducted raids on the house of Israel, even taking into captivity a young girl who now served as servant for Naaman's wife.
But Naaman has a problem; he has leprosy; perhaps the most socially reprehensible disease of Biblical times. This poses a huge problem for Namaan. Lepers were complete outcasts. In Israel and for the people of the law of Moses, lepers were always beggars, for they were not permitted other forms of employment. [see Leviticus 13 - 14 and you will get a feel for the outcast status of lepers in Hebrew society] The leper is not permitted to interact with the more healthy population, or to worship with the community. In Hebrew society, a leper was cast out of community, home and family. To be a leper was to be as good as dead.
And while Naaman was not a Hebrew, a lot of the same cultural norms and prohibitions would also apply. We can thus assume that Namaan's leprosy was not very advanced and that both he and the King wanted this highly regarded soldier healed - if at all possible.
Enter the Israeli girl Namaan had captured on an earlier raid into Israel and now servant of Namaan's wife - she suggests that Yahweh's prophet might be able to cure him. Even the King of Aram intervenes and agrees to go to the King of Israel to have the prophet Elisha taken back to Naaman. You know, when people have a disease as dread as this they will seek any possible route for a cure.
Elisha, however, is a stubborn prophet and says he will not go to Syria; and that indeed, Naaman must come to him. Naaman comes, and Elisha tells him to, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean."
Naaman is equally proud - isn't this a wonderful study in international relations and national pride? - and he says, "Are not . . . the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" You see, it was an insult to Naaman that there might be curative powers in the enemy's land. But after his initial resistance, Naaman's desperation to be healed took over and he did as he was told by the prophet of God, and went and washed seven times in the River Jordan and "his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean."
But this story doesn't entirely end here. When we turn to the New Testament, in Luke's Gospel, we find that Jesus picks up on this. When Jesus preaches in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of his ministry he reads from the prophet Isaiah that He has been anointed to preach Good News to the poor, to heal the sick, set free the oppressed. And we are told, "everyone was amazed at the gracious words that came from His mouth. They said, 'Is not this Joseph's son?'" [From Luke 4:16-30] they asked one another with great astonishment and pride. Hometown boy made good. But then Jesus continues, and he tells two stories, stories all the people in the synagogue would know - one about the widow in Zarepath of Sidon who was given food by the prophet Elijah in the time of famine, and the other the curing of Naaman by Elisha. As Jesus tells these stories he begins by saying, "at the time there was a severe famine in all the land, Elijah was sent to none of them except" the widow in a foreign land; and "while there were many lepers in Israel, none of them were cleansed except Naaman the [commander of the Syrian army]. On hearing these words, the good people of Jesus' home synagogue in Nazareth - who just moments before were amazed and astonished at Him, now turned on Jesus and tried to throw Him off a cliff. You see Jesus was telling them that while they were indeed a chosen people; all people are equally as chosen.
But, God, you see, cures even our enemies; for God is no respecter of national borders. God is the God of all - even of our enemies. And to me, it's just a little bit harder to think of another as my enemy or even as someone or lesser worth when I am reminded that the one true God is at work with them, even curing and healing them.
So what does this have to do with mission and where and how we do mission? Perhaps the easiest question to answer is where. The answer comes from Jesus instructions to His disciples, the last words Jesus spoke before He ascended into Heaven. It is our reading from Acts chapter 1. The disciples are like all of us. We are looked into our expectations. They asked Jesus whether or not the Kingdom of Israel was going to be restored. Everyone wants the memories of the good old days restored. And that goes for us now, in the good old days mission was easy - fund missionaries, they would spread the Word; take our wisdom to other lands.
But listen to what Jesus said, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that God has set by God's own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes to you - and you will by my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
The first part of the Jesus answer was that we are asking the wrong question. We shouldn't be asking for the restoration of the good old days, or expecting that what worked in the past will work now. "It is not for you to know the times or periods that God has set by God's own authority." That you see is based on our expectations - and they are limited by our human constraints.
Well then, what is the right question? To live with expectancy. God will do a new thing, and God will give us power to do it - when we get the spirit. God has promised us power when the spirit comes to us. We should be praying for God's spirit, not for restoration - and then we will be given the power to be in mission, to witness to Chevy Chase and Bethesda (our Jerusalem), Montgomery county and downtown Northeast Washington (our Judea as friendly neighbors, and Samaria (our neighbors that are least like us), and to places globally - to the ends of the earth. I have always found this passage a wonderful guide and model for a church's mission program. It is like casting a stone in a calm pond. There are ripples that go forth, each a little farther away.
Note the key word here is "witness." It is not to only send money, or to pay for missionaries. It is not to only bestow our wisdom on another culture. It is to witness - to witness the spirit of a loving, accepting, forgiving God that embraces people from all places and cultures - even our enemies. Witnessing the spirit means not doing mission for the homeless, for the hungry, for the Palestinians, for the people in Sri Lanka, for the Nicaraguans; nor is it not doing mission to them. Rather in order to witness the spirit it is being in relation with them, to walk with them, to learn their customs and methods, to share the spirit that God has blessed them with. After all, they may even be called and chosen by God to witness to us.
We cannot witness without being in relation with them; being present with them. In this manner we know that our differences are only of circumstance and not of an abundance of God's blessing. As I sat at table with the Homeless men in St. Luke's Shelter, worshipped in churches in Nicaragua, walked throughout the West Bank and Bethlehem and Jericho, met with families in poverty stricken Egypt, I can tell you that I have witnessed a faith spirit that has rekindled my own. You see, even as we meet people and witness to them, the Spirit works through them as well and transforms both parties and creates something new. Jesus said, when two or three are gathered in My Name, I am in the midst of them." (Mt. 18:20) This is not only true of the homeless and hungry we serve locally, but also of the people we share faith with internationally.
Which brings me to the last Scripture for today; it comes from the prophet Isaiah. "How beautiful are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news . . ." [Isaiah 52:7] How do we do mission? Where our feet take us reveals it. I want to share (again) this short piece from Frederick Buechner based on Isaiah 52:7: [Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC, Harper's San Francisco, 1993, p.31]
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings," says Isaiah (52:7). Not how beautiful are the herald's lips which proclaim the good tidings, or his eyes as he proclaims them, or even the good tidings themselves, but how beautiful are the feet - the feet without which he could have never made it up into the mountains, without which the good tidings would never have been proclaimed at all. . . .
"When the disciples first came upon the risen Christ that [Easter] Sunday morning of their confusion and terror, it wasn't His healing hands they touched or Christ's teaching lips, or Christ's holy heart. Instead it was those same ruined tired feet that had carried him to them three years earlier, when they were at their accounts and their nets, they had dragged Christ all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem, they had stumbled up the hill where he was to be crucified, On that first Easter, the disciples "took hold of His feet and worshipped Him," Matthew says (28:9)
"Generally speaking, if you want to know who you really are, as distinct from who you like to think you are, keep an eye on where your feet take you.
What is mission? It begins with being in relationship, being present with our brothers and sisters wherever we find them, and then having our feet take us to them and them to us.