“Once upon a time, far away and long ago, there was a sales person traveling down a very rural road.

Feeling lost, and spotting a girl of about 12-years-old by the roadside, he asked, "How far is it to the Robinson Farm?"

"Well sir," said the bright young lady, "if you keep going the way you are headed, it's about 24,996 miles. But if you turn around, it's about four."

Source: Rev. Richard Faircloth

This is probably a good story for use during Lent as well. Sometimes we don’t realize how close we are to what we need. The other day my wife misplaced a check. She was in a bit of a panic, her voice rising as she frantically looked for this check exclaiming to any one who would listen "what did I do with that check?" She was looking everywhere except down at the counter where we were standing. I said, it’s right here. The old saying close enough to bite you came to mind, but some things are better left unsaid.

In the lessons for today, especially the one from Kings and the Gospel of Mark there are stories which focus on being returned to a state of health and wholeness. In both cases it might be concluded that God was closer than either sick person realized, and the outcome, hopefully, is that both have the eyes of their spirits opened not just their diseases cured.

The story from II Kings is a fuller more robust story. It has many elements which are instructive for our spiritual health. If you remember, it begins with reference to Naaman, a well-known and respected Syrian military leader, who had leprosy. Now leprosy was a term which referred to over 70 diseases of the skin, some of which were curable and some not. It was not just what we call Hansen’s disease. All lepers in Hebrew society had to leave the community and live on the outskirts in order to protect the rest from what might be a contagious and deadly disease, and there were strict requirements for indicating that one was healed and therefore to be readmitted to society. We don’t know exactly how it was dealt with in Syria, but one can assume it must have been similar. Certainly Naaman was very concerned and wanted to be healed. He realized that without a cure his whole career and status in the community was going to come to an end.

The first spiritual epiphany is that the solution to Naaman’s problem is suggested by a young girl from Israel who had been captured during a Syrian raid. She held no status at all, she is simply the same as a piece of property, yet she holds his only source of hope – "There is a prophet in Israel who can cure him."

Naaman is at a lost. As he goes to the King of Syria to ask permission to go to Israel we get another glimpse of how the world works. The king sends him with gifts to open the door for him with the King of Israel. When he gets there the King of Israel thinks it is a set-up and that it is ploy for Syria to invade Israel again – does it sound familiar? Then when Naaman finally gets to Elisha, the prophet won’t even come out to see him, but sends his servant to tell him to go wash in the Jordan. He is insulted that he doesn’t get anymore of an impressive cure than this and gets the message through a servant. However, once his bloated ego subsides he does as Elisha tells him and then realizes that God is in the world – but he had to hear it from a slave, be told what to do by a servant from a prophet from a lesser kingdom and bath in a less impressive river.

Putting our assumptions aside is often the first step in being able to hear God tell us what we need to hear.

The other story tells us about how God reaches out to a man through Jesus. It is one of the miracles stories which raised the question for the people, "Who is this Jesus." It is the question which continued until his Resurrection, but in some sense it is the question we continue to grapple with as we seek to understand how God continues to come to us.

The leper who comes to Jesus does so by taking a chance. He has violated the 50 pace rule regarding the required distance between a leper and others. He comes to Jesus with a basic belief that Jesus can heal him. What we learn in this brief snapshot is how we come to know how God through Jesus deals with us. Jesus does not retreat from this man any more than he does from others who are considered outcast or untouchable, or unclean, or from whatever makes us feel unworthy. He reaches across the forbidden barrier and touches this man. As one commentator said, instead of Jesus putting himself at risk to catch this man’s disease, he imparts his wholeness and holiness to him and he is made whole. It is what happens when we come open, in need, in the words of the old prayer of confession, knowing that we have no power to help our selves, we acknowledge that there is "no health in us, and we place ourselves at God’s mercy, knowing his great love for us."

Therefore we might continue to ponder:

Is our society so very different than that of ancient Israel? Is this really only a story from "far away and long ago," or is it a story about today as well?

• A story about who is touchable - and who is untouchable.
• A story about who is part of the community, of who is acceptable and who is not.

It is a story about how we judge others, how we treat others, on the basis of appearance - both real and supposed. Also, it is a story about how we cross the barrier to be the one through God’s wholeness and holiness will come. The reason that our worship together is so important is that it reminds us that we must be one and that God is one with us in all we do. In a book that the new Men’s Study Group is trying to read, Being God’s Partner, there is a chapter titled, “Imitating God,” and it is about how we live in the image of God in the world of work. Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin begins the chapter with this story:

In one of the final scenes in the film Manhattan, Ike, the Woody Allen character, challenges his friend from Yale to be more self-critical about the ethics of his personal life.
Yale resist the challenge. "You are so self-righteous!" he screams. "We’re just people. We’re just human beings. You think you’re God!" Ike shrugs his shoulders and says, "I gotta model myself after someone." Silkin says as lofty and impossible and arrogant as that sounds, it is the beginning of the Jew’s spiritual journey, and I would suggest it is the beginning for all of us.

Amen.