Keeping the End in Sight

Texts: 2 Kings 5:1-14; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45

Once again the Scriptures have demonstrated their extraordinary ability to be timely!  When Vestry at our last meeting before Christmas decided 15 February would be the date of our parish AGM, none of us knew, or even gave a thought to, what Scriptures may have been set for this day.  And yet, here we are, on the day of our AGM, being given a series of reminders of the importance of keeping our eyes on the goal, the aim, the ends we have in mind as Christians and not to get too hung up on the means we use along the way.  Our places of worship, our styles of worship, in fact, all our religious practices, only have value if they bring us closer to God, deepen our faith and our relationship with God, and promote our healing, our wholeness, our salvation, in and through Jesus Christ our Healer, our Redeemer, and our Saviour.

I have given this sermon the title of "Keeping the End in Sight" because it appeals to my love of ambiguity, the power of words to say more than one thing at a time.  The word "End" is a classic example.  Remember how, in the good old days, authors believed their readers were so dumb that they always wrote at the end of their stories "The End", so we would know that the book had finished?  The same was true of films in those days, too, I seem to remember.  At the end of the film, those words would appear, meaning that the film had finished and you had a maximum of 15 seconds to leave the cinema before the National Anthem started!

So one meaning of "End" is "Finished".  "This is the end of an era" we often say, unless we have given up clichés for Lent or something.  Then there's "The End (of the world) is Nigh".  And thinking of that, I can't resist re-telling the story of our friend, Bishop Richard Randerson, who was once asked by some fundamentalist parish nominators if he was a "pre-millennialist or a "post-millenniallist", which has something to do with whether Christ's return is preceded by 1000 years of tribulation, or inaugurates 1000 years of heavenly rule, or something.  Richard said he was neither: he was a "pan-millennialist", which meant that if we didn't get hung up on such issues everything would pan out alright in the end!

But "End" also means "goal, aim, or purpose".  When we get up at some horrendous hour and pound the pavements, or swim hundreds of lengths, or ride a bike around Mount Cook, the end we have in mind is to get fit enough to survive the Coast to Coast, or an ironman event.  We have some particular object in mind, and that object we may call "the end", the purpose for which we are doing whatever it is we are doing.

And the curious thing is that for the Christian those two meanings come together.  God is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, we say in one of our liturgies.  Our end is God, we seek to come to God, to share for ever in his eternal life.  The end of history comes when all things are unified in Christ and brought back to God.  Those are high and lofty thoughts, and we are constantly tempted in our everyday lives, and (it sometimes seems to me) especially in our church meetings, our Vestry meetings, our AGM's, and our seemingly endless(!) review meetings.  So, I repeat, we need to hear what the Spirit is saying to this church this morning through these readings as a prelude to our AGM.

Our first reading is another beautifully told comedy sketche from the Old Testament.  Naaman is a very important man.  He is supreme commander of the Syrian army, but he has developed leprosy.  Understandably, he is desperate to get rid of it but does know to whom he can turn for a cure.  But in his household there is a servant girl (well, actually a slave), captured on a previous raid in Israel and now serving Mrs Naaman.  She has heard of a great prophet in Israel with astonishing powers of healing.

So a tricky diplomatic situation arises.  How can Naaman , the Syrian army commander, safely enter Israel, his enemy?  So he gets a letter from the Syrian King to Israel's King, and part of the fun of this story lies in the terrified reaction of the King of Israel who believes he is being set up to fail.  However, that is all eventually sorted out and Naaman arrives at the home of this great prophet, Elisha.  At this point, of course, Naaman has only one end in mind – a cure from leprosy.  Nothing else matters except that.

But now the story takes a lovely twist, and Naaman becomes like us.  He has a very clear idea in his mind about how this healing should be conducted.  Hear it again in his own words: I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.  Instead, of course, the prophet doesn't bother to appear himself; he sends out his minion with instructions for this mighty military man to jump up and down in the River Jordan seven times in full view of any curious bystander who happened to be around.  And, human nature being what it is, he is not greatly pleased.

What has happened is that he has forgotten the end he had in mind: he has forgotten that he has come seeking wholeness, healing, and salvation from leprosy, and is now hung-up over the correct ritual to be followed.  This is not, of course, a scientific argument about the alleged healing qualities of the waters of the Jordan compared to those of the rivers of Syria.  No such claim is made for the River Jordan.  This is about whether Naaman will get off his high horse, forget who and what he is, and submit himself to God acting through his chosen prophet.  And for us it is about remembering that the correct ritual is the one that brings us closer to God, and not necessarily the one that we use because we always have used it.

St Paul uses the image of athletic training to make this point very strongly in our second lesson.  The goal of an athlete is to win the race – the means are what he or she does in training.  An athlete may be fortunate enough to enjoy the training regime devised by the coach, but if it does not enable that athlete to win the race, it must be changed, even if a new type of training is less enjoyable than the old one.  Here again the question for us is clear: is what we are doing in the church today bringing the desired results?  Is the church becoming fitter and healthier, or is it growing tired and in decline?  And if we are honest enough to answer that question, what does it tell us about our training regime and the need for change?  Again, those are important questions for us to take from these readings into our AGM and beyond.

Our gospel reading is an even stronger challenge for us along these lines.  We were surely tempted last week to take Peter's side when he told Jesus off.  The more Jesus healed people, the bigger crowds he drew to him.  The same remains true to this day.  People who are believed to have healing powers are still the best drawcard the church has; and the temptation is to assume that anyone who can draw a big crowd to the church must be on the right track.  But Jesus didn't see it that way last week and we can see why this week.

He ministers to one individual leper – in common parlance, he heals him.  And then he instructs the man to re-connect with the religious community, from which he has been excluded by his leprosy.  Don't go shooting your mouth off about your physical healing; go and resume your religious practices that will lead you back to God and wholeness and salvation.  Of course, the man does the complete opposite, which results in Jesus becoming the outcast instead of the leper.  It is now Jesus who has to remain "outside in lonely places", because of the crowds.

What a message that is for the church!  Our constant temptation is to find some way of attracting the crowds, and it sometimes sounds to me that we are not too fussed about what that way may be.  If it works, let's do it.  Give the punters what they want and, who knows, our parish may be able to afford a full-time priest.

But, despite what one or two clergy apparently believe, the end of the church is not to provide employment for them, nor to draw vast crowds to some spectacular magic show.  The end of the church is to worship God, and to proclaim his message of freedom and reconciliation, to promote the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.  It has never been a popular message – it always leads, not to vast crowds, but to Good Friday.  We are, after all, only 10 days away from Lent.

The good news is that Good Friday is followed by Easter Day – death is followed by resurrection.  To proclaim that message is for the Church –

The End.