Great Expectations
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series II, Cycle B
Great Expectations
I suspect that if pressed, we would all be able to list at least one person we could name as a hero. Mine is Martin Luther King, Jr. His ministry, his life, and his death have had a profound influence on me. He is, in my life, a giant. I read and reread his works and have made a point of finding people who knew him so they could tell me about his work. As part of my exploration of the life of one of our greatest saints, I planned and took a pilgrimage to Atlanta, Georgia, where Reverend King is buried. I visited the church where he preached, toured his home, visited his gravesite, and then went to a small museum there near his grave.
It was a powerful experience for me; but perhaps nothing shook me so deeply as something that happened at the end of my time there. As I was ending my little tour of the museum I came upon a display that had one of Reverend King's preaching robes and one of his business suits fitted to busts that were his size. It was indeed powerful to see the robe worn by this man as he preached in Ebenezer Baptist Church, and it was interesting to see the style in which he chose to dress. But, what really shocked me was the obvious reality that he was not a tall or large man.
In my mind, over the years, he had grown into a towering figure, literally and figuratively. In my fantasies I would speak with him, looking up into his eyes. In my dreams I would be walking with him and my head would come about up to his shoulders. Yet there was the evidence. He was probably not taller than five feet eight. He was a little guy! My expectations had been shattered, and I sat there for a full half hour or more just staring.
We develop expectations, don't we? Through tricks of the mind, through the limitations of experience we build up a multi-layered set of expectations, and then too often, we live out of those expectations.
Who would expect, after all, a man like Nelson Mandela to survive decades in prison and emerge without rancor or bitterness to be the father of a new South Africa? Who would expect, after all, the likes of an Eleanor Roosevelt to be one of the earliest and most powerful advocates of racial justice in the United States? Who would expect, after all, a Mexican migrant worker named Cesar Chavez to become a leading force for the rights and safety of farm workers everywhere? Who would expect?
What are the expectations that govern our lives? Can you name a few? We expect the sun to come up tomorrow. We expect the car to start each morning, though occasionally that one is dashed by a dead battery or a bad starter. We expect people to stop for stop signs and we expect that night will fall each evening. As we think about this, expectations don't seem altogether too bad, do they? In a real way, our expectations can be building blocks for us. We expect one thing to happen, so we plan or do other things based on our expectation or trust. I expect to get my paycheck every two weeks, and because I expect the bank to handle things correctly, I deposit those checks in the bank. Not every nation or economy could produce that expectation on the part of its citizens.
Sometimes our expectations can be a problem, can't they? If someone's been a troublemaker at church, gossiping and spreading negative energy, we can learn to expect that behavior so strongly that we might not see a change taking place. Have your expectations ever gotten you in trouble? That certainly was the case for Naaman in our story from 2 Kings. Naaman almost blew the chance for healing because of his expectations about the River Jordan. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters in Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" (2 Kings 5:12). Finally, of course, his servants persuaded him, and he received the healing that Elisha promised.
But the whole story has to make us stop and wonder how we have let our expectations limit us. Well, not so much our expectations perhaps, but rather our rigid adherence to our expectations. I remember calling on an elderly woman once who was quite racist. She refused treatment by a doctor on the hospital staff because he was African-American. No one could persuade, cajole, or otherwise convince her to change her expectations about black men. Compared to her, Naaman was a pussycat.
Every place we go, every circumstance we enter into is informed somehow by a host of expectations that we have all built up over the years. The trick, it seems to me, is not to get rid of our expectations, but rather how to learn flexibility.
There is an old saying which says that the branch that does not bend with the wind is the branch that breaks. How is it, in our lives as individuals and as church community that we can order our spirits and our lives so that we might be more flexible in altering the things we expect of life, of people, of one another? Naaman might have come with unhelpful expectations about the Jordan River, but at least he listened and made a different choice. Where, in our lives, do we need to listen more closely? Where in our lives could we make different choices?
Could we listen to our spouses and partners? To our children? To the people we relate to at our jobs? To one another here in the context of Christian community? The story of Naaman gives us pause to consider the kinds of healing we have turned from because of our expectations, and our unwillingness to change them. What ways could God be offering healing to us right now that we do not see because we have dismissed Jordan's waters? What new beginning, new opportunity, new life might be passed by in this moment because we will not unmake or change the way we see things?
I am glad that I made that pilgrimage to see the true size of Martin Luther King, Jr. It helped me to understand new ways of seeing people around me. I stand humbled by the inescapable truth that reality often intervenes to void what I think I know. At our best, we see "in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12), and perhaps confessing that and living into that limitation is the lesson we can draw from Naaman in this text. Perhaps we can learn to embrace challenges to our expectations. Indeed, perhaps we can learn to anticipate our expectations being challenged as we move forward in our journey together!
How wonderful to set sail together on a sea of our common experience, learning and growing as one people who expect that life will challenge what we believe we know. Imagine, if you can, how such an openness could impact our world. Rather than spending time defending our impressions and expectations, we could spend that energy exploring new ideas brought by the life experiences of those around us. Rather than insisting that the rivers of Damascus are better than the Jordan, rather than insisting that our nation is better than others, that our culture is superior, we could learn to examine those things which challenge our expectations?
How deeply we would be enriched by this. How powerfully we could grow. So as we pray this week, let our prayers be for a flexible spirit. As we pray this week, let our prayers be for keener eyes so that we might see more of the world around us. As we pray this week, let our prayers be for ears that will be able to listen as Naaman's ears heard his servants' plea. As we pray this week, let our prayers be for an openness to new ideas and experiences, new understandings and visions. And as we pray, let us join Naaman as we go to the Jordan to be washed. Let us receive God's gift of new experiences and healing. Let us embrace God's wonder as it flows from the hearts and lives of others, and let us live with integrity and joy into the newness of life that comes with opening our hearts to God's Spirit and God's way in the world.
Amen.
I suspect that if pressed, we would all be able to list at least one person we could name as a hero. Mine is Martin Luther King, Jr. His ministry, his life, and his death have had a profound influence on me. He is, in my life, a giant. I read and reread his works and have made a point of finding people who knew him so they could tell me about his work. As part of my exploration of the life of one of our greatest saints, I planned and took a pilgrimage to Atlanta, Georgia, where Reverend King is buried. I visited the church where he preached, toured his home, visited his gravesite, and then went to a small museum there near his grave.
It was a powerful experience for me; but perhaps nothing shook me so deeply as something that happened at the end of my time there. As I was ending my little tour of the museum I came upon a display that had one of Reverend King's preaching robes and one of his business suits fitted to busts that were his size. It was indeed powerful to see the robe worn by this man as he preached in Ebenezer Baptist Church, and it was interesting to see the style in which he chose to dress. But, what really shocked me was the obvious reality that he was not a tall or large man.
In my mind, over the years, he had grown into a towering figure, literally and figuratively. In my fantasies I would speak with him, looking up into his eyes. In my dreams I would be walking with him and my head would come about up to his shoulders. Yet there was the evidence. He was probably not taller than five feet eight. He was a little guy! My expectations had been shattered, and I sat there for a full half hour or more just staring.
We develop expectations, don't we? Through tricks of the mind, through the limitations of experience we build up a multi-layered set of expectations, and then too often, we live out of those expectations.
Who would expect, after all, a man like Nelson Mandela to survive decades in prison and emerge without rancor or bitterness to be the father of a new South Africa? Who would expect, after all, the likes of an Eleanor Roosevelt to be one of the earliest and most powerful advocates of racial justice in the United States? Who would expect, after all, a Mexican migrant worker named Cesar Chavez to become a leading force for the rights and safety of farm workers everywhere? Who would expect?
What are the expectations that govern our lives? Can you name a few? We expect the sun to come up tomorrow. We expect the car to start each morning, though occasionally that one is dashed by a dead battery or a bad starter. We expect people to stop for stop signs and we expect that night will fall each evening. As we think about this, expectations don't seem altogether too bad, do they? In a real way, our expectations can be building blocks for us. We expect one thing to happen, so we plan or do other things based on our expectation or trust. I expect to get my paycheck every two weeks, and because I expect the bank to handle things correctly, I deposit those checks in the bank. Not every nation or economy could produce that expectation on the part of its citizens.
Sometimes our expectations can be a problem, can't they? If someone's been a troublemaker at church, gossiping and spreading negative energy, we can learn to expect that behavior so strongly that we might not see a change taking place. Have your expectations ever gotten you in trouble? That certainly was the case for Naaman in our story from 2 Kings. Naaman almost blew the chance for healing because of his expectations about the River Jordan. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters in Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" (2 Kings 5:12). Finally, of course, his servants persuaded him, and he received the healing that Elisha promised.
But the whole story has to make us stop and wonder how we have let our expectations limit us. Well, not so much our expectations perhaps, but rather our rigid adherence to our expectations. I remember calling on an elderly woman once who was quite racist. She refused treatment by a doctor on the hospital staff because he was African-American. No one could persuade, cajole, or otherwise convince her to change her expectations about black men. Compared to her, Naaman was a pussycat.
Every place we go, every circumstance we enter into is informed somehow by a host of expectations that we have all built up over the years. The trick, it seems to me, is not to get rid of our expectations, but rather how to learn flexibility.
There is an old saying which says that the branch that does not bend with the wind is the branch that breaks. How is it, in our lives as individuals and as church community that we can order our spirits and our lives so that we might be more flexible in altering the things we expect of life, of people, of one another? Naaman might have come with unhelpful expectations about the Jordan River, but at least he listened and made a different choice. Where, in our lives, do we need to listen more closely? Where in our lives could we make different choices?
Could we listen to our spouses and partners? To our children? To the people we relate to at our jobs? To one another here in the context of Christian community? The story of Naaman gives us pause to consider the kinds of healing we have turned from because of our expectations, and our unwillingness to change them. What ways could God be offering healing to us right now that we do not see because we have dismissed Jordan's waters? What new beginning, new opportunity, new life might be passed by in this moment because we will not unmake or change the way we see things?
I am glad that I made that pilgrimage to see the true size of Martin Luther King, Jr. It helped me to understand new ways of seeing people around me. I stand humbled by the inescapable truth that reality often intervenes to void what I think I know. At our best, we see "in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12), and perhaps confessing that and living into that limitation is the lesson we can draw from Naaman in this text. Perhaps we can learn to embrace challenges to our expectations. Indeed, perhaps we can learn to anticipate our expectations being challenged as we move forward in our journey together!
How wonderful to set sail together on a sea of our common experience, learning and growing as one people who expect that life will challenge what we believe we know. Imagine, if you can, how such an openness could impact our world. Rather than spending time defending our impressions and expectations, we could spend that energy exploring new ideas brought by the life experiences of those around us. Rather than insisting that the rivers of Damascus are better than the Jordan, rather than insisting that our nation is better than others, that our culture is superior, we could learn to examine those things which challenge our expectations?
How deeply we would be enriched by this. How powerfully we could grow. So as we pray this week, let our prayers be for a flexible spirit. As we pray this week, let our prayers be for keener eyes so that we might see more of the world around us. As we pray this week, let our prayers be for ears that will be able to listen as Naaman's ears heard his servants' plea. As we pray this week, let our prayers be for an openness to new ideas and experiences, new understandings and visions. And as we pray, let us join Naaman as we go to the Jordan to be washed. Let us receive God's gift of new experiences and healing. Let us embrace God's wonder as it flows from the hearts and lives of others, and let us live with integrity and joy into the newness of life that comes with opening our hearts to God's Spirit and God's way in the world.
Amen.
