“Special Delivery”
2 Kings 5:1-6
5:1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.
5:2 Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman's wife.
5:3 She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."
5:4 So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.
5:5 And the king of Aram said, "Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel." He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments.
5:6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, "When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy."
Luke 10:1
10:1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.
I want to talk about letters of reference. As a pastor for 36 years, I was often asked to write a letter of recommendation for a parishioner, often a young one applying for a scholarship or a first job, but not always. The request could also come from a “seasoned” parishioner who was looking to change jobs, careers, or jump back into the classroom at a local college. Depending on the circumstance that precipitated the request, I would often give the disclaimer that, unless they were looking for a “character” reference, pastors are often not the best sources for letters of recommendation. We are not swift to tell the truth about a parishioner if we feel they are not a good candidate for a given slot, and in good Christian love, we may also have a penchant for “puffing” our recommendation on behalf of one of our people out of a desire to build their self-esteem. Either way, we are largely an unreliable source. As a trained journalist, I usually sought to eschew these errors when writing “those letters,” which, more often than not, led me to electronically tear up the negative ones as being not “accurate” but mean, or to rewrite the overly nice ones so as to sound more genuine. In the end, I’m guessing that my pastoral letters of recommendation were just as useless as those written by clergy that embodied the aforementioned errors. Moral of the story: If you want your pastor to write you a letter of recommendation, let them know WHY, and offer specific, prudent content suggestions so they may write it with conviction, while maintaining her or his integrity.
In this regard, I frequently wrestled with two thoughts: Could I write the letter in such a way that it was honest, yet something I would have no ethical problem with copying it to the one who requested it; and if I wrote the letter in a fully honest light (and it wasn’t so flattering), could I defend my assessment of the individual, should they gain access to its contents, or at least the gist of it? Do you see the ethical dilemma you put your pastor in when you DO ask them to write one of these letters? So, the ultimate moral of the story is, live an exemplary life, fully moral, ethical, and above board, volunteer regularly around your church, unselfishly giving of yourself to help the poor, and never miss attending church—then your pastor will passionately and accurately craft an Epistle of Stellar Endorsement on your behalf. Otherwise, find someone who has known you longer and lies better.
I’ve referenced two portions of lectionary readings for this sermon this weekend: the “letter of recommendation” the King of Aram wrote for Naaman, the commander of his army, to the king of Israel, commending Naaman as worthy of a cure for leprosy they had heard was available in Israel. Some might say that it was more of a “shipping label” or a letter of transmittal, covering the political bases for why Naaman, a military leader, was arriving on foreign turf. Others might simply call it a bribe letter, as it was arriving with a few trunks of booty, in an effort to both alleviate the fears of this being a prelude to an attack, and to “pay” for the cure. The king of Israel pretty much freaks out, fearing the former, and it takes the newly-minted prophet, Elisha, to settle him down and give Naaman permission to be healed by their Yahweh mojo. When Elisha gives the good word to Naaman, telling him the mojo required him to wash seven times in Israel’s Jordan river, then Naaman freaked out and ranted. Again, it was his people who quelled the riot, and humbled him to take the mojo. He did, and he was healed.
The second “letter” I reference in the Lukan text is the “guinea pig” letter Jesus “writes” by sending 70 of his disciples out, two-by-two, to the towns where he intended to go, to see how they were treated. Like the King of Aram’s letter to Israel, Jesus is using this “human mail” to test the waters. As his ministry was growing in leaps and bounds, and attracting a large audience, I’m sure he figured, “Why go to places where they are not going to accept me?” It makes sense. Years ago, when I was serving as Dean of the Pastor’s Academy at Olmsted Manor (our adult retreat facility), I was in one-on-one negotiations with a leading clergy author, hoping to land them as our presenter a couple of years down the road. All was going well, including persuading this individual to give us a substantial discount on their usual speaking fee, until they found out that Olmsted could only host and house 66 pastors for such an event. The person literally hung up on me and I never heard from them again. I’m guessing this is what Jesus would have done about the towns the 70 were sent to if they freaked out like the king of Israel or Naaman did. They would have just been deemed not worth of his making the trip. In the Luke 10 passage, however, they were received with much excitement, and Jesus probably took his road show there.
We are just concluding our week at the Chautauqua Institution, where I have been serving as chaplain at the United Methodist House. It’s a dirty job, but SOMEONE has to do it! Seriously, a Sunday sermon, a “Chaplain’s Chat” on the porch of the UM House on Tuesday, and a presentation of some sort (we bored them with slides from our “Native American Immersion Experience” last October in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference) on Thursday evening, and you and your partner get a full pass to most of the Chautauqua activities for the whole week and a “free” room! Oh, you do have to vacuum the porch in the mornings, and aid the host couple, but it’s quite light duty for the wonderful benefits! Anyway, where I want to go with this is how thought-provoking and inspiring the daily speakers have been here. The topic this week is “What is America’s Place in the World?” What I have been hearing from the international experts, and interfaith speakers as well, is that other countries still WANT the United States to be the leaders of the free world, but the “letters” we have been sending with our internal, political infighting and democracy-poisoning activities, have set them all on edge at best, and have them freaking out, at worst. When our President tries to send a reassuring message to the world community, our words are writing a check our behavior can’t cash. These speakers have all been pleading with us to vote for responsible leaders who will preserve and reinforce our democracy, and who will rebuild our “street cred” on the international scene. The other countries are counting on us as much as our own destiny as a democracy—what Ronald Reagan called the “shining city on a hill”—is.
How about you? Did you ever think about what YOUR life sends out in advance as ITS “letter of recommendation”? If you are a well-educated person, those you encounter will expect that you will “live into” your education, be open to dialogue and conversation with even those with whom you may disagree, and reason with rational logic when presenting your positions or arguments. Do you see that if you instead pick fights, speak or write with much vitriol, or reject “the other’s” ideas out of hand, they may “freak out” on you? You are “out of character” from what your ”advance letter” sends ahead. If you are a “values” person with strong ethical views or deeply religious convictions, your “public” will not expect hateful responses or violence from you, in response to conflicting ideas or divergent opinions. And if we are trying to live as Christians, what kind of “letter of recommendation” does how we spend our money or use our wealth send to others whom we want to trust us—or “like” us?
The Chautauqua speakers this week suggested that what made America the world’s leader in freedom was a unique “marrying” of individual rights with communal responsibilities as a public. We used to elect leaders who helped us preserve and grow our democracy at home as well as truly serve as a “shining city on a hill” to the world. And we backed them up, regardless of party affiliation, especially when we were challenged as a nation, or had to challenge another nation on their behavior. George Packer, a renowned author and commentator, suggested that the current bent toward absolute, personal rights almost opposed to any communal accountability is “holding a gun to the head of democracy” as it has been practiced in the United States since its birth as a nation. When asked what we could do to restore us to democratic sanity, Packer said, simply, “VOTE.” If we don’t recover from the toxicity we are now showing to the world, our reputation will not survive, and it is our stock in trade.
Monday is our nation’s birthday. Someone wrote on Facebook today that we don’t deserve a birthday party. On the contrary, we need one, with flags, fireworks, and lots of Americans of every stripe celebrating together. “Together” is the magic word. On Thursday, Dr. Satpal Singh, a Sikh originally from India, and a neurological researcher spoke as our interfaith lecturer. As he told about his first July 4 celebration in America—July 4, 1976, as we were observing our 200th birthday—he spoke of the flags and fireworks, and people around him enjoying American life together, he literally had to pause as he got emotional, just recalling the experience. And later in his talk, he again had to stop as he talked of seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time. He tried to quote Emma Lazarus’s famous poem, “The New Colossus,” and couldn’t even get through it. It made me, a native-born American both emotional and ashamed, as I was again reminded of the great gift this country should be to us all and to the world. Who will be our Elisha, calming down both parties and affecting healing?
Remember that as you enjoy your Independence Day gathering. And remember that it was a letter that was sent “Special Delivery” to the King of England that started it all—a letter that spoke of “inalienable rights” and the “pursuit of happiness, and all [men] being created equal—that started this whole thing, and it was Benjamin Franklin, as he signed that document, who said, “We must hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately!” This is as true of the Christian Church and the community of faith Jesus called it to be, as it is of the United States of America. Amen, and Happy 4th of July!
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