The Thirteen Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 5:15-27
In Christ Jesus, who by His blood purifies our consciences from dead works to serve the living God (Heb. 9:14), dear fellow redeemed:
When Martin Luther was ordered to recant, to take back, everything he had written up to that time in 1521, he replied, “[M]y conscience is captive to the Word of God… I cannot and will not recant, because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience” (quoted in Kittelson’s Luther the Reformer, 161). For Luther, conscience and the Word of God were so bound up together, that to go against one would be to go against the other.
God gave us a conscience which He informs by the moral law written on our hearts. That moral law totally agrees with and is sharpened by the Ten Commandments recorded in the pages of Scripture. When our conscience is operating properly, it will help keep us in line with the Law of God. And if we are living according to the Law of God, we will have a clear conscience. But as you and I well know, living according to God’s Law is not the easiest thing to do.
When we hear about the Good Samaritan, we might think of him as a professional do-gooder, whose heart was filled with an endless supply of love, patience, and compassion to help a person in need. It seems to us that a person like this must have enjoyed a clear conscience. He was just so good. But let’s bring him back into the real world. Let’s imagine he was something like us.
The Samaritan may have had other concerns and responsibilities occupying his mind. He may have been mulling over troubles at work as he traveled. Maybe he was in danger of losing his job. Maybe he was poor and hardly able to provide for his family. Maybe he and his wife hadn’t spoken for days or weeks. Maybe his parents were beginning to need care he wasn’t sure how to provide. Maybe he was stressed and unhappy and didn’t think his life could get any more complicated or any worse. Then there was this man lying by the side of the road. Could he really handle another problem right now? Should he just pass by on the other side? Would anyone know if he did? His conscience compelled him to stop.
You can’t be a Christian without having struggles of conscience. Those struggles, those inner conflicts, are actually a blessing. If you no longer felt conflict inside, the tug and pull of what is right or wrong, then your faith would be in great danger. Life in this fallen world is not meant to be comfortable for those who believe in Jesus. He plainly said, “In the world you will have tribulation” (Jn. 16:33), and “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mt. 16:24).
Naaman felt this struggle and conflict. As soon as he was converted, he began to be concerned about having a clear conscience. His flesh was cleansed of its leprosy, and he came back to Elisha confessing the name of the true God. But though he was now clean, Naaman was bothered by something new. He would soon be leaving Israel to return to his home. The last thing he wanted was to dishonor the LORD who had miraculously healed him.
He first asked for two loads of soil, so that he could offer sacrifices to the God of the Israelites on Israelite ground. Then he brought up another issue. As the right hand man of the king, he was expected to accompany him into the temple of Rimmon, a false god. Would the LORD pardon him for doing this and even for bowing down—not out of respect for the idol but out of respect for his king? Elisha replied, “Go in peace.”
But Naaman wasn’t the only one whose conscience was troubled. Gehazi, the chief servant of Elisha, couldn’t believe his master had rejected the gifts that Naaman wished to give. Think what good that silver, gold, and fine clothing could do. After all, should the prophets have to scrape by on so little? If nothing else, couldn’t such riches be used to help the poor? This is what Judas Iscariot argued when Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment (Joh. 12:4). But it wasn’t charity that drove Judas or Gehazi to speak up for the generous offerings of others. It was greed.
The love of money caused Gehazi to do great violence to his conscience. He surely reasoned it all out to quiet this inner voice. Perhaps he thought that what Naaman offered probably belonged to Israel anyway. After all, Naaman had attacked the Israelites, taking their goods, and turning them into his slaves. Wouldn’t Gehazi know how to put riches to better use than that wicked man?
Gehazi felt so sure about his purpose that he even took an oath before God that he would handle the situation in a better way than Elisha. “As the LORD lives,” he said, “I will run after him and get something from him.” Then to follow his plan through, he had to lie to Naaman and then to Elisha. Even if Gehazi convinced himself that his cause was right, his conscience was certainly not in line with the Word of God.
The tension of keeping a clear conscience was so great that Gehazi decided he would not listen anymore. We know how that feels. Every day, we are challenged by these tensions. Should I confront my boss about his dishonest business practices, or stay quiet and protect my job? Should I take the shortcuts everyone else is taking, or do what is right? Should I hide my toys so no one else can play with them, or should I share? Should I lie and keep myself out of trouble, or tell the truth?
Sometimes the cost of a clear conscience seems too great, and we make the conscious decision to go ahead with something that we know is wrong. Sure, we reason it all out to keep our conscience from screaming too loudly: “We may not be married, but we are committed.” “Who am I to say what someone else should do with her body?” “It’s not right for me to judge.” “It’s going to happen anyway whether I say something or not.” “I don’t want to be left out.” But even if our conscience is quieted somewhat, we have departed from the Word of God, and the leprosy of the unbelieving world rubs off on us. We think we can just give a little, relieve some of that tension, and still be faithful confessors of Christ.
These compromises can never deliver a clear conscience. They only make our condition worse. No amount of good intentions, compromises, or charitable efforts and good works can earn us a clear conscience. These efforts amount to selling the faith for two talents of silver and two changes of clothing which won’t help us anymore than they helped Gehazi. Then sin continues to cling to us just as leprosy clung to him.
So what can be done to get a clear conscience? If conscience is guided by the Law of God, and we have broken the Law in many, many ways, is a clear conscience even possible?
God knows the cost of a clear conscience. He knows this not because His conscience was ever dirtied or in conflict, but because He knows us sinners. He knows how utterly we failed to keep His holy Law. He knows how what He intended us to be is nothing like what we are since the fall into sin. So He resolved to send His holy Son down to earth to be “born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal. 4:4-5).
Being placed under the Law, Jesus could fulfill the Law for every sinner. He could maintain a perfectly clear conscience that never departed from the holy Law of God. He was tempted in every way just as we are, but He never blurred the line between right and wrong. He never deviated from His holy task. He never set aside the Word of God—even in the smallest part—in order to appeal to more people.
He kept His conscience clear all the way through a false verdict, unmerited suffering, and a horrible death. He held fast to the promises of God; He had to follow through with God’s plan in order to redeem souls, your soul. God now declares you to be right with Him because of what Jesus did. You are now freed from the guilt of your sins. By the immeasurable price of His holy body and blood, Jesus made the payment to obtain for you a clear conscience, a conscience that is no longer imprisoned in your former darkness and sin.
So a clear conscience cannot be gotten by something you do. It is obtained by what Jesus did for you. Just as Naaman was cleansed of his leprosy in the waters of the Jordan, your conscience was cleansed in the waters of your Baptism. And that powerful cleansing remains in effect as long as you are a believer in Christ. St. Peter calls Baptism “an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1Pe. 3:21). And the author of the book of Hebrews writes, “[S]ince we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (10:19,23).
Baptized into Christ, He is with you to “wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience” (1Ti. 1:18-19). He helps you to resist the temptations of this world, the devil, and your flesh, and to continuously battle to uphold the truth of His Word. You will not perfectly avoid what is wrong and do what is right. Your conscience will be sullied again by the leprosy of sin. But it is always cleansed in Christ.
Bring your troubled conscience to Him in humble repentance; acknowledge where you have fallen short; lay all your guilt before Him. Then wrap yourself up in His righteousness and grace. Know that your sins are all forgiven through the blood of Christ. The Cost of a Clear Conscience was very high, and Jesus met that cost in full for you. You can depart as Naaman did with these words of comfort in your ear: “Go in peace.”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Parable of the Good Samaritan” by Jan Wijnants, 1632-1684)
The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 5:1-15
In Christ Jesus, who through His own flesh delivered the eternal cure for our sin and death, dear fellow redeemed:
If you think of the stories of King Arthur’s brave knights or perhaps of the courageous heroes in modern war movies, you can get a sense of Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Syria. He is described as “a great man with his master and in high favor” and as “a mighty man of valor.” He was a man’s man, bold, and strong. We can suppose that he wasn’t afraid of anyone, that he never backed down from a fight. Wherever the danger was greatest or the odds were most against him, Naaman went forward.
And Naaman won. He was held in high esteem by his master because he was so successful. A ruler cannot be effective without loyal and capable men around him ready to carry out his orders. But neither the king nor Naaman realized where their success came from. We learn in today’s reading that “the LORD had given victory to Syria.” Syria’s strength was part of the LORD’s plan. And so was Naaman’s leprosy. Leprosy was a serious and debilitating skin disease. Naaman had probably prayed to his own gods for relief and healing, but none came. It bothered him enough that even his servants were aware of his struggle.
We don’t expect to see weakness in our heroes. We’re surprised when our nation’s leaders get sidelined by the cold or flu, or when elite athletes pull a muscle and have to take time off. These instances are good reminders that the people we look up to are human also. Because of sin in the world, hardships come on the strong and the weak, the wealthy and the poor, the famous and the obscure. This also teaches us that the people who seem to have it all probably have troubles and pains that we wouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole.
So Naaman, who knew military strategy, who knew his way around a battlefield, had been outflanked by a skin disease. He had no answer for it; he couldn’t beat it. It was going to kill him. And now we see the LORD’s strategy in play. Through a little girl who was carried away from Israel and made a slave in Naaman’s house, the LORD made Naaman aware of a prophet in Israel. The little girl confidently told Naaman’s wife that this prophet “would cure him of his leprosy.”
If Naaman’s skin disease did not bother him very much, he would have ignored what the little girl said. What would a Syrian commander want with an Israelite prophet! But that was not his response. He took the message to his king—as farfetched as it sounded—, and the king sent Naaman to Israel with a letter and a load of gifts. Naaman was willing to try even this if it meant he could be healed.
When he was sent to the house of the prophet Elisha, what Naaman expected was that he would have the opportunity to make the case for why he should be healed. Or perhaps he thought he would flatter the prophet and impress him with the gifts he had brought. Certainly it wasn’t every day that Elisha had such esteemed visitors come to his door with all their horses and chariots.
But Elisha was not impressed by these things. He was nobody’s tool but the LORD’s. When Naaman arrived, Elisha didn’t even come out of his house to greet him. He sent a messenger with simple instructions: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” This is not at all what Naaman expected. In fact, he found it very offensive. The prophet wouldn’t even speak to him directly?!? He was supposed to wash himself in the dirty waters of the Jordan River?!? No thanks.
Many people make the same judgment about the Christian Church. “If Christianity were true,” they think, “and if the Christian God is supposedly a God of love, then why wouldn’t He come and make the problems in the world go away? Or if He truly cares about His people, why wouldn’t He at least make their troubles go away?” When told about the basics of the Christian faith, they say, “How can regular water make me a child of God? How can eating bread and drinking wine be a Communion with the body and blood of Jesus? How can these simple things bring salvation?”
Looked at from the unbeliever’s perspective, we can see how strange this all seems. We don’t have anything like Naaman expected—someone waving his hands and saying the magic words and all our troubles disappear. How could washing in the Jordan River seven times do anything good? People expect that salvation should be harder to come by. Shouldn’t we have to do something to be saved? “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Initially, Naaman rejected the Word. He drove away in his chariot angry, perhaps thinking thoughts of war against Israel for treating him like this. Then his servants meekly approached and said, “Did you not hear what the prophet said? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So Naaman consented. He went down to the Jordan and dipped himself “according to the word of the man of God” once, twice, up to seven times—the number for perfection, holiness. And what happened? The flesh that was infected with leprosy “was restored like the flesh of a little child.” He was clean.
Now bold Naaman, mighty Naaman, Naaman the conqueror returned to Elisha’s house and said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” What had changed him? Was it the water? Did it have some special quality that when applied resulted in healing? No, it was the Word of the Most High God. The Word attached to the water brought healing to Naaman. The Word brought faith to his heart.
Naaman had been conquered by the LORD’s Word, and he didn’t even see it coming! Many other enemies of the LORD have also been conquered by Him and brought into His kingdom in the same way. You were one of them. Like Naaman, you had something like a disease clinging to and afflicting you, a disease for which you had no cure. It was worse than leprosy; it was sin.
People try all sorts of remedies for this: trying to do enough good to cancel out their bad, pointing to the worse failures of others to make themselves look better, even arguing that what used to be considered sinful isn’t really sinful anymore. But we can’t escape it. The sin of Adam has been passed along to us, and this sin has captured our hearts. Ignoring this infection doesn’t make it go away; it only makes our condition worse. So what can we do to make our condition better?
Jesus says, “There is nothing that you can do. But there is something that I can do.” The Son of God took on our weak human flesh, so that He could reverse the fortunes of Adam’s line. He came to bring salvation to us who were sick, and life to us who were dying. For the official beginning of His public work, Jesus stepped down into that same dirty river as Naaman had some eight hundred years before, and He was baptized by John “to fulfill all righteousness” (Mat. 3:15).
At His Baptism, your sin was poured over Him, and He carried that sin all the way to His death on the cross. His death on the cross was the cure for your sinful condition. It was the remedy for the Fall of all mankind. The perfect Son of God made full satisfaction for all your sins against the holy God. By His death and resurrection, He declares you righteous and pure in God’s sight.
To make sure that you know this righteousness is for you, He has sent messengers to tell you. Your parents brought you to the baptismal font, where you received “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Ti. 3:5), so that like Naaman, you were made new, “like the flesh of a little child”—born again by water and the Word. It was a perfect cleansing, removing all your sin from you, and placing Jesus’ righteousness over you. At your Baptism, God gave you a tremendous gift. And since that time, your parents and sponsors and fellow believers and pastors have reminded you about this gift.
The humble appearance of Baptism makes some think it is powerless. It’s like Naaman stating that there must be better options for bathing than the Jordan River. But where Jesus’ Word is spoken according to His promise, there is power—life-giving, heart-changing power, the power to heal and save. Today’s Holy Gospel presents an excellent example of the power of His Word (Mar. 7:31-37). Jesus said, “Ephphatha—Be opened,” and the deaf and mute man was healed.
The Word attached to the water of Baptism is what brought you healing and salvation from the LORD. You return to these waters every time you repent of your sins and cast off the things that hinder your faith in Him. Like mighty Naaman humbly obeying the Word and dipping his leprous skin in the water, you and I bring our sins to God, but not only our sins. We bring our weaknesses and strengths, our past and our present, our worries, struggles, and pain, our abilities, our dreams, and our plans, our imperfect hearts and minds. We bring them all to the cleansing waters of Christ and drown them all in faith.
We want everything we do to be washed in Him, to flow from Him, to be sanctified through Him. We need Him to guide our thoughts, words, and actions. We need Him to carry us and keep us true to Him, so that we are not misled by other gods that cannot save. His method for keeping us faithful is not what we expect—the proclamation of His Word and the administration of water, bread, and wine with His promise. These are the powerful means that bring us His forgiveness and salvation, that conquer and cleanse our sinful hearts.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from Saude Lutheran Church stained glass)