The Reverend J. Howard Cepelak
Trinity Church
†
Waltham, Massachusetts

Epiphany VI – 12 February 2012

II Kings 5:1-14, Psalm 30, I Corinthians 9:24-27, Mark 1:40-45

From the 2nd Book of Kings:
Elisha the prophet said to Na’aman, commander of the Syrian army and a leper, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.

From St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians:
Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

From the Gospel According to St. Mark:
And a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, If you will, you can make me clean…. Jesus …touched him and said, I will; be clean.

Let us pray.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation,
Amen †

Last Sunday, the 5th Sunday after Epiphany, is much better known across the country and to a much larger number of people as Super Bowl Sunday. The whole nation watched with great interest and enthusiasm as the New England Patriots battled it out with the New York Giants for victory. Sadly for us, the Giants won.

But those who played in that game have become part of both American cultural history as well as American sports history. Names like quarterbacks Eli Manning and Tom Brady and coaches Bill Bellichich and Tom Coughlin will be remembered for generations to come. They are sports heroes – admired, respected and in some cases, the objects of hero-worship. Little boys will look up to them, model their lives after them and want to grow up to be just like them.

Young athletes learn very quickly that to become a great athlete means years of hard training. That involves hours, days, months and years of practice, exercise, careful diet and long workout schedules. It means a life of self-control and self-denial if one wants to win the trophy – to win the prize. All the hard work and sacrifice becomes worth it when you win the prize.

Keep this in mind as we talk about St. Paul – a man who knew about self-discipline, self-control and the importance of winning the prize.

One of the things that made St. Paul such an effective evangelist was his ability to understand and relate to the complex cultural and religious environment in which he lived. Having grown up a Pharisee, he was well educated in the Jewish religion. As he zealously defended his faith in the face of the threat of the newly emerging Christian church, he came to know Christianity as well. We know the account of his conversion and how he became one of history’s most important evangelists. But, on top of that, he was equally well versed in all the gentile philosophies and pagan religions popular in the first century Roman Empire.

The cultural atmosphere in those days had become heavily Romanized in all parts of the empire. Greek and Roman culture, lifestyle, social values, morals and ethics had saturated Palestine, strongly influenced the Jewish people and had changed Hebrew culture. This had become so profound that the most popular text of the Hebrew Scriptures was written in Greek – not in Hebrew. Many faithful Jews knew and studied Hebrew, but the majority of people spoke Greek or Aramaic – perhaps even Latin. Hebrew had become a minority language.

The Greek and Roman influence determined what most people thought, believed and how they lived. One of the most popular aspects of that pagan culture was the enthusiastic participation in sports.

Athletic competition played no role in traditional Jewish life. The glorification of the body, and exposure in the games violated every aspect of the inherent modesty practiced in ancient Jewish culture and religion. Devoted Jews avoided any kind of carnal display.

But casual Jews – and that probably meant most of the people – participated in sporting events in some way. Sports were then as they are now, fun. Although some participated literally for the fun of it, others took sport very seriously, keeping a rigorous discipline of practice, exercise and diet so as to become good enough in the games to win the prize. The love of sport was as strong then as it is now – the desire to win as well.

St. Paul often spoke of the athlete’s rigorous discipline in living as a model for living the Christian life. The sportsmen kept such a discipline to win a perishable prize – a laurel wreath. But the Christian who practiced self-control as a means to live a holy life would win an imperishable prize – the prize of eternal life in God’s heavenly kingdom. Hence the apostle encouraged the members of the early churches to be as self-controlled in their Christian spiritual life as the great athletes were in quest for worldly honor and glory. The athlete has to be physically fit – the faithful Christian, spiritually fit.

Spiritual fitness most certainly means adhering to a healthy spiritual diet, avoiding spiritual junk food. Spiritual junk food means all those things that make us feel good regardless of whether or not they’re true. Examples abound.

Let me list just a few. The idea that everyone goes to heaven when he dies or that being a good person is equivalent to being a good Christian – or that being nice is the same as being good – or I can be a good Christian without going to church or if I am faithful, God will bless me with health, wealth and happiness – on my terms or all you need is love or it doesn’t matter what you believe so long as you’re sincere or that all religions are basically the same and all lead to God or that God is just too big to be contained in just one religion – (as if religion’s purpose were to contain God) – all of this and so much more represents spiritual junk food to be avoided by anyone who seeks spiritually health and fitness.

It takes a significant degree of self-control in order to avoid feeding on this tempting array of corrupting notions. It requires – yes, requires – a discipline of prayer, Bible study, meditation, contemplation, reflection, self-sacrifice and most importantly, participation in a true church that offers authentic worship. Authentic worship in a true church is most important because it includes all of the above within the context of joyful praise and heartfelt gratitude.

Spiritual junk food weakens the soul; it will make you sick. Spiritual fitness strengthens the soul; it will make you healthy. Authentic worship strengthens the soul more than anything else.

Think of the spiritually strong people of which the Bible speaks. Men like Elisha the prophet. Spiritually strong and fit, he lived a life that honored and glorified God in everything that he said and did.

He had become so well know as a man of God that even foreigners came to him for healing – people who did not believe in the One True God but who believed that this holy man could restore to them health. Hence, we have the account of the foreign Commander of the Syrian army, Na’aman. He suffered with leprosy.

As much as he would have liked to believe that he could be healed in his own country by washing the rivers of his homeland – those waters had not cleansed him – it was only by washing in the waters of the Jordan was he cleansed. And not just by washing – but by washing in obedience to the command of a strong and powerful holy man – Elisha the prophet. Truly, the water was not the primary cleansing agent. Obedience to holiness was the force that cured him.

That healing, as well as all healing, comes from God and from Him alone – no matter how, where, by what means or through whom or to whom the healing comes – all healing comes from God. Healing for non-believers – even healing for notorious sinners -testifies not to our goodness or deserving, but to God’s great mercy and amazing grace.

This morning’s Gospel account of our Lord’s healing of the leper reveals an important lesson for all of us. He said to Jesus, and I paraphrase, If you want this to happen, I can be healed. If your will is that I be healed, it will happen. And Jesus responded to him saying, I will your health – and the man was healed. Hence, we see that the will of God manifested and revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ, was and is and will be forever that all will be healed.

So then, why do sickness, suffering and disease continue to dominate the human condition? Why do people – even faithful people who keep a rigorous practice of self-control, self-denial and pious devotion – why do they suffer?

We have no one answer in Scripture. We have several. Sometimes we suffer as a consequence of unrepeanted sin, living a reckless life that literally makes us sick. Sometimes we can attribute our sickness to belief in spiritual junk, that is, placing our faith in falsehood. This always results in some kind of mental illness – always!

Sometimes we suffer not so much because of sin but rather as a means to manifest faithfulness in adversity, as did our Lord Himself on the cross of our salvation. Suffering comes at times as a test of faith or as a means to cause us to turn to God. Sometimes we suffer to strengthen our spiritual devotion through exercising it in difficult times. But we know that God will finally heal us.

Healing is God’s will. It may or may not come in this life. It will most certainly come in the life of the world yet to come – in life in the Kingdom of God – in the Kingdom of Heaven. It comes spiritually as our souls, upon death to this world, fly to the gates of heaven – and physically when, at the end of time, our Lord opens the graves and raises us up in our bodies. He rose from the grave and we shall, too.

As we are spiritually purified, as Elisha the prophet so often purified water, so our bodies will be purified from every form or manifestation of disease or affliction. We will be raised perfected in the image that God had originally intended for each of us – uniquely reflecting some aspect of His perfect will.

Keeping spiritually fit in this life means that we win the prize – not a perishable wreath of fleeting honor or glory – but the eternal prize of the full perfection of life lived to the honor and glory of God – the prize of ever increasing and unimaginable joy. We exercise self-control, self-denial and self-discipline not so much as to win – because salvation comes as a gift – but so as to be able to receive that gift as He gives it.

But most importantly, we need to keep a rigorous discipline of prayer, study, meditation, doing good works and faithfully worshipping the One True God perfectly revealed in His Son, our only Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. Feeding on His Word enlightens our minds and strengthens our hearts.

And feeding on Him in His great Sacrament of Eternal Life nourishes our souls. He said, Take. Eat. THIS IS MY BODY, broken for you. The ancient liturgy states, Take this in remembrance that Christ died for thee. Feed on Him in thy hearts by faith with thanksgiving. We are what we eat. That keeps us spiritually fit in this life as we await the prize of eternal life, given in and through our crucified and risen Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.

And one last word. We need to be spiritually fit to fight as soldiers in God’s army – not just as athletes in a game. This world, having fallen, continually wages war against The One True God. Faithfulness to Him practiced in a life of self-denial and self-control is our greatest weapon as we seek to defeat the corruption, lies, deceptions and evils of the current generation. The spiritual battle rages with grotesque physical manifestations. God calls us to fight the good fight and win under the sign of the cross of our salvation.

Let us pray.
Heavenly Father fed us with the bread of life. Deliver us from spiritual deception. Keep us healthy, strong and fit so that we can fight as soldiers armed with your saving truth. And bless us we pray with the victory that you have won for us in and through your Son,
Jesus Christ,
the only Savior of the whole world.
Amen. †