Sermon: Washing in Unfamiliar Waters

Preacher:

Bob Cooper

Date:

Sunday 12th October 2025

Venue:

Guildford Cathedral

Service:

6pm Choral Evensong

A friend of mine, a hospital chaplain, once told me about visiting a particularly cantankerous elderly patient. This gentleman—let's call him Arthur—had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with "God botherers." But hospital policy meant my friend had to at least check in. Arthur was furious about his treatment plan. "Seven different medications!" he fumed. "Seven! And the doctor didn't even come himself—sent some junior to tell me. The impertinence!"

My friend listened sympathetically, then gently asked what was actually bothering him. Arthur went quiet. "I built my whole career on being in control," he finally said. "Now I can't even control my own body. And the cure is some pills from some doctor I've never met. It's humiliating."

That conversation kept returning to me as I read this morning's scripture about Naaman—another powerful man, accustomed to control, told to do something absurdly simple that felt beneath his dignity.

Naaman is commander of the army of Aram, favoured by his king, mighty in battle. He's also dying slowly of leprosy. The story offers us an intriguing detail: this foreign military commander was "a great man because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram." In other words, the God of Israel has been working through Israel's enemy. That's our first clue that this story won't respect our usual boundaries.

The healing comes through unexpected channels. A young Israelite girl, captured and enslaved in Naaman's household, shows compassion for her captor. She could have taken grim satisfaction in his affliction—who knows how many of her people had suffered at his hands? Instead, she tells him about a prophet in Samaria who could heal him. Grace breaking through the machinery of war—an enslaved child showing kindness to the system that oppresses her.

When Naaman finally reaches Elisha, he arrives with horses, chariots, gold and silver. But the prophet doesn't even come out to meet him. Instead, he sends a messenger with instructions: go wash in the Jordan seven times.

Naaman is livid. "Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel?" He wants a healing that matches his dignity, a miracle proportionate to his importance. Like Arthur and his seven pills, it's not just about getting better—it's about doing it on his own terms.

But God's healing doesn't work that way. The transformation comes through humility, through setting aside pride and following a path that seems beneath us. When Naaman finally obeys, his flesh is restored "like the flesh of a young boy."

Fast forward to Jesus, walking the borderlands between Samaria and Galilee—always the borderlands with him, those contested spaces where identities blur. Ten lepers approach from a distance, crying out for mercy. Jesus heals them all, sending them to the priests as the law requires.

But only one returns to give thanks. And he's a Samaritan—the outsider, the heretic. The nine who don't return are presumably Jews, the insiders. Jesus's words sting: "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?"

Here's the scandal: those we consider outside often prove more responsive to God's mercy than those who think themselves entitled to it. Jesus tells the Samaritan, "Your faith has made you well"—the Greek word means not just healed, but saved, made whole. The nine got their cure; this man was restored to full communion with God and community.

These stories do something uncomfortable—they assault our tribalism, our certainty that God is entirely on our side.

We live in times that test this. The conflict between Israel and Gaza continues—children dying, families destroyed. Ukraine's villages lie in ruins. Each side claims righteousness and accumulates grievances. But these readings insist that God's image is stamped on every human face—Israeli and Palestinian, Ukrainian and Russian, civilian and soldier.

The Israeli government faces genuine security threats. The trauma of October 7th is real. Yet the scale of suffering in Gaza cannot be justified. Similarly, Russia's invasion violates international law and human dignity, yet we cannot reduce all Russians to villains, ignoring those who suffer under authoritarianism or resist at great cost.

The enslaved girl saw God's image even in her captor. The Samaritan leper, despised and marginalized, proved more faithful than the religious insiders. These stories strip away our illusions of moral superiority.

Paul, writing from prison, offers guidance: "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead." In times of confusion, we return to the essential centre—to Jesus, to the pattern of his life. Paul speaks of enduring everything "for the sake of the elect"—which in Christ means all who respond in faith, regardless of origin.

The way forward isn't through more certainty or more insistence that God is exclusively on our side. It's through Naaman's humility, willing to wash in unfamiliar waters. It's through the Samaritan's gratitude, recognizing grace as gift rather than entitlement. It's through the enslaved girl's compassion, seeing the humanity of her enemy.

Practically, this means we pray for all who suffer—in Gaza and Israel, in Ukraine and Russia. We refuse the binary thinking that says we must choose between mourning Israeli deaths and Palestinian deaths. We grieve all of it because each life is sacred.

It means we interrogate our own tribal loyalties. We work for justice while resisting the dehumanization of entire peoples. We speak truth to power wherever it's abused, whether by allies or enemies.

And like the Samaritan leper, we cultivate gratitude. Not naive optimism, but the recognition that even in dark times, God works in unexpected places, through unlikely people. It's the discipline of noticing grace.

All ten lepers were cleansed, but only one was made whole. The difference was gratitude—the turning back, the recognition that healing comes from beyond ourselves. In our fractured world, we desperately need this turning back, this acknowledgment that we need healing we cannot provide for ourselves.

Like Arthur with his pills, like Naaman with his seven washings, we're called to set aside our pride and accept healing on terms that aren't our own. We're called to wash in unfamiliar waters, to see God at work in the stranger, to refuse the deadly certainties of tribalism.

This is costly discipleship in an age of absolutes. But it's the only path to genuine wholeness, for ourselves and for the world God loves.

May we have the courage to walk it. Amen.