Calvary United Methodist Church

August 13, 2017

TRAVELING UP STREAM

Rev. R. Jeffrey Fisher

Children’s Sermon: 1 Peter 5:6

I would like to invite our children to come forth for the children’s mes-

sage. Come on up. Welcome. A big crowd today. Are some of you

getting ready for school? Eager to see your friends, learn new things,

see new teachers? That’s all positive stuff, love to hear it! Welcome!

Today I want to talk about the word is humility and it is a little hard to

understand sometimes, but sometimes we see it in the terms of some-

thing that is strong and something that is weak. Sometimes you’ll find

yourself in life in places where you are in a greater position of power

than others. How many of you have a younger sibling? Some of you

sometimes like to give them orders, probably, don’t you? Does it al-

ways work? No, not always. I’ve had that same experience in life.

Anyway, I wanted to look at the idea of big and small because some-

times we get the idea that just because something is bigger than us for

whatever reason it might have more power and that’s not always true.

Actually Jesus said at some point that children, all of you, will teach

all of us adults things. That’s pretty powerful, isn’t it? But we have to

be humble enough to let you teach us. If we watch you we will learn

from you. We who are bigger than you or taller than you or older than

you, we don’t necessarily know everything. We can still learn many

things from you.

Can you imagine, if you were that puppy, would you be afraid? May-

be, that dog there is pretty tall.

What about if you were that calf? Could be a little threatening, that

guy with the big horns, right? And yet, sometimes, animals…I was

just yesterday with someone who has a couple of very big horses and

they got a miniature pony and it’s perfectly fine even with those big

horses because they learn their own places.

How about that? If you were the little one would you try to boss

around the big one? Probably not. You’re not going to get far.

And even with lions,

Or big things like these gorillas.

You see a lot of it, sometimes little things, like little wee Chiwawa

dogs, they have an attitude problem, don’t they? Have you ever seen

one barking and yelling at you? And so it’s not always about the size.

I want to talk today about a man named Naaman. Naaman was a very

powerful man. He was a soldier in an army. He was a general, which

meant that many men and women were underneath him in his control.

And he had all that power, but there are somethings even with power

you can’t control and one of them is sickness.

Have you ever been sick? (Yes.) Coughs and colds and rashes and

measles and mumps and all kinds of things that happen to us when we

are growing up. And sometimes you’d just like to snap your finger

and get well and it just doesn’t work. Well, he had something called

Leprosy, but for us, I am going to call it, it’s just like a rash all over his

body and he couldn’t get well. They didn’t have all the doctors and

things like we have today.

But there was a young girl working in his house because she was actu-

ally a slave, a servant, and she knew someone that knew God. His

name was Elisha and she told the woman she was working with, she

told Naaman’s wife, that her husband should go and see this priest, this

prophet because he worked with God and God would bless him and

bring healing.

Now, if you knew you could pray and get well, you would probably do

that, but Naaman was a big powerful man and he wasn’t so sure he

wanted to do that.

So he went off and Mr. Elisha said, “All you have to do is go down to

the river and wash seven times.” Does that sound real hard? No. But,

he was a big old soldier and he thought “Why in the world should I

just go down to the stream and wash. Surely this man will come out

and touch me and put some potion on me or do some magical thing to

me.” But he was mad until his soldiers said, “Look, if God asked you

to do something mighty and powerful like climb the tallest tree or

climb the mountain or swim across the raging river, you would do it,

right? Because you are a strong man.” He said, “Yeah, probably.” He

said then, “This man is only asking you to do something simple. Just

go out into the river and wash seven times.”

So, he came to his senses, he went out into the river and the good news

is look at the smile on his face.

He came up out of the water and his rash was gone.

But you see he had to humble himself. He thought he was powerful

and mighty and humble begins to understand yourself that really, even

if I have a power of control like I’m a teacher over you or I’m a pro-

fessor or I’m a soldier or I’m a president or I’m a king or something,

we humble ourselves because really in those power positions they

might have power over us, but before Almighty God we’re all equal.

Do you understand that? I’m no better than you. You are no better

than me. Before God’s eyes he looks out and says, “They are all my

children. I love them all the same. I will give them all the blessings. I

will look after them.

And yet this man was making a mistake. It was called pride. He re-

fused to get help. Do you ever make mistakes? Yes. And you know

what? Mistakes aren’t always bad.

We get disappointed when we make mistakes because we want perfect

scores if you are in school in math or science or English or spelling or

whatever it might be, but mistakes actually are stepping stones to

learning. If I make a mistake today on a problem in school, guess

what? I can study tonight and tomorrow I will know the answer, right?

If I study hard enough, I will get smarter each and every day.

So, when we are sick, when we are prideful and we know we ought to

do something like take medicine or go to the doctor or listen to our

parents and don’t play so much and get sweated up, it takes our pride

away to simply said, “I’m going to humble myself.”

That’s hard for most of us, because most of us think we are the top and

we would like…how many of you would like the best seat in the

house? If you go to a stadium, if you go to a concert. Everywhere but

church; most people sit in the back!

Most places we go, right, if I went to a concert somewhere, I would

prefer to sit in the front row of a concert or very close to front.

If I was going to a big stadium, I don’t want to be up in the sky, do I?

I would much rather be down where I could see the players playing the

game and so it is with us. God reminds us we don’t, it’s not about the

best seat in the house, God through His servant Jesus Christ, says that

we need to learn to be humble.

And He taught us that even by washing other people’s feet, the disci-

ples and others.

So when you think you are big and mighty and stronger and tougher

than everyone else, God says: I don’t want us to be like that. I want

us to be humble. I want us to understand that we are not better, but we

are not worse. We are just another of God’s child and we should treat

people with love and respect so we can give other a hand in our time

of need.

This word comes to us from 1 Peter: Humble yourselves, therefore,

under God’s mighty hand, that he may life you up in due time. When

we humble ourselves, God, when God is ready, will lift you up to be

mighty and strong in all the ways that God needs you. Thank you for

coming up this week. We’ll see you soon!

Message: 2 Kings 5:1-14

Traveling upstream; I don’t know if you have ever tried it much in a

canoe or kayak or for me it was always in a rowboat or a canoe at

scout camp or mostly for me I’m remember when I was with my dad.

We grew up on the Juniata River around Lewistown, PA, a little village

of McVeytown. And for years, when Dad was home on a Friday after-

noon or a Saturday we would hit the river and we would put in at one

of my Pap’s farm and float to the next and Dad would row back and

we continued to do that throughout the day. And I couldn’t wait as a

little boy to have my chance on the oars. I wanted it. And year after

year I was too small, of course and probably when I was 12 or 14 Dad

thought it’s time to try. And I did and we went around in circles and

floated way downstream. You see, if you are not going upstream and

you sit still and the water is moving, you are going somewhere you

don’t want to be.

We hear all kinds of things about floating with a crowd can get us into

trouble. But we don’t hear enough sometimes about taking the fight

to go upstream, to do the right thing. Some of you know that fight bet-

ter than me. If you’ve had cancer of any kind and had to go through

treatments of chemo or radiation, you know what it is: it’s a fight; it’s

a struggle to overcome. If you’ve had other kinds of addictive behav-

iors, whether it be drugs or alcohol or food or whatever it might be, it

takes a lot to overcome. You can just go with the flow and you are not

going to improve. You’ve got to be determined. If you’ve had knee

surgery or something, you can choose never to walk again or you can

choose to go through the pain and get where you want.

You see, easygoing isn’t always easy and yet this humility issue that

God speaks to us about today would make life so easy for us in terms

of relationships with spouses and partners and children and parents. It

would make life so much better for us if we could simply say, “I’ve

made a mistake. I’m not as good, I’m not as powerful, I’m not as

strong, I’m not as mighty as I thought I was and I’m not nearly as per-

fect as I thought I was.”

But when you become a powerful person and you are commander of

an army and people snapped to every time you speak, it’s a little hard

to imagine someone asking something of you that would be a little hu-

miliating.

Have you ever heard that? “Who do you think I am? You want me to

do what? Pick up your trash? You want me to empty the…you know,

do whatever it is?” We think we are above things and yet, it is not nec-

essarily a sign of weakness to be humble. It is a sign of wisdom prob-

ably of all things that we could want.

It’s also a sign of trusting God. This man Naaman had the privilege of

something very simple and yet he didn’t want to do it because he

would have had to lower himself, humble himself, be less important

than he really though he was. We need to learn to trust in God and

that’s a very difficult thing for people like most of us who have learned

to think that we are self-made men and women. “Well, I’ve worked

for everything I’ve had.” Have you ever heard that line? You know

what? I know a lot of people around the world who work harder than

anyone I’ve ever seen here and they have next to nothing because you

have been blessed by God to be born in a free nation. How about that?

We have worked; many of you have worked very hard, but our gifts,

our blessings, our power all comes from Almighty God.

There are many times instead of trusting in God we like to trust a lot of

other things. We try every med and every ploy that comes down the

road to try to bring cures to our ailments but it doesn’t always work

that way.

We see, at times we want to go to all kinds of other options before we

come to faith, before we come to what to trust in God. Trusting in

God does not mean we don’t seek medical help.

I had to include this one because I thought it was cute. “Oh,

someone’s praying for you? I guess you won’t be needing me then.”

That doesn’t make much sense to me, does it? I do use people who

have been trained whether they are clinicians or nurses or doctors or

whatever part of the profession, but I ultimately trust in God and many

people, doctors that I’ve worked with through the years have such faith

in God that they will even tell you it’s my wisdom and instruction that

may be helping, but it is God who will bring healing to our lives, if we

will trust God, if we will listen to God, if we will humble ourselves be-

fore Almighty God.

And this man Naaman wasn’t quite ready to do that.

So I want you to hear this story found in 2 Kings: Naaman was a com-

mander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the

sight of his master and high regarded because through him the Lord

had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had lepro-

sy, a very terrible disease. Now bands from Aram had gone out and

taken captive a young girl from Israel and she served Naaman’s wife.

She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet

who is in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy.” Naaman went

to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. “By all

means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king

of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six

thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. The letter which he

took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my serv-

ant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” As soon

as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I

God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send

someone to me to be cured of leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a

quarrel with me.” When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of

Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you

torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that

there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman went with his horse, chariots

and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent him a messenger

to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordon, and your

flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” But Naaman went

away angry and said, “I thought he would surely come out to me and

stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, Wave his hand over

the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the

rivers of Damascus, better than of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I be

washed in them and be cleansed?’ So he turned and went off in a rage.

Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet

had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How

much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleaned’.” So he

went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man

of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like

that of a young boy.

This young girl was in bad predicament. This plot changes many

times. She was a slave. She had been taken out of Israel, conquered at

one point. She was working, probably had lost her own family. She

was kind enough to remind him that, indeed, there was someone that

could heal him.

Then there was this man that got the news.

He had to go over to his master even though he was a general, he went

to King Aram and said, “Look, there’s a chance that someone over in

Israel wants to do this.”

And the plot thickens.

He sends a letter to the king of Israel. How would you like if a king

sent you a note and said, “Hey, clear my brother-in-law. He has heart

disease.” You might think “What in the world does he think I am?”

But he didn’t know what to do. The king of Israel, you see, didn’t

even know this prophet Elisha as well. I’m not sure if there is any roy-

alty in here this morning. If there are, please let me know, I don’t want

to, you know, hurt your feelings. I know you and I are all from a very

wonderful lineage called that of Jesus Christ. We are God’s children;

we are His chosen. But most of us aren’t quite treated like these folks.

My guess is when the queen gets up in the morning she doesn’t go to

the fridge and prepare her meal. My guess is she doesn’t clean a lot of

toilets. He probably doesn’t go out and fix the cars in the motorcade

either. They live a different style as well do CEOs of most corpora-

tions and presidents and dictators around the world.

Most of them have more servants than you and I could ever imagine

and so it is hard for us to imagine that a general would come in or the

queen or king would come in to go see someone and they say “I’m

sick” and he say, “Sure, we’ll send you to the doctors”

And they are sitting out there in the doctor’s office with just common-

ers like you and me, waiting for our hour before we get into the next

half hour visit in the little room.

In the midst of all of that, this man was furious. “Do you mean to tell

me Elisha, this prophet, who is going to heal me can’t even come out

of his room and wave his hand or do something for me?” And Elisha

basically said, “All you need to do is go to the river. How much sim-

pler could life be?” “But I’m powerful, I’m mighty. I want special

treatment. I don’t want to just be some humble little man.”

Until his own guard said, “Look, if he asked you to scale the highest

mountain you would have done it. To go fight another nation, you

would have done it. Just go to the river and get cleaned up.” And he

went down to the river Jordan and indeed, all the people that brought

the gold and the silver and the everything with them were trying to

convince him that if he went down there he would be cured and indeed

he was.

But you see Naaman thought it was beneath him. Do you ever think

some things are beneath you? I had a friend a few years ago finished

his PhD. It wasn’t Ron, by the way, someone asked me that. He had

worked hard for many many years for his PhD and he woke up in the

morning afterwards and was so pleased and he and his wife were get-

ting ready for work and the days off and he said to her, “You know it’s

so great to have accomplished all that work and to finally have that ti-

tle to be a doctor.” And she said, “Well, that’s fine, but don’t forget on

your way out the door this morning to take the trash out.” You see,

no matter how many titles, no matter what else goes on in our life,

we’re really not above anything. We are all humble servants of the

Most High God.

Those servants had to wake up their own master because he refused to

obey.

There are many struggles in our lives that are there because we refuse

to humble ourselves and obey the commands of God. God says He

will have us have no other God in our life, but God himself. God

doesn’t want to be number 2 or 3 after your spouse, your partner, your

children. God says, “I’m number 1, and if you put me first all those

other things will come in line and you will have the love and the kind-

ness and the blessings that you will see.” But when we put ourself on

the top, it’s a problem. God wants obedience.

You and I live in a nation that is known in the world “Super Power.” If

you don’t believe that, watch the news right now with this nuclear

stuff. It is scary stuff. We, you see, aren’t as powerful as we think we

are. God is more powerful. We might have more bombs and more

military; we might have more money, more stuff; our homes might be

bigger; better health care. We have all these things of this world, but

let me tell you, none of it is more powerful than Almighty God. I have

met folks through my ministry that have had lots of money and when

illness comes, guess what? You can be millionaires and you still can’t

cure some diseases, because it hasn’t been made possible yet. God is

the One who wants to bring healing to our life, not by power and

might, but by the mere presence of the Holy Spirit that will reign in

our lives if we will allow God into our lives.

The invitation from God is: quit being so independent; quit being so

powerful in your own mind; come home to me and know that I am

your Father God.

All the questions we have about the struggles in our life, no matter

where those struggles are, a lot of the answers relate into humbling

ourselves.

I’ve been amazed through the years at the problems, actually never

amazed at the problems as much as the inactivity of people to solve

them: relationships. Most of us know when our relationship isn’t all it

should be, don’t we? We know if it is a little cold in the house. Con-

versations aren’t what they ought to be, whether it is at home with our

children, our parents, at work, and yet we will act like there is not a

problem. I grew up in a little town of less than 400 people and I didn’t

live in town. Let me tell you, if you don’t know the problem, every-

body else knows of that problem. But we refuse to humble ourselves

and say, “Lord, I need help to save this right now. I need to make a

difference. I need to make a claim.” Whether it is in school and your

grades aren’t right and you need to humble yourself and say, “I really

need to get a tutor here, not wait until the end of the year and fail the

subject.” But you see it takes humility to say “I need help.” Do you

ever need help? Most of my life I need help in many situations. We

need to know it’s okay. It’s okay to ask someone who has been down

the road in a relationship. Ask someone that’s been married 60 or 70

years, we have a few of them around here. Ask those folks who have

some wisdom. If you are not really good at algebra, ask someone who

knows algebra. If you are not really good in whatever it is, there is

somebody who has wisdom if we will humble ourselves and invite

them into our life to help pull our life. No matter what problems, there

is a solution; there is a solution for every problem that exists.

But sometimes when we are the lone ranger, we are out there in the

boat and we think we are all by ourself and we are indeed going to

sink unless we come to God and say, “God, this problem is bigger than

me.”

And God shouldn’t be our last solution. So many times we try every-

thing in the world before we…”Well, I tried this, I tried that…I guess

I’m going to come to church. Will you pray with me?” How about

praying to start? And seeking other wisdom and counsel along the

way. Make God the number 1 in our life. God wants to reach down.

We need God; we need others who are representing the Kingdom of

God that we might learn to trust. I learned my faith by watching oth-

ers who had been down the road of faith before me. I thank God for

men and women and for children who have taught me so much trust. I

had a little boy when I was working at Hershey. He was seven years

old, dying of cancer. We were praying for him and his mother was

crying. And he said to her, “Mommy, why are you crying? I’ll be with

Jesus.” We learn.

We learn when we are willing to humble ourselves and understand that

God is with us. Some years ago one of my friends had put up his

home, his banking, his everything to start a business. He was in the

computer business and it was around, I think, 2008 when everything

went pttt. He lost pretty much of everything. But he talked to me. He

was sent to Philhaven, he agreed to go to Philhaven, which is a coun-

seling center. We used to use very cruel terms like “the nuthouse”. If

you have ever used that, shame on us for saying those kind of words.

It is a place where people with wisdom help other people struggling

find a path of wholeness and health and strength.

When I went, he said to me, “I couldn’t believe I was here. Nope, no

way was I going to go there. It’s not for people like me. No way. Not

me. Other people, you know those who have addictions, those who

have bad behaviors, those who have brokenness in their life. I didn’t

want to be here,” but in humility, he knew he needed to be there. And

it didn’t take him more than a few weeks to find his path, to get his life

back together. He didn’t have everything he once had, but he had his

family, he had his life and he found wholeness and completeness. His

father was a clergyman for all of his life. He knew enough about God

to come home, but you see, he had become rich and powerful and he

didn’t want to let all that beside.

It takes a little humility that we might be like Naaman, we might know

that we can get up. You know, we aren’t the people who give up and

there is a real difference of those that just give up on anything. I re-

member trying to do pull ups. This was a long time ago. And I said,

“I can’t.” And every time I said, “I can’t” my phys ed teacher smacked

my bottom and said, “You can. Never say ‘I can’t.’” They couldn’t do

that now days. Because you can.

You see, there’s a difference between giving up and surrendering. Sur-

rendering is saying, “This is the situation I’m in and I’m going to let

go. I’m not going to stay here. I am going to put the bad behind me.”

Whatever it was, the losses count your losses and move forward.

It’s making the decision: this is where I am today, it’s not ruining my

life, it’s, you know, no matter who leaves our life, who enters our life,

no matter what the money situation, God is with me.

I’m going forward by the power of Almighty God and those who will

be with me, for God will never let us alone.

God is in charge and God is always with us. We only need to trust.

In life, I have sometimes been amazed in my own at my lack of trust in

God to give up because you keep trying things that don’t always suc-

ceed.

And I’m also more amazed that we would stay in the gutters rather

than seek new life. If we are in places that aren’t producing spiritual

wholeness and restoration and new life, we are probably not where we

ought to be. God is the God of new life every single day. God is the

life of one who brings restoration to our lives.

Without God, there is no hope. Dante said in his writing that over

Hell’s doorway there should be a sign: Enter here who have aban-

doned all hope. As long as we have God, we have hope; there is a

possibility of something new.

If we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, he shall life you up.

This is from James.

Humility is something that we need to learn. It is about surrendering.

A few years ago there was a book called Traveling Mercies by Anne

Lamott.

And in that book she talks about a little girl, about a seven year old

who was lost in a small town and a policeman found her wandering the

streets and decided, he didn’t know her, didn’t know the family, but

was going to help her find her home. She didn’t even remember the

address.

But as they wandered along, he finally went by a church and she said,

“Pull in here, you can let me out.” He said, “What?” She said, “This

is my church. I can always find my way home.” Always. There

have been times I’ve left the church for short bouts through my grow-

ing up years. Some of you probably did that as well. But when I came

home to a place like Calvary or wherever that place is, doesn’t have to

be Calvary, you come to God.

I look at the picture of Christ always with his arms out. Come home.

All ye who are weak and heavy laden come home to me. I have a

place for you. I have healing for you; restoration for you; hope for

you. There is a new day.

I don’t know your journey today, but most days I need a little more

healing. I need a little more restoration. And I want to remind you to-

day that God has it for all of us every day. God will never turn you

away. The hands of God are always welcoming. Praise be to Al-

mighty God.

Let us pray: Almighty God, we might wander to and fro, but you re-

mind us if we humble ourselves there is always a door open at our

home. Receive us this day, humble us, restore us, heal us, we ask in

your most Holy Name. Amen.

We have been blessed and the usher will wait upon us to receive our

gifts and tithes.

Benediction:

I have been blessed all of my life and I have an enormous family and

whether it was to an aunt or to an uncle or to my grandparents or to my

home, there were always arms that said, “Come home,” a place of wel-

come. That’s God for all of us, no matter where we are in our journey,

wherever you are today, whether it’s in celebration saying “I’m coming

home! Let’s do it!” or whether it is a struggle in our life. So I pray to-

day as we leave that you will know God is a place you can always go

home to. God wants to surround us and by the power of Almighty God

and the grace and the Spirit that is presence, we can go into the world

in His name and power to do all good things. Go in His peace. Amen.