In last week’s first reading from the Old Testament, we heard proclaimed the partial story of the Syrian Commander Naaman, his leprosy, and how Elisha, the man of God, instructed Naaman to bathe in the Jordan River to be healed. The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey once said, was Naaman’s reaction to bathing in the Jordan River rather than his own mighty waters back home in Syria. He took it personal, as we like to say today, that he was told, not to bathe and be cured in the waters of Syria, but do so by dipping in the waters of a foreign country. He believed his waters were just as miraculous as the waters of the river which Jesus would eventually be baptized in, thus raising the Jordan River to be the starting point of our salvation in the Sacrament of Baptism.
Naaman, in this story, can be seen in two lights (at least). First, that he was dead wrong about his understanding about the Jordan River and its cleansing, healing power. As commander of a great army, Naaman was humbled by little ol’ Elisha, the man of God, who probably looked like he just slept outside for six months without bathing himself. In fact, maybe that’s what Naaman saw in Elisha. He saw a filthy looking guy carrying the mantle of Elijah and thought, “You don’t even use your own waters to cleanse your body, but you want me to jump in and supposedly be cured? What sort of fool do you take me for?” Naaman came to discover, after much prodding from his Officers who basically told him, “What do you have to lose?” that the waters of the Jordan River are indeed miraculous waters filled with the Spirit of the living God. As Naaman was cured of his leprosy, a dreaded disease, he realized that God does in fact distinguish between the elements of this world, and how certain areas and elements are holy and made holy by the power and touch of the one, true God. This has not gone by the wayside for us. Certain places in the world are most holy, such as a Church, or a remote area of nature, or even found hidden in the busyness of a city.
The second light of the Naaman leprosy story is his so-called conversion and definite admission of Israel worshipping the one, true God. For only the true God, the only God, who called forth the stars and heavens, who made something out of nothing, can cause waters of a certain river to take on healing power to cure one of the most awful diseases in antiquity. Naaman’s “conversion” is unlike that of St. Paul, who went on to openly become, through the power of Christ Jesus, the Apostle to the Gentiles, converting nations and empires. Naaman’s “conversion” is more on the level of an admission. After being healed of leprosy in the Jordan River, Naaman loudly proclaims what he knew to be true; that the God of Israel is the one, true God. Being fully healed of an awful skin disease like leprosy will cause a person to give thanks. But the great part of the Naaman story was to recognize the truth of what happened, of Who was behind the miracle, and proclaim openly that the God of another country, a neighboring country, was the Source of the healing experienced through the invitation of Elisha, the man of God. Such “Naamaian” accuracy in recognizing God’s presence in our lives and our world, and the power that accompanies only Him, has been lost to a great degree, and is in need of recapture. “Naamian” accuracy rids us of all the false gods out there.
A second Old Testament person, which we hear proclaimed this Sunday, comes to us from the opposite side of Naaman, if you will. His name is Amalek. Let’s just say I’m glad my parents did not name me Amalek. If they did, I would go to City Hall and pay whatever amount of money to change it to some other name that is hardly used, such as Walter. Amalek’s story is a bad one, whereas Naaman’s story has a good ending. It’s hard to pinpoint what nation Amalek and his Amalekites come from, which is of lesser concern here. In another book of Scripture outside of Exodus, it says Amalek came up from Egypt, which does not necessarily mean he was from Egypt. Either way, his story ends in the ugliest way possible.
The story of Amalek is a story of how God fights evil in the Old Testament. Lots of people complain about how much violence in the Old Testament is attributed to God. It would be fair to say that “God’s violence,” if you will, God wanting to wipe out the entire world or a nation, is in response to the abomination of human sin. We do well to remember how much sin offends the majesty of God the Creator, such as found in Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember, Abraham asked God if he, Abraham, could find any number of righteous persons in Sodom, would God still destroy the city, and the answer was consistently “No.” A sure sign of how even one faithful, holy person could prevent God from destruction in the Old Testament.
Amalek, on the other hand, represents all that is evil. He’s the worst sort of warrior, has no respect for the lives of other people, seeks to destroy through fear and intimidation the goodness found in others, and looks to take over anyone who gets in his way through murder and whatever goes with it. In the reading from Exodus, Amalek and his full-on aggressiveness zeroes in on the helpless Israelites shortly after their Divine removal from Egypt. After God wiped out the Egyptian army who sought to destroy and wipe out His Chosen People, Amalek and his horde of thousands showed up not long after. The Israelites are in the early stages of wandering in the desert for 40 years, and before they have the opportunity to settle into the sand, they have Amalek, who represents the worst of sin, seeking to do the same to God’s people that the Egyptians sought. What do you think the result is going to be? This is not a difficult prediction, unlike “How good are the Red Sox going to be in 2023?”
God sees from His perch what’s going on, in the same way the Lord sees all our doings from close and afar. God sees how Amalek has it out for these helpless people with few weapons for protection as they wander aimlessly in the land of hot days and cool nights. They are ripe for the taking, which the condition of sin is always searching for. Sin gets giddy over the other human condition called weakness, seeking to wipe us out. What Amalek does not see or know is the same the Egyptians should have known by the time their army reached the shores of the Red Sea. Amalek did not know, and the Egyptians should have known, that God was fighting for Israel. Poor Amalek. He had no chance.
Actually, he had a small chance of succeeding at the destruction of Israel and sin winning the day. This speaks to us, for we likely have days when it appears sin will win out, but one good act of contrition at the end of the day will go a long way toward being touched by God’s mercy. It does not replace the Sacrament and all its power and grace, but an act of contrition gets us back to the path that leads to heaven.
In the battle between Amalek (sin) and Israel (called to be holy), success for either party depended upon the hands of Moses lifted high and kept high. Sort of like the orans position when the Lord’s Prayer is prayed. Moses was slightly getting up there in age when the battle lines were formed between good and evil. Between Israel and Amalek. Between God and Amalek. Imagine trying to keep your hands raised for an entire day? Even with two friends, one on each side, holding our hands up, it would still be difficult to keep them in the air, leading to rotator cuff surgery. It’s not hard to picture Moses saying to God around 4:00 p.m., “Is the battle over yet? Have we won yet?” And God answering, “Just two more hours, Moses. Hang in there.”
And this is what we need to do when Amalek is attacking us. We need to hang in there for “two more hours.” We are wise and patient to give God the time to bring about our victory over the sins that try to destroy us and keep us lying on the desert floor. Truthfully, our faith teaches that the victory over sin – and death – has already been won by Jesus. I pray we know this in our hearts and minds, and that we never leave behind this most fundamental truth of our faith. Even when it appears that Amalek and sin are going to destroy God’s holy people, we remind ourselves through the grace of God that holiness is present much, much deeper within us, and is, first, only one act of contrition away, and second, one Sacrament of Reconciliation away. “His mercy endures forever.”
Sadly, we live in a world and time when Amalek is disguising himself as someone good. Yes, much sin today is disguised and couched in a shield of goodness. Deception is a sibling to sin. But what our faith teaches about Amalek never changes, for God’s truth always remains truth. God is not fickle like human beings. Be wise as serpents and gentle as doves in recognizing the Amalek who seeks to do battle and wage war on our bodies and in our souls. Believing and practicing the teachings of our faith are the number one options that ensures our victory. May you have the courage and fortitude to live this like the Apostles did, and the Communion of Saints thereafter. Amalek has been defeated by Christ Jesus. And Moses is filled with joy, for his arms were getting very tired. HOLINESS For Paul, the way we behave has an essential link with the holiness of God. In the urgent eschatological language of his early writings, Paul prays that the Thessalonians may become “blameless in holiness” in anticipation of “the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.” Later in that same letter Paul says bluntly that the will of God for all of us is our holiness, and he immediately juxtaposes norms of behavior, beginning with abstention from “immorality.”
The close connection between holiness and ethics has enormous ramifications both for contemporary Christian living and for our conception of theology. Western Christianity has had an unfortunate history of separating belief and practice, so that we have spoken of systematic theology and moral theology as if they were separated by a chasm. More recent attempts to ground ethics theologically and to account for spirituality also as a grounded discipline have had the salutary effect of a more holistic understanding of the Christian life. That newer understanding is, in essence, a retrieval of the old Augustinian insight “Love God and do what you please.” If, to think of the matter in terms of holiness, we belong to God by choice under grace, then that choice carries with it a concomitant demand to act under that same God. Holiness, then, becomes a way of being with God in Christ rather than a mere cultic separation from the world of the “profane” or a sectarian form of spiritual perfectionism. It is, rather, a response to the demand of Jesus that we be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect.” From The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality