2 Kings 5:9-15

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.”  But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage.  But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”  So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean. Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from

your servant.”

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?”  Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Healing the Soul

I have always liked making things like paper airplanes and little boats that float on water. When I was a kid, I made lots of models, you know, model airplanes, model boats and cars. It was so much fun to make things like that. I made my own toys, and sometimes, they would even fly. It was so amazing to take a piece of paper and fold it into an airplane that would actually fly across the room!

This morning I want to talk about healing, deep healing of the soul. In some ways, I think healing is like returning to childhood. We become like children again, and so, take delight in simply being alive. Another way to say this is that we find our true home in God. As St. Augustine famously wrote in his Confessions, “O God, you have made us for yourself, and our soul is restless until it finds rest in you.”

Our readings this morning are stories about healing. This is a very important subject because we all need healing. And here, I am not talking so much about physical healing. Rather, this healing I’m talking about is spiritual healing. Healing the soul. Healing the deepest part of ourselves. Healing our spirit, healing our soul.

Deep cleaning.

When we were at the monastery last month, Shari and I sometimes joined the residents there in their daily schedule. And one of the things that the monks and the other residents do everyday is work. After the morning meditation and breakfast, there is a work period. Everyone is assigned a task, and for several hours, they take on the ordinary work of the monastery. This includes cleaning and yard work. All the ordinary, everyday tasks that we all have to do.

At the monastery one day, I was assigned to clean the refrigerators. They have a big commercial kitchen there with three refrigerators standing right next to each other. And my job was to go through all three refrigerators, pull out all the old stuff: empty all the jars of outdated condiments, empty all the old leftovers piled up in Tupperware containers, take all the bulk food containers downstairs to the big walk-in cooler, and then scrub out the inside of the refrigerators. It was a deep cleaning. So, I did that. It took about two and a half hours.

Then, later in the afternoon, I was assigned to clean the kitchen sinks, enormous commercial sinks. So, I did a deep cleaning of those sinks. It took about three hours and I did a lot of scrubbing. At the end of the day, I was exhausted. Cleaning is hard work. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. But that is my point, actually.

Cleaning is hard work. And we could think of spiritual healing as a deep cleaning of the soul. To heal the soul is a very deep kind of cleaning, a deep healing. There is a lot of dirt and grime that has to get cleaned out, so to speak. Healing the soul, there is a lot of old stuff that we need to let go of, a lot of old stuff that needs to get cleaned out.

Our mistaken identity.

Now, what am I talking about? What do I mean by “a deep cleaning of the soul” and “healing the soul”? And to answer this question, I want to frame an answer in terms of identity. A deep cleaning of the soul, a healing at the soul level, is related to our identity. In other words, who I think I am. So let’s take a look at this. If you can stay with me for a few moments, it will be clear where I am going with this. The basic problem is mistaken identity. We make a mistake about who we really are. We identify with all the stuff we are attached to. But what happens when it all falls apart? What happens when we realize that we can’t hold onto anything? Who are we then? So, this is the question to explore.

Healing the soul begins when we start to ask the question, “Who am I, really?” This question, “Who am I?” is so very important in the spiritual journey. It is essential to answer this question. “Who am I?” A deep cleaning of the soul leads to an understanding of who we really are. It’s a correction of our ideas about who we are.

Hospital surgery.

Imagine that you have to go to the hospital for surgery. You know? Many of us have had to do this. I’m talking about major surgery. You go to the hospital, say, for open heart surgery. Or for knee replacement, or for hip replacement

So, you go in for surgery. You leave home and drive to the hospital. You park the car and you leave it in the parking lot. You go into a room in the hospital, and you take off all your clothes. So you are losing things, see? All the exterior layers are dropping away, one at a time. And without all those exterior layers, who are you? Who are you when your career ends? Who are you when your house gets sold? Who are you when your life explodes?

So, you are getting ready for this surgery. You lie down on a hospital gurney. Now, you are not walking anymore. The anesthesiologist gives you a sedative. Now you are getting drowsy. They wheel you into the operating room where it’s freezing cold. And just as you are about to pass out, you feel the orderlies lifting your body up onto the operating table. Who are you?

Deep healing means we learn who we really are. Healing the soul means we find out who we really are, by finding out who we are not. And who are we? Well, we are what is left over when everything else is taken away from us. We are what is left over when we lose everything we thought we had and everything we thought we were.

Someday we will die.

We all know that someday we will die. But we don’t know when. We will go back to where we came from. We will go back to God. We came from God. And we will go back to God. Healing the soul means letting go of all our confusion about who we are. Letting go of our mistaken identity. You see, people get so attached to things and ideas. And then they use these attachments to define themselves. This is mine. This car is mine. This house is mine. This career is mine. This money is mine. This family is mine. This relationship is mine. Or what about this one: These opinions are mine. These judgements are mine. On and on. There are so many attachments. But eventually, sooner or later, we find that all these things are taken away. We can’t hold on to anything. We were born naked. And we will die naked, without any attachment, meaning, we will not take anything with us. We were born empty-handed. And we will die empty handed. And this is when we have a great opportunity to learn who we really are. We are what is left over when everything else is taken away. Like rolling into the operating room on a hospital gurney. We are naked, completely exposed, completely open, completely untethered to any attachments.

The restless soul

Until we learn who we really are, our souls will be restless. This is such a powerful insight. We are searching, searching, searching, for something to hang onto. What is that? What are we searching for, ultimately? We are searching for our true home. And when we find our true home, our soul is healed. This is the essence of the spiritual journey.

This prayer from St. Augustine conveys the spiritual journey so clearly. O God, you have made us for yourself, and our soul is restless until it finds rest in you.” Until we find out who we really are, we will be restless because we do not know where our true home is. We are that spiritual being, we are that which is left over when everything else has been taken away, we are that spiritual being, looking for our true home. And we will find it when we let go of all the mistaken identities, all our mistaken ideas about who we are. Then, we realize who we really are, and our soul finds rest in God.

This soul healing, this realizing who we really are, is like jumping off a cliff into the ocean. In a way, it is like dying. We walk closer and closer to the cliff edge, letting go of things, dropping things we don’t need anymore, until finally, we jump. We jump into the great expansive ocean. We let go of all the things we think we are. We let them die, and we become like little children again.

Do you remember being a child? Everything was amazing. Looking at a blade of grass. Biting into an apple. Watching a bird swoop across the sky. Hearing sounds of all different kinds. Smelling and tasting so many things: chocolate chip cookies, apple pie, blueberry pie, potato chips! For children, the world is alive and an amazing miracle. So when we let go of all our complicated ideas about who we are, we jump off the cliff, so to speak, and become simple, like a child. This is deep healing. This is where the soul finds rest. Not only rest, but the soul finds joy. We become like a child and find our childlike joy in simply being alive.

In our reading from 2 Kings, Naaman found this joy. At first, he was too important to wash in the river. But when he let go of all his importance and became like a child again, he found that joy again. The same with the one leper who turned back to thank Jesus in our reading from Luke. He woke up! He became alive again. He found his joy and was so grateful that he went back to thank Jesus. So, like these, may we too find the healing we need for our souls, and through God’s grace, may we discover who we really are, and in so doing, find our true home. Amen? Amen.