Aram to Batoche and Back
February 12, 2012 | Patrick Preheim | 2nd Kings 5:1-14

This is a story full of irony. An enslaved slave girl points her captor toward healing. Holiness is found in the humble Jordon creek, not the mighty rivers of Damascus. A conquering hero receives healing and faith from people of the occupied territories. Each of these shocking twists in the narrative has the potential to guide us more deeply into faith filled living. I will parallel the biblical narrative alongside the story of Amelia Wieler.

Ameila Wieler moved from Manitoba to Rosthern sometime in the early 1890s. The good news is that she got out of Manitoba. The bad news is that her husband died shortly after arriving in Rosthern leaving her several young children to parent on her own. No relatives were here and she had no place to live. Things looked bad, but she did hear of an open cabin on the river lots near Batoche. She was given permission to live in it. Not only that, however, the aboriginal and Metis neighbours all around provided food. Not only that, they gave raw materials for her to make clothes for the family. And not only that, but in the spring of that first year Ameila run out of supplies and appealed to the chief of the One Arrow Reserve. Even though the spring thaw was on and the ice was beginning to crack the chief crossed the South Saskatchewan, paid for her supplies in Duck Lake, and brought them back to her. An amazing first chapter in which a defeated people offered renewed life to a family. A family, by the way, which looked much like those who had confiscated their communal lands and slaughtered the buffalo.

In 2nd Kings 5 the slave girl enters the narrative early. Our text tells us that she had been captured in a raid and deported to the land of Aram. I don’t know about you, but if I were carted off by the heathen of Alberta as booty of war I doubt I would suggest a remedy for their afflictions. I would more likely intone Psalm 137 which prays for the destruction of the conqueror. According to Leviticus 13 (v.3) Naaman is ritually unclean and I would be tempted to take smug satisfaction that Naaman, Gentile or no Gentile, was getting what he deserved. Not so with our nameless slave girl. She gave him pretty clear direction on how a person can be made clean. Maybe she had pity on Naaman. Or maybe she recognized that her ritual purity was linked to the health of Naaman. Back in Leviticus 13, after all, the person with a leprous disease should be living alone outside the camp (45-46) to keep the impurity from infecting others. Whatever her motives the slave girl joins a respectable list of Hebrews—Joseph, Ruth, Esther—who sought the welfare of the foreign city in which they lived (Jeremiah 29.7).

This brief commentary about a slave girl should give us pause for consideration. At some point in our lives most of us have felt as an exile in a foreign land—in school, in family, in work, somewhere. We don’t feel belonging; we don’t feel understood; we don’t see a future. A theological observation from this story is that God does not allow slavery or exile to thwart the eternal mission of salvation and healing for all. In fact, God utilizes the testimony of the enslaved faithful to bring good news to the home of Naaman. That is amazing! Dare we believe God can use the illness, the brokenness, the uncertainty we experience to bring salvation? This story resoundingly says “Yes”! God and Christ have not left us as helpless slaves—be it to sin, to death, to uncertainty, to difficulty. While we remain exiles from our eternal home we are not truly slaves. In a paraphrase of the classic testimony of Joseph to his brothers—what was intended for harm God has uses for good (Gen 50.20). And what is the good that God works from the enslavement of the chosen ones—none other than salvation for Egypt, Naaman, and the nations.

Amelia Wieler owed her life to the generosity of the One Arrow First Nation and the Metis of Batoche. No doubt she had gratitude to both God and her neighbours. A year or two later she had opportunity to return life. “On October 22, 1895, Almighty Voice was arrested by the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) after being accused of slaughtering a government cow” (Rob Nestor, Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, “Almighty Voice” article on the web). Given that government cows and reservation cows often grazed together it is not clear Almighty Voice was guilty (this sentiment attributed to Ray Funk). While he was being transferred to the jail in Duck Lake, one of the arresting officers is said to have joked that the penalty for killing a government cow was hanging. Almighty Voice seemed to have taken the joke seriously: he escaped from jail that night, and fled to his mother’s home on the reserve. Initial attempts to capture him were not successful” (Nestor, ibid). They couldn’t find him because he was living at Amelia Wieler’s place across the river. Nearly two years later Almighty Voice was killed in a shoot out with the NWMP closer to his home reserve. On account of Amelia’s hospitality, however, he had additional time with his community and family. There is no report that Almighty Voice accepted Jesus as Lord, or that he renounced violence, or that he repented of a killing an officer in a shoot out. And yet in her actions she testified to Almighty Voice of a different God of the white man, and we can be sure the One Arrow First Nation and the Metis of Batoche were paying attention to this testimony.

A second fascinating dimension to the Naaman story is that the source of his healing does not come from the grandiose. The text describes Naaman as “great” and as “mighty”. The gifts offered to the King of Israel are lavish. Namaan approaches the home of Elisha in full battle regalia—horses and chariots. It is only natural that Namaan is expecting something equally grand from the prophet—waving of arms and incantations in a face to face meeting. Instead, we get a short message passed through the office secretary. And to boot, the cure is bathing in the Jordon. The Jordon?? Neither Elisha, Naaman, or the narrator refer the Jordon as a river. The Jordon only emerges from a spring near the Golan Heights. With the setting of this story in the northern territories of Israel the Jordon is surely more of a creek than a river. The healing of God is found in the ordinary, the small things of this world, the un-assuming sacraments over which we stumble on the way to someplace we think important.

Barbara Brown Taylor begins her book An Altar in the World with the following reflections. People long....for more meaning, more feeling, more connection, more life. When I hear people talk about spirituality, that seems to be what they are describing. They know there is more to life than what meets the eye. They have drawn close to this “More” in nature, in love, in art, in grief. They would be happy for someone to teach them how to spend more time in the presence of this deeper reality, but when they visit the places where such knowledge is supposed to be found, they often find the rituals hollow and the language antique...

People seem willing to look all over the place for this treasure. They will spend hours launching prayers into the heavens. They will travel halfway around the world to visit a monastery in India or to take part in a mission trip to Belize. The last place most people look is right under their feet, in the everyday activities, accidents and encounters of their lives...

No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it. (Introduction, pp xiv-xv)

The Hebrew slave girl points Namaan to the source of healing common to her people, and it is the ordinary. Where do we point our co-workers, family members, community neighbours? Let me tell you briefly about my ordinary waters of Israel. Some of you have heard it before and for some of you my particular places of bathing may not suit your temperament. Either way, we all have a story and all are invited to share about the ways in which God brings wholeness to us.

In the dark cold days of winter I am healed by getting outside. I know some people (like Anita, Ken, and a whole host of others from this congregation) find their souls warmed in a more tropical setting, but I just love the beauty of winter. Biking to church or walking by the river on a cold winter day is a mystical event. Praise of God just wells up within me as I watch the light change in the sky, observe the long shadows, watch the full moon set in the morning, feel the blood circulate warming my extremities as I exercise. It is so ordinary to be outside in nature, and I am grateful for the wholeness I receive by bathing myself in its glory.

I am healed in my devotional life as I hand over to Christ the burden of those things I ought not to have done and those things I have left undone. I don’t allow shame to cripple me. I don’t allow the failing of others to crush me. I give them all to Jesus which permits me to truly live. Daily devotions are an ordinary thing, and I gratefully immerse myself in them for healing.

In 2nd Kings 5 Naaman finally humbles himself and does the ordinary: he washes in the Jordon. Is this his baptism? It might very well be. In verses 15-19 Naaman returns to Elisha and confesses loyalty to the God of Israel. Naaman speaks the Lord’s name—amazing for a Gentile military officer. Elisha blesses Naaman on his return to Aram. It appears Naaman is now one of the in-group. “Faith was not a precondition for healing; health was given in order to create faith” (Richard Nelson, First and Second Kings in the bible commentary series “Interpretation: A Bible-Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, p. 182). If people receive the testimony we give and engage in the ordinary things which offer healing, it is truly possible that conversion will happen. It is brought about not on account of their faith nor on account of our testimony. It will happen because God desires that all people and all nations might come to know the living God. And still, the testimony of a slave is needed.

What of Amelia Wieler. Her experiences on the east bank of the South Saskatchewan were, no doubt, life changing. Contrary to the racial tensions of that time she was able to give life to and receive life from her Aboriginal community. In 1910 she relocated to the Tiefengrund settlement as it was being colonized. She was one of the first people to give piano lessons in that musically talented congregation. Perhaps some remember Dora Regier who played many years at 1st Mennonite or Agnes Ewert—both students of Amelia. Those whom she instructed went on to train their children in music, lead choirs, and teach music classes. Her influence moves through the generations. It would be daunting to count the number of Mennonite choirs, congregations and audiences impacted by this one woman. And since it was our First Nation and Metis neighbours who preserved her life, we owe some thanks to them for our musical heritage.

Was Amelia Wieler a slave girl or Elisha who imparted the gifts of God to strangers in the land? Was she Naaman, one who was directed to God’s healing among the conquered peoples? Are we slaves or Elisha who mediate the grace of God to those around us? Are we Naaman who needs to be healed of our prejudice, clannishness, imperialism? The answers are probably all “yes”.

May God grant us courage to humbly receive baptism in the ordinary sacraments all around.

May we return to our homes and work knowing the prophet sends us with his blessing.

May God draw the nations unto himself from our bold testimony while in exile. Amen.