Content and Contingent

Anyone know what the acronym KISS stands for?

Right! Keep it simple stupid!

It’s a principle used in software development, in mathematics, in scientific theory, and in AA. It can be traced back and back - through the Franciscan logician of the 14th century – William of Ockham, and before him, to the Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas, and before him to Aristotle – and before him – to Commander’s Naaman’s servant in the 2nd book of Kings.

“If he told you something difficult to do, wouldn’t you go all out trying it? How much more, since he gave you very simple instructions.”

How we love to complicate things! Especially when it comes to things that are important to us – like love, like relationship, like healing, like God. And most of the time, it’s the complications of our head – of our thinking – that trips us up and creates problems. Thus - the relevance of KISS wisdom – the servant’s wisdom in this story about the Commander and Elisha.

Don’t you just love his question! “If he’d told you something really difficult to do – wouldn’t you go all out doing it?” It reminds me of fairy tales – you know the fairy tale drill: before you get to marry the princess, you have to steal the golden harp from the closet in the dragon’s cave, but first you have to ask the mythical bird that nests on the highest mountain peak to find out where the dragon’s cave is, and then you have to cross the barren desert to get to the dragon’s cave…and on your travels you will fight giants. And of course, the hero always says – “YES! Let me go on the quest and I will come back triumphant or die trying.”

But Elisha didn’t ask the war hero to go on a complicated quest. He simply told him to go immerse himself seven times in the Jordan River – the quentissential River of Israel – the River of the Hebrews, the same River in which John would later baptize Jesus.

It wasn’t physically difficult to do this; but it did mean swallowing his pride in several ways:

1. The Jordan River is not known now, and was not known then, for being a beautiful river. It’s muddy. It’s not impressive.

2. There were much nicer rivers in the Commander’s homeland.

3. Why should his healing happen in Hebrew river water, when his own people’s river water was clearly better?

4. Why was he even talking to this slightly insane medicine man out in the desert who wouldn’t even come out of his shack to personally greet him, the General of all the King’s men?

So - Elisha’s instructions were simple – but following them was not. It meant that Commander Naaman had to break all his patterns of habitual behaviour. He was the right hand man of the King, the Commander of the Empire’s armies - accustomed to giving orders. Accustomed to being obeyed. Accustomed to luxury. In other words, he felt entitled. At the very least, Elisha should do something showy and complicated – a shaman dance, wave his arms around, perform magic – something to compliment and confirm his importance. Instead Elisha gave him the one thing necessary for his healing.

I’m guessing that this is, in fact, why this scientific principle has been adopted by recovery groups. Because we are all at least a little bit addicted to our own sense of importance – to our own sense of entitlement. And the truth is, we cannot become truly sober, truly in tune with reality, until we get a truer perspective on where we actually stand in the order of things – until we lay down, let go of a sense of inflated importance.

For some of us, that sense of importance isn’t always on the positive side of things. We can also become inflated with our sense of being terrible sinners – so terrible that God couldn’t possibly really forgive or love us. My friends – the conviction that somehow you are much worse than your neighbor – is just as inflated as the sense that you are much better than your neighbor. We all carry shame of one kind or another. We all carry hurts of one kind or another. We all carry weaknesses, and we all carry strengths. We all bleed. And we all breathe.

William of Ockam, was a logician and Franciscan monk in the 14th century. His theorem popularized the idea that the best explanation is usually the simplest explanation. For Ockham, the only truly necessary entity was God; everything else, the whole of creation, is radically contingent through and through. That means that you and I and everything we see and know is not eternal – we cannot generate our own existence. In other words, God can make something out of nothing. We cannot.

The corollary to that is that, in reality, no one person is more important or less important any other person.

Elisha’s simple instructions sent Commander Naaman colliding with this truth – and he went into a rage – a tantrum really. A few Sundays ago – also in the book of Kings - we heard about another tantrum – remember? King Ahab crawled into his bed, and cried and wouldn’t eat anything, when he didn’t get his way with the small landowner, Naboth. He wanted Naboth’s vineyard, and Naboth said no.

It’s obvious from these stories in the Book of Kings, that entitlement leads to a kind of psychological and spiritual fragility, a lack of resilience and actual illness. Would you agree with me that it is much more difficult for those in positions of privilege to accept this core truth of universal dependency on God and absolute equality with every other person?

When Jesus taught, “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” I’m guessing that at least one aspect of what he had in mind was that blessedness lies in contentment with our dependency on God and our equality with others. Content and contingent. Simple, yes?

There is healing for you and for me – let’s not hesitate to wash in whatever our version of the Jordan River is.

Amen.