A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — July 4, 2010
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Text:  2 Kings 5:1-19a  (read full text at end of sermon)

 

a grievous skin disease. — 2 Kings 5:1 (The Message)

Someone must have had a real sense of humor—most likely the Holy Spirit—for this text to show up in the lectionary on the 4th of July.  Here’s a story that calls into question all kinds of givens.  Boundary after boundary is crossed as God works in mysterious ways.  Power, position, privilege, pride, and patriotism—none of these matter.  Some 2000 years ago, Jesus stood up in his hometown synagogue to tell this story from roughly 1000 years earlier, “There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”  People who’d known him as a child, friends of his parents who had watched him grow up, were so enraged that God might care for foreigners they tried to throw him off a cliff.  Actually the story is even more challenging.  It begins by declaring that God had used Naaman to give victory to the enemy armies of Aram (Syria) over Israel.  How can God side with the enemy?  Unthinkable!  Good thing Jesus didn’t point this out.

As it starts, the story seems to be about movers and shakers, the kind of people with power and privilege found in your typical high school history book.  Here’s the favorite general of the King of Aram, the mightiest country in the region.  Everyone knows who’s the big dog around here.  Our ears prick up.  We’ve heard a lot about generals recently—McChrystal and Petraeus.  And we all know there are movers and shakers in the world, and then there are… the rest of us.  The CEO of BP might get into trouble for referring to the rest of us “small people.”  But in the realm of the great and powerful, that’s who we are.

 

It must feel splendid to be the king’s star general, to drive around the kingdom in your big fancy chariot pulled by a bunch of fine horses and wearing a resplendent uniform, impressing all the “small people.”  You’ve got money and fame and a nice house and even some slave girls you captured last time you and your troops mopped up the army of those poor Israelites.  Admittedly, they’re not much of a country compared to yours.  It doesn’t even include Jerusalem (that’s in the southern kingdom of Judah) just the northern hills around the Sea of Galilee and a muddy little stream they call the Jordan.  Anyway, life is good.  Or is it?

Now the storyteller throws a monkey wrench in the works.  Despite the lifestyle of the rich and famous and more power than is good for him, Naaman has a problem.  Every time he meets people, they hesitate and pull back a little, wondering whether to shake his hand, trying not to stare.  He’s tired of seeing the question on their faces: “Good Lord, is that stuff contagious?”  Poor guy.  Naaman has “a grievous skin disease.”  Most translations call it leprosy, but it could have been any number of skin diseases, including severe eczema.  Still, he is unclean, and this sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen to someone in his position.  One verse into the story and we’re no longer sure of Naaman’s place in the scheme of things.  Great…or small?

Now comes a second monkey wrench in the story—a nameless slave girl who ironically was taken captive in Israel by Naaman’s army.  Remember, he’s the enemy.  Out of the silence of slavery, she speaks, not to Naaman directly, but through his wife—working behind the scenes, between lines, as those without power know they must.  But her words about “the prophet of Samaria” are pivotal.  Without her voice, there would be no healing.  One of the “small people” has crossed a border here to become a mover and shaker in the story.  We’re only three verses in, and already the world is turning upside down.

Naaman responds in predictable fashion, taking what he has heard straight to the top.  He tells the king who immediately does what powerful people do.  He works the system for his top general.  Does he send Naaman to the prophet, as that little girl–what was her name?–suggested?  No, the king sticks with his own kind, stays on his own level, and sends Naaman to the king of Israel to be cured, along with, of course, a whole bunch of silver and gold and presents.  After all, when you live on top of the world everything can be bought, can’t it?

This time, power politics backfires.  The King of Israel knows full well who the top dog is.  “Why’s he asking little, old me?”  There must be an ulterior motive.  He decides the King of Aram has set an impossible task: “Am I a god with the power to bring death or life?”  Here’s Naaman with a troop of enemy soldiers and chariots—and remember that chariots are not just a mode of transportation, they’re the super weapons of the day.  Fail at healing Naaman, and he’ll have an excuse to invade Israel.  Of course the king is upset.

This is where the prophet Elisha steps in, ordering the king around, telling him to send Naaman to him.  Elisha ordering the king around is odd on the face of it, but the story carefully points out that Elisha is not just a prophet, but a “man of God.”  God is yet again messing with human boundaries.  So Naaman pulls up to Elisha’s house with his entourage and his cartloads of gold and silver, but no prophet greets him.  Instead a servant comes out and tells Naaman to wash seven times in the muddy Jordan River, and he’ll be clean.  That’s just not how things are supposed to go for the high and mighty.  Who does Elisha think he is?  Doesn’t he know what an important person Naaman is?  And what about that river?   It’s disgusting—too shallow to do anything but wade in, muddy and dirty, not like the grand rivers back in Damascus.  Those rivers are worthy of a general like him, and at least he’d get a good bath.  Naaman storms off in a huff.

Again the story would end right here without a healing if it weren’t for the voices of nameless servants.  Again small people cross over to become the movers and shakers.  They speak up:  “Look, Naaman, you were ready to do something hard or heroic if the prophet had asked.  So why not do this simple thing?”  And right there the power and the position and the privilege and the pride all step out of the way.  Naaman’s high rank and royal connections have gotten him nowhere.  His reputation and riches didn’t even bring Elisha out of his house.  Now he’ll strip down in front of his men and dip himself seven times in a muddy stream that barely comes to his knees.   And he rises up healed, cleansed, good as new.  A Syrian—a foreign Gentile?  Doesn’t matter.  Enemy commander?  Doesn’t matter.   Riches, reputation?  Nope.  None of these got him healed…or kept him from being healed.  He is definitely not a mover and shaker in this little story.  God is.

Realizing this, Naaman says, “I now know…there is no God anywhere on earth other than the God of Israel.”  But old habits die hard.  He tries to pay Elisha for the healing.  It’s hard to have power, yet feel beholden for a favor.  But Elisha will have none of this, “Your money’s no good.  It’s the Lord who healed you, not me.”  And knowing Naaman’s heart he returns him to make is way in the realm of power politics with a blessing of assurance: “Everything will be all right.  Go in peace.”

At this point, one of Elisha’s servants decides this is an opportunity to go after Naaman and scam him out of some of his cartloads of cash.  But I’ll leave that part of the story for you to read later.  What we’ve heard so far offers plenty to jar all conventional sensibilities about borders and boundaries, about who’s in and who’s out, about who’s great and who’s small—especially on the 4th of July here in the USA, the “big dog” nation of the world.  In the midst of celebrating the founding of this great nation—all the parades and the patriotic speeches and the fireworks—it can be hard to hear that God, who is the only true mover and shaker, may not always be on our side, that God also cares about the healing of our enemies, that God might speak through those who have been harmed most by our nation’s policies and actions.  This is a time when we especially need to remember that God’s love is for all of God’s children everywhere.

I want to close this 4th of July sermon by praying some words from one of our most beloved presidents, a president who knew and acknowledged that God’s will might not align with the purposes of either party in a conflict.  From the Second Inaugural Address of President Abraham Lincoln, let us pray remembering that his words referred to the wounds and casualties on both sides of the war: (let us pray)

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

May it be so, dear Lord.  May it be so.  Amen.

 __________________________________________

 

 2 Kings 5:1-19a  (The Message)

 



^1-3 Naaman was general of the army under the king of Aram. He was important to his master, who held him in the highest esteem because it was by him that God had given victory to Aram: a truly great man, but afflicted with a grievous skin disease. It so happened that Aram, on one of its raiding expeditions against Israel, captured a young girl who became a maid to Naaman's wife. One day she said to her mistress, "Oh, if only my master could meet the prophet of Samaria, he would be healed of his skin disease.”



 

 ⁴ Naaman went straight to his master and reported what the girl from Israel had said.



 

⁵ "Well then, go," said the king of Aram. "And I'll send a letter of introduction to the king of Israel." 

  

 

So he went off, taking with him about 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten sets of clothes.

 

 

⁶ Naaman delivered the letter to the king of Israel. The letter read, "When you get this letter, you'll know that I've personally sent my servant Naaman to you; heal him of his skin disease." 



 

 ⁷ When the king of Israel read the letter, he was terribly upset, ripping his robe to pieces. He said, "Am I a god with the power to bring death or life that I get orders to heal this man from his disease? What's going on here? That king's trying to pick a fight, that's what!" 

 

 

⁸ Elisha the man of God heard what had happened, that the king of Israel was so distressed that he'd ripped his robe to shreds. He sent word to the king, "Why are you so upset, ripping your robe like this? Send him to me so he'll learn that there's a prophet in Israel." 



 

⁹ So Naaman with his horses and chariots arrived in style and stopped at Elisha's door. 

 

 

¹⁰ Elisha sent out a servant to meet him with this message: "Go to the River Jordan and immerse yourself seven times. Your skin will be healed and you'll be as good as new." 

 

 

^11-12 Naaman lost his temper. He turned on his heel saying, "I thought he'd personally come out and meet me, call on the name of God, wave his hand over the diseased spot, and get rid of the disease. The Damascus rivers, Abana and Pharpar, are cleaner by far than any of the rivers in Israel. Why not bathe in them? I'd at least get clean." He stomped off, mad as a hornet. 

 

 

¹³ But his servants caught up with him and said, "Father, if the prophet had asked you to do something hard and heroic, wouldn't you have done it? So why not this simple 'wash and be clean'?" 

 

 

¹⁴ So he did it. He went down and immersed himself in the Jordan seven times, following the orders of the Holy Man. His skin was healed; it was like the skin of a little baby. He was as good as new. 

 

 

¹⁵ He then went back to the Holy Man, he and his entourage, stood before him, and said, "I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no God anywhere on earth other than the God of Israel. In gratitude let me give you a gift." 

 

 

¹⁶ "As God lives," Elisha replied, "the God whom I serve, I'll take nothing from you." Naaman tried his best to get him to take something, but he wouldn't do it.



^17-18 "If you won't take anything," said Naaman, "let me ask you for something: Give me a load of dirt, as much as a team of donkeys can carry, because I'm never again going to worship any god other than God. But there's one thing for which I need God's pardon: When my master, leaning on my arm, enters the shrine of Rimmon and worships there, and I'm with him there, worshiping Rimmon, may you see to it that God forgive me for this." 

 

^19a Elisha said, "Everything will be all right. Go in peace."