“God’s Way”

(2 Kings 5:1-14)

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram.  The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from a skin disease.  Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife.  She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria!  He would cure him of his skin disease.”  So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.  And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments.  He brought the letter to the king of Israel which read “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his skin disease.”  When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death of life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his skin disease?  Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes?  Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.”  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?  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 word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a you boy, and he was clean.

            There is a saying that we hear frequently: “If you want to make God laugh, just tell God your plans.”  I can’t begin to count the times in my life when I have attempted to tell God what to do.  But that’s not all.  I have not only tried to tell God what to do, I have attempted to tell my loved ones how things are going to be.

            In the story you just heard from the book of Second Kings, we hear about the Biblical character who has gotten me to wonder about this business of “thinking-we-know-how-God-ought-to-act-in-a-situation,” the one who has prompted my interpretation of the text today.

            I’m guessing I might not be the only one who identifies with Naaman, once we break open the story.  I’m thinking that some of you, also, might understand the desire to want to have your own way with God.

            Now Naaman was the commander of the army in the land of Aram (which is the area now roughly known as Syria), and he is described as a great man and in high favor with his master.  We are told that because of him, Yahweh, God of Israel, had allowed the nation of Aram to win a war over Israel.  Now, Aram was a country who had been Israel’s enemy off and on throughout history, so this was a big deal.

            The problem was, this mighty warrior, this decorated war hero, had a case of leprosy.  Now, chances are, this was not the horrible leprosy that we think of that eats away at a person’s body.  This was probably one of several skin diseases mentioned in the Hebrew Bible that is contagious and infectious, annoying and confounding, but probably not life-threatening.

            We are told in the reading that a young girl had been abducted from Israel as a slave, and she was given to Naaman’s wife.  Interestingly she is another unnamed woman mentioned in scripture.  I wish she had a name, and that we knew more about her.  I find myself wondering how sad she must have been to have been captured and enslaved.  But in this story she is only an anonymous person who makes a connection so that Elisha’s miracle can be highlighted.  …Too bad.

            Anyway, she noticed Naaman’s condition and mentioned to her mistress that there was a prophet in Samaria, an area of Israel, who could cure Naaman of his skin disease.  Naaman must have been very interested in the prospect of being cured because he went imme-diately to his king of Aram, asking for a letter of reference that would be addressed to the king of Israel.  This was important because of the conflict these two nations had had with one another.

            The king of Aram thought so highly of Naaman that he not only sent that letter but a whole bunch of gifts.  Ten talents of silver, 6000 shekels of gold and ten sets of garments.  Yikes! 

Now, we have a little side drama in that the king of Israel responded by tearing his clothes when he received the letter.  He did this because he thought that the ruler of Aram had some hidden agenda, that he might be sending in his premier warrior to spy on Israel.

            Well, Naaman showed up with all those gifts, but the king of Israel was still up in arms about it.  When Elisha, the famous prophet, heard how the king had received the request brought by Naaman, he insisted that Naaman be told to come to him.  We can see that Elisha was well-respected because the next thing we know, Naaman has arrived at the entrance to Elisha’s house with all his horses and chariots.

            Now we get to the really interesting part.  Instead of meeting this big shot at the door, Elisha sent him a message.  He didn’t speak to Naaman directly.  He didn’t offer to accompany him as he did what he was directed to do.  He just sent a message.  That message was, “Go, wash in the Jordan River seven times.  Your flesh will be restored and you will be clean.”

            Well, this made Naaman angry.  He probably thought, “He thinks I’m a nobody.”  He actually left saying, “I thought for someone like me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord, wave his hand over the spots on my skin and cure me right then and there in front of God and everybody.  Furthermore, if he wasn’t going to cure me in person, why did I have to come all this way?  Why didn’t he send me to the rivers in my own country?  Couldn’t I have been washing myself there and get healed?”

            So Naaman really did turn and walk away, but his servants stopped him and said, “Why don’t you just try this and see what happens?  He could have asked you to do something really hard.  All he said was wash and be clean.  You know, it couldn’t ‘hoit’”

            So Naaman relented, went down to the River Jordan and immersed himself 7 times, as Elisha had directed.  When he came up out of the water, we are told his flesh was transformed to what it was when he was a youth.  He was clean.  He was healed.

            Hmmm….  God’s word through the prophet.  Naaman tried to second guess it, wanting to do it his way, being suspicious.  His servants suggested he try Elisha’s way, Yahweh’s way.  When he did, he was restored.  He was like a new person.  Sounds like the Gospel to me!  God offers us a way to be made brand new, to be saved from our misery, to be found when we are lost, to be redeemed, to repent and believe.  We resist, of course, but, if we’re lucky, we finally give in to God, and we’re transformed. 

            The thing is we always want to do it our way; we want to avoid this business of being humble.  We want to avoid letting go of our own will and letting God be in charge.  We, like Naaman, want the healing to be about us, rather than about God.  We don’t want to change our own way of thinking by taking a leap of faith and trusting God.  We think we can head-bang our problems by just being so smart and intellectual or being a big shot like Naaman.

            Naaman had to let go of his own agenda, get into the Jordan River and bob up and down 7 times, silly as he may have felt.  But he came out restored.

            The verses following today’s reading show that Naaman became a believer in Yahweh God and a humble supporter of Elisha, God’s prophet.

            Well, I have to tell you that I preached on this text on my first Sunday in Wellington.  That was July 4, 2004.  I had just had my last Sunday service here in Peninsula and was like a deer in the headlights, feeling alone and lonely and missing you.  But I have to say, looking back on it, this was a good sermon for introducing myself to this new church, letting them know about me and a bit about my struggles. 

I was identifying with Naaman and his resistance to this new chapter in his life.  So, I’m going to pick up where I took myself with this sermon, imagining that you can relate in one way or another.

            I said this: “A couple of months ago I found MYSELF asking God a few questions, like “Why did you interfere in my life by giving me that call from the District Superintendent?  Why couldn’t I just stay in my safe little nest in Peninsula?”  Maybe you (those who would become my dear Wellington congregation) were having some of the same thoughts.”

            In the words of Naaman I might have whined, “Couldn’t you have just left me beside the Cuyahoga River rather than sending me over here to the Black River?  Couldn’t I have just washed in the wonderfully pure Cuyahoga and been restored, reborn and made clean….  God, couldn’t I have learned the lessons you wanted me to learn without undergoing all these changes?”

            Now I’m back here in real time.  Sure enough, in retrospect, there are lessons I learned in my sojourn in Wellington that I could not have learned had I stayed here.

            But I also know that we, each of us, have our own personal lessons that have come to us through our own pain.  Like “Did I have to lose my job or suffer with this disease or have this disagreement with a brother or see my child go through a crisis or experience a divorce or lose a loved one to death?  Must our nation endure the horror of what’s going on today, the exact opposite of what Jesus taught, the arrogant grab for power without consideration of what is going to happen to God’s children?”

            …I am thinking we have all struggled at one time or another with happenings in our lives, and you know there will be struggles ahead.  There are things that we are asked to do that don’t make sense to us or that we, like Naaman, would have handled differently.  Yet, sometimes our work is to simply do as God asks.  I don’t know what the answer is other than continue the work to which we have been called, make it about God and others, not our personal anger and resentments.  Continue the work….

            One of the ways we are renewed and healed in Christ’s church is to share in communion, to bring our selves, just as we are, to the table of Christ, allowing us to be re-formed as the Body of Christ.  However we got here, let us lay aside just for a minute our worries and anxieties and be glad for this one moment.  Amen.