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Today’s story takes place in two different countries, between two warring peoples. God’s people, the
Israelites had turned their backs on him for some time, and worshipped all sorts of gods other than
him. Sometimes when folk say they don’t want God, he grants them that wish – and the natural
consequences to their actions. Actually, regardless of what people think hell is like or not like, in a
real way he’s giving people precisely what they’ve asked for – and existence completely without him –
and that’s far scarier when you realize that a world without any of God’s goodness would be pretty
miserable. Anyway, Israel had been taken over by Aram. It was both God answering their desire to
rebel against him, his refusal to provide protection to those who denied him, and a father who sees
that their child might need a bit of discipline to spare themselves even greater pain in the future.
So, we start out with a sympathetically portrayed enemy – who is described in surprisingly positive
terms in the Bible. This is probably the first occurrence of anything like that.
2 Kings 5
5 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of
his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. (Victory
over Israel!) He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy. All of these terms are glowing, but the last
one negates all of the others before it. Leprosy was THE dread disease of their time.
2 Now
bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and
she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who
is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” This is the second surprise in the story. Apparently,
he was a good master despite being the enemy, because this child wanted to see him healed, and
she dared to speak up.
4 Naaman
went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. 5 “By all means, go,” the
king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten
talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. 6 The letter that he took to the
king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him
of his leprosy.”
This is a huge sum of money – and remember they are taking it to a country where they receive
tribute and is under their domination already. In silver alone, this is more than 5 times the amount
used to purchase the country of Samaria, plus 6K shekels of silver. The sets of clothing were more
likely bolts of cloth. This was an amazing amount of wealth.
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7 As
soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and
bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he
is trying to pick a quarrel with me!” The king of Israel had absolutely no faith in the God of Israel
being anywhere present. He didn’t even consider the possibility that God could heal him. It was
because of Israel’s total rejection of God that they were in this situation, and now the King of Israel
presumes that this is just another sneaky Aramean attack.
8 When
Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this
message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a
prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s
house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and
your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
11 But
Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand
and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my
leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?
Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
It’s very common for us to have expectations of how we think things will turn out, especially when we
feel God called us to do something. But when things take an unexpected twist, or he hasn’t
answered yet we want to run. Naaman has already humbled himself in looking for his healing. He’s
gone to his conquered enemy, brought a princely ransom, which he hopes will persuade this prophet
or his God – or at the very least it lends prestige to Naaman for the king of Aram to write a personal
letter and send such a lavish gift.
What do you think he was expecting to happen? I mean, Elijah doesn’t even come to the door.
You know, God has a way of naming that one thing we just don’t want to give up. Do you
remember in the New Testament when the rich young ruler asked what he had to do to become
Jesus’ follower? What did he have to give up? He had to sell his possessions and give them to the
poor – the very thing he was unwilling to do. In Naaman’s case, it’s his pride. God doesn’t need his
riches, just his humility. He’s a good man. A powerful man. But he’s also a proud man. God was just
asking Naaman to obedient. To say yes to him. We need to just say yes to him, forget our agendas
and our to-do list for God and Like Naaman, we too can have a miracle worked in us and through us.
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Often what God calls us to step into doesn’t look all that appealing. God tells us “just trust me” and
we give him a look like he’s a used car salesman with the appropriate loud tie, who is trying to
hoodwink us. We want more assurance, a lot more assurance.
13 Naaman’s
servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great
thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be
cleansed’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had
told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
More humility. His servants are the ones who talk him into it. And what if it hadn’t worked? You can
bet that story would have been all over Aram and Israel the next day.
On Memorial Day I saw my toddler granddaughter Jorie jump off the pool’s edge into her mother’s
arms for the first time. She had just watched her best friend Zetta do the same, and Zetta has been
taking swimming lessons. This was the first time Jorie had been in a pool in 9 months – not an
insignificant amount of lifetime for a two year old. She had a look of excitement, joy and a touch of
fear as she jumped into mama’s arms. And when she splashed in, she was laughing, and quickly
wanted to do it again.
Now, Jorie and the other kids were far more eager to go into the pool than the adults. The air was
warm, but the water was still cool. It wasn’t very appealing to those of us who had lots of memories
of teeth chattering swimming experiences. While the braver adults gingerly let themselves into the
water, the three toddlers were laughing, splashing others and didn’t seem to care how cold it was or
how blue they were. I stayed safely out of the water, hiding behind my camera.
Sometimes what God calls us to isn’t very appealing to us. For Naaman, he couldn’t understand why
he couldn’t go and submerge himself in some better river back home, where he was comfortable.
This muddy river was beneath him and this hoity-toity prophet was probably just having a good laugh
somewhere. Sometimes we wind up critical of the place God has called us to be. Or we feel God has
given us some terms that are particularly difficult for us to be obedient to. We need a submissive
heart instead of proud one. “There are millions who would come to God if they could come on their
own terms” (Larry Jacobs)
Sometimes, God is telling us to just jump and that he’ll catch us, and we don’t really trust him. We
ask to see his life saving credentials – which is kind of absurd since that’s what he does for us. We
don’t believe he’s a loving parent, a father who will never let us go. He’s far better than the best
human father that ever lived.
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And when we don’t see results right away, we feel we were right after all and we’re just
embarrassing ourselves. I have no problem understanding why Naaman thought this was stupid.
Here he was following the directions of a prophet from a people they had conquered, a prophet who
had been recommended by a servant girl, a prophet who seemed to think he was such a big deal he
didn’t come out and honor Naaman by talking to him face to face. Worse yet, he’d dunked himself
these six times in front of his troops. How embarrassing.
I think the seventh dunk is the hardest of
all. What, after all of this God doesn’t come through? Will it destroy the last shred of hope we
have? Maybe we don’t want to really find out. We say, “What if it’s not God?” But the real
question is, “what if it is, and God does work that miracle?”
15 Then
Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said,
“Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your
servant.”
16 The
prophet answered, “As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing.” And
even though Naaman urged him, he refused.
17 “If
you will not,” said Naaman, “please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of
mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other
god but the Lord. 18 But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters
the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when
I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”
19 “Go
in peace,” Elisha said.
So when Naaman returned, Elijah did go out and meet him. Elijah turned down the gift because he
wanted him to know the gifts of God cannot be bought.
Naaman’s strange request for a couple of wagons full of dirt and forgiveness are because he is now a
worshipper of God, and he wants to bring some of the Holy Land with him to set up an altar to
worship God. However, it is part of his duties as a government figure to be with the king of Aram in
the pagan temple. In their day people believed that different deities oversaw different localities. To
not worship the god of Aram and publicly worship the God of Israel would have been the highest
possible treason, for which he would have been killed. Elijah sees his heart attitude and blesses him.
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After Naaman had traveled some distance,
20 Gehazi,
the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to
himself, “My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he
brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”
Gehazi totally missed the point. He saw Naaman as the enemy and not as someone God had
forgiven. His loyalty was to the Kingdom of Israel, not the Kingdom of God. As one of the school of
prophets, he had taken vows to not profit from the work of God, and now he’d conveniently forgotten
those vows. He’d seen the size of Naaman’s gift.
21 So
Gehazi hurried after Naaman. When Naaman saw him running toward him, he got down from
the chariot to meet him. “Is everything all right?” he asked.
22 “Everything
is all right,” Gehazi answered. “My master sent me to say, ‘Two young men from the
company of the prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them a
talent of silver and two sets of clothing.’”
23 “By
all means, take two talents,” said Naaman. He urged Gehazi to accept them, and then tied up
the two talents of silver in two bags, with two sets of clothing. He gave them to two of his servants,
and they carried them ahead of Gehazi.
24 When
Gehazi came to the hill, he took the things from the
servants and put them away in the house. He sent the men away and they left.
Of course, it’s not wise to try something sneaky if your boss is someone the rulers fear can hear them
discuss their most secret plans.
25 When
he went in and stood before his master, Elisha asked him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?”
“Your servant didn’t go anywhere,” Gehazi answered.
26 But
Elisha said to him, “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet
you? Is this the time to take money or to accept clothes—or olive groves and vineyards, or flocks and
herds, or male and female slaves? 27 Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants
forever.” Then Gehazi went from Elisha’s presence and his skin was leprous—it had become as white
as snow.
There have been a bunch of reversals of circumstances in this story. The powerful head of the
conquering army is painted as a noble person, though proud.
The bravest and kindest person was a
young female child slave – who spoke up and told her captor about how her God had the power to
heal him. The king of Israel is shown to be representative of a country that has forgot their God,
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except for a few. The prophet’s servant turns out to not be a man of God but a man of greed. And
the enemy goes home rejoicing, healed and now a follower of the God of Israel.