Sandy Strauss
This is a sermon I preached at Faith UCC, New Cumberland, PA, on July 7, 2013, based on 2 Kings 5:1-14.
Naaman was a man of action—a man in control, with fabulous wealth, a beautiful wife, and an entourage of servants who looked on him as a father. Commander of the army of Aram, he had won victory after victory for his king and country, and he was famous and beloved throughout the land.
All was right with the world for Naaman the golden boy—until he was struck by something beyond his control. In the text it is called leprosy, which is unlikely based on the description, but nevertheless, it was disfiguring, causing great discomfort both to Naaman and to those who were around him.
Of course, Naaman kept up a strong front. Underneath it all, however, it isn’t hard to imagine what might have been going through his mind. What would happen with his wife? Would she remain with him, or be frightened away by his condition? Perhaps she was already rejecting his advances, repulsed by his increasingly hideous appearance. Would those around him begin to fear they would be struck by the same affliction? Would that fear outweigh their dependency on his military prowess and cause them to force him into isolation, depriving him of both his power and his community and connections?
Then a small ray of hope came from the unlikeliest of places. An Israeli girl—captured in one of his successful military raids, and now a servant to Naaman’s wife—approached his wife with a suggestion. The servant girl knew of a prophet in Samaria, who, she believed, could cure his disease. Naaman, mighty man that he was, had to have been desperate to listen to the words of a lowly servant girl. Still, he went to his king to share the servant girl’s words about this prophet.
I’m guessing that both Naaman and the king were highly skeptical of the existence of a prophet who had the ability to heal him, but in the absence of any other options, the king urged Naaman to travel to Israel in search of this prophet and a cure. What was there to lose? The king certainly didn’t want to lose his highly successful commander, and Naaman’s healing would mean that the king wouldn’t have to bear the discomfort of seeing Naaman’s disfigured face and body. For Naaman, healing would mean he could set aside the fear of losing his wife and losing his command. And because Aram was strong and Naaman had recently won a victory in the land of Israel, there was nothing to fear by again entering Israel.
So the king of Aram prepared a diplomatic packet for the king of Israel to request cooperation—perhaps in an attempt to let Israel’s king know that Naaman was coming in peace, merely seeking a cure for his affliction. And Naaman, hopeful but hedging his bets, went to his coffers to load up heaps of his riches for his trip to Israel. Off he went with his servants to seek healing.
The trip to Israel must have felt like an eternity for Naaman. What would happen when he arrived? Would he be rejected by a king whose country he had defeated? Would he be able to find this healing prophet? What if the prophet didn’t really exist, or didn’t really have the ability to heal him? Would his riches help to buy him the healing he needed?
Naaman arrived in Israel and delivered the Aramean king’s letter to the Israeli king. In a dramatic case of diplomatic confusion, the king of Israel felt a wave of terror and tore his garments in response to what he believed was a no win situation. Either Aram’s king had gotten it wrong, or Israel’s king misread the communication. Israel’s king understood that Naaman had come to him to be cured of his leprosy. The king, who knew he was incapable of curing Naaman, believed that this was just an excuse for Naaman and the Arameans to wreak more destruction on him and his people.
Obviously news traveled fast following this incident, for word quickly came from the prophet Elisha that the king should send Naaman and his traveling party in his direction. Elisha knew that he, as a man of God, had the ability to help Naaman. The Israeli king must have been relieved—he really didn’t want to have to deal with the man who had defeated his country and humiliated him in the process—and who was all too capable of doing it again.
So off went Naaman and his servants, horses and chariots to find Elisha. And given his power and wealth, Naaman certainly must have expected to be greeted by the man himself when he rolled up to Elisha’s front door. Instead, however, out came a man with a message from Elisha: a cure would come if Naaman went down to the Jordan River and washed himself seven times in its water.
What an insult! Naaman was angry, and may even have thought seriously about going to battle again with Israel over his treatment. He must have felt disrespected—here he was with his enormous entourage, and plenty of wealth to boot—so shouldn’t Elisha have greeted him with the pomp and circumstance that was demanded by such a visit? And the message he received struck him as utterly ridiculous. Weren’t the rivers in Aram at least as good, if not better, than the Jordan? What made the prophet think this was going to work, anyway? Naaman walked away in a rage.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. Naaman’s servants, who loved him and sensed his desperation to be healed, suggested that he respond to the simple request by Elisha. They noted that he would have been completely willing to do even the most difficult thing if it would bring healing, so why not this? It was easy, and after all, what was to be lost by doing it?
So Naaman swallowed his pride, and went down to the Jordan. He immersed himself seven times, probably thinking it was all a waste of time, not to mention embarrassing as he bared himself, making himself utterly vulnerable in front of his servants.
But then, the unimaginable and miraculous happened—after seven times in the river, Naaman gazed upon his body and saw that something had changed. Not only was he healed, but his skin was like that of a young boy again!
I believe this story of Naaman suggests several things for us as the people of God today.
First, the loving and healing acts of God are found in unlikely places. Obviously there were no healers in the land of Aram able to help Naaman, or he certainly would have taken that route. His path to healing started with a lowly servant girl, captured from a country he had conquered. It was delivered through another woman, his wife. While Naaman certainly loved his wife, women were considerably lower on the rungs of the ladder of power than men.
Desperation then drove him to take his message to the king in order to seek healing from a prophet in a vanquished land. The prophet himself, however, doesn’t appear—again, Naaman is confronted by a servant, a messenger of the prophet. It was his own servants who then had to convince him to comply with the prophet’s message.
Like Naaman, we often look for God in all the wrong places. It isn’t in wealth and power that we find God, but in friends and community, and even completely unexpected places. We look to our elected officials, corporate titans, and others we consider more highly educated, wealthy, and superior to us, when we should be seeking out the wisdom that exists in the low places. And those of us who are in positions of power must be willing to admit that we don’t have all the answers, and look to the strength of communities and their people for the help we need.
We also need to realize that God does not belong only to some, but to all. In the Hebrew scriptures, God is portrayed as the God of Israel alone, but there are numerous instances in those same scriptures where God loves, cares for, and heals those who are not part of the people of Israel. Naaman is a case in point. Not only is Naaman an Aramean who worships other gods, he is an enemy of the people of Israel, having defeated them in war.
This story might even serve as a lesson in global affairs for us. We, as God’s ambassadors, have the ability to stretch out our hands and offer our support, and the God of all can use us as instruments of healing—just as God acted through Elisha and Israel to heal Naaman.
Here in America there is a great myth that we should be self-sufficient, and if we do all the right things, we will be just fine, thank you. That we have the ability to always remain in the driver’s seat, in complete control of our destinies—until something happens that is beyond our control.
All the riches and power in the world weren’t going to heal Naaman. And while he may have had his doubts, his experience had been that power and possessions were usually the ticket to getting whatever one wanted. As long as he believed that his money and influence were the most important things, nothing would bring him healing. When presented with a simple solution by Elisha’s messenger, he resisted, perhaps because of its simplicity, or because of its messenger—after all, his healing didn’t involve using either his wealth or power.
Naaman had to learn to let go of his ego and listen to those who were far beneath his status, risking loss of face and power in a foreign land. He had to become vulnerable and learn to trust—not easy for a warrior like Naaman.
His king couldn’t help him. His wealth couldn’t buy health. Then Naaman was confronted with the God that he couldn’t buy, control, or manipulate, who required only a simple act of obedience—to wash seven times in the Jordan River. Unlike Naaman’s troops and the people and kings of the nations he had defeated, this God did not respond to human demands or action. The God of Israel’s ways were different—they were the ways of healing and love, and not the ways of power and oppression.
We blithely toss off the phrase, “Let go and let God.” We say we believe it, but do we really? How often do we, like Naaman, resist the simplicity of responding to God’s love and healing, certain that we are in control—that if we just had enough money, or just did one more thing, or knew the right people in the right places, that all would be perfect. How often do we reject the wisdom of those we view as lowly and ignorant, trusting only in those who haven’t earned and don’t deserve our trust?
For Naaman, things would never be the same. Naaman had been forced to face his vulnerability, and to put his trust in places that made no sense to someone in his position of power. In that process, something new happened—a new horizon appeared that presented a world that Naaman could never have imagined otherwise. Not only was Naaman healed, but as is noted later in the text, God’s servant, Elisha, refused to take anything in return, simply telling Naaman to go in peace.
Go in peace—what a concept! The God of Israel, of Elisha and Naaman and all people of the world, calls us to learn from the story of Naaman’s healing. It calls us to stand at the junction of vulnerability and trust, believing that the simplicity of God’s love and healing will trump the wealth and the illusion of control that hold us in their seductive power.
Believe in the new life that is given to us in God, and the freedom it affords. Then let us all be living examples of what can be—spreading the good news and placing our trust in the God whose love has the power to heal all.
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