The story of Elisha healing the Aramaean general
Naaman is over twenty-eight hundred years old.[1] Yet
the story, one of the best-known Old Testament stories, peopled with characters
that even now seem true to life, retains a fascination through its dynamism and
a focus that shifts between the local and the global.[2]
Naaman was a common Ugaritic name derived from
an adjective meaning pleasantness or loveliness, an ironic name for a general.[3] Obviously,
parents then as now were poor prognosticators of a child’s vocation.
The text refers to Naaman’s disease as “leprosy.”
The disease we call leprosy, formally known as Hansen’s disease, did not arrive
in the Middle East until it arrived via Alexander the Great’s troops returning from
India four hundred years after Naaman died. Nobody knows the exact nature of the
disease that afflicted Naaman; one scholar hypothesizes that the disease may have
been psoriasis.[4]
A young Israelite, a female slave, a prize of
war, served Naaman’s wife. The slave saw her master’s condition, pitied him, and
suggested to her mistress that the general consult the mighty Israeli miracle worker,
Elisha. The wife passes along this recommendation to her husband.
Naaman may have suffered physically from his
chronic disease; he certainly suffered from being a social pariah. The text does
not hint at how many remedies Naaman tried unsuccessfully. However, having learned
of a possible new cure, Naaman, like any good military officer or engineer, acts.
He obtains a letter of introduction from his superior, the King of Aram, to Elisha’s
ruler, the King of Israel. Taking a fortune with him – apparently healthcare was
no cheaper then than today – he personally carries his introduction to the King
of Israel. The King panics. He’s no miracle worker and probably sees Elisha as a
quack faith healer.
Even before the Internet, rumors spread quickly.
Elisha learns of Naaman’s arrival and the King’s panic. He sends word to the King:
Don’t worry. Send this foreigner to me and everything will be well.
Imagine Naaman’s excitement and the King’s trepidation
as Naaman leaves the King’s court to meet with Elisha. The King of Israel rightly
worries that if Elisha fails to heal the great man, Israel will find itself at war
with the local superpower. Naaman hopes, yet doubts. Will this be just another alleged
miracle cure whose hype far exceeds reality?
Upon arrival, Elisha triply insults Naaman.[5] Not
only is there no welcome befitting a dignitary of Naaman’s rank but Elisha doesn’t
even deign to meet with him. The prescription, given by messenger, is the third
insult: wash yourself in the Jordan seven times. At that time, Damascus was considered
the “garden of the world,” a prosperous and historic city like today’s Paris, London,
or New York. People viewed its rivers, the Abana and Pharpar, as the source of its
beauty and wealth. By comparison, the Jordan was a second-rate creek in a third-rate
country.[6]
Naaman’s fury erupted as he hastily departed.
But his servants approached him – a sign that he was neither arrogant nor impetuous
– and encouraged him to at least try Elisha’s prescription, for had the prophet
prescribed something difficult Naaman would surely have obeyed.
What happened to Naaman as he washed in the River
Jordan? Scholars and theologians no more understand the cure than they can explain
the nature of Naaman's disease. We have a great story, but no factual details of
what actually happened.
What intrigues me is that the lectionary compilers
juxtaposed this particular Old Testament reading with this morning’s gospel reading
in which Jesus sends out seventy disciples, in pairs, to heal the sick and to announce
the arrival of God's kingdom.[7] Jesus
instructs those he sends forth to carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, stay in the
first house they enter and rely exclusively on the occupants to emphasize that God's
gracious power is responsible for the results the disciples achieve. Through the
disciples’ actions, they implicitly reenact the story of Elisha and Naaman, announcing
the presence of God's kingdom and healing the sick, reconciling the estranged, and
liberating the enslaved.
Episcopalian and prominent biblical scholar Marcus Borg has observed: "Rather
strikingly, the most certain thing we know about Jesus according to the current
scholarly consensus is that he was a teller of stories and a speaker of great
one-liners whose purpose was the transformation of perception. At the; center
of his message was an invitation to see differently."[8]
Our transformation enables us to perceive God at work in our midst and enlists
us in building God's kingdom.
In June 1979, more than a million people gathered in a field outside
Krakow to hear Pope John Paul preach and celebrate Mass. One person present
was an unemployed
electrician who had hitched a ride from the coastal city of Gdansk. Barely more
than a year later, at his home shipyard, that electrician used a souvenir pen
he had bought at the pope’s Mass to sign the founding charter of the illegal
trade union Solidarity. He was Lech Walesa, and, having heard Wojtyla, he found
it possible to act as if he were afraid no more. In Wojtyla’s presence, the
solidarity of subjugation – the universal shame that was the first bond of
victims of the Soviet imperial system – was transformed into a solidarity of
resistance. The Solidarity Walesa and his fellow workers established, and the
solidarity it embodied, would lead to the nonviolent overthrow of the Communist
regime in Warsaw and, ultimately, to the demise of the Soviet Union itself.[9]
In Naaman's healing in the Jordan, God used
ordinary elements and human hands to transform a leper into esteemed member of his
community. The seventy whom Jesus sent out similarly were ordinary humans who communicated
God's transformative presence to broken, hurting people. This happened again in
a field outside Gdansk when Pope John Paul spoke to millions, changing at least
one man's perspective so radically that it rippled across Europe and the globe.
And we expect that it will happen again
today when we receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. We confidently take, break,
bless, and receive bread and wine in God's name that we whose sight God has
transformed will experience spiritual renewal and discern God's acceptance,
forgiveness, healing, and love. Then we before leaving we recommit ourselves to
go into the world, sent by God just as were Elisha, the seventy, and John Paul
before us, to transform broken lives.
[1] 2 Kings 5:1-14. Norman
H. Smith, Interpreter’s Bible, ed. G.A. Buttrick (Nashville: Abingdon,
1954), Vol. 3, p. 210.
[2] T.R.
Hobbs, “Naaman,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New
York: Doubleday, 1992), Vol. 4, pp. 967-968.
[3] J.M.
Ward, “Naaman,” Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, ed. G.A. Buttrick
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), Vol. 3, p. 490.
[4] A.
Graeme Auld, I & II Kings (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), p. 167;
J.M. Ward, “Naaman,” Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, ed. G.A.
Buttrick (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), Vol. 3, p. 490.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Smith,
op. cit., p. 210.
[7] Luke
10:1-11, 16-20.
[8] Sallie
McFague, Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in
Peril (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), p. 172.
[9] James Carroll, Christ Actually: The Son
of God for the Secular Age (New York: Viking, 2014), p. 180.
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