God Helps the Foreigner – 2 Kings 5

A text – 2 Kings 5:1-15  

5 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. ² 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. ³ 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.”

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.”

⁷ When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or 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.” ⁸ 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.” ⁹ So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰ 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.” 

¹¹ 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! ¹² 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. ¹³ But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” ¹⁴ So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

¹⁵ Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present 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.

A reflection:

I really love this story. A gifted commander of many troops, beloved of his boss (the king of Aram), Naaman was a lofty man with a potentially dangerous skin disease he had no power to cure. A young servant girl, the least lofty person in his circle, knows where to find a cure. He is so desperate that he actually takes her word and applies to his boss for a leave to make this journey to the country they have just defeated. The equally eager king sends him with a boatload of gifts to barter for this healing (back then barter was the only way to obtain anything) – amounting, I’ve heard, to thousands of dollars of goods. Naaman travels to the king’s residence, for a respected healer and man-of-God must live in a palace, carrying a note from victorious king to vanquished king, requesting the healing.

The king is in a bind – he cannot heal Naaman but is put in a position of being offered diplomatic gifts, etc. etc. He rends his clothing, and Elisha hears about that, telling the king to send Naaman over to Elisha’s house. Naaman, lofty as he is, having listened to a lowly serving girl, amassed this big mess of gifts from his king, made the journey to the land he had conquered, is now shuffled off to a common house on a crowded street to make his request for healing. Elisha doesn’t even come out. He just sends word for Naaman to bathe seven times in the lowly muddy Jordan. Naaman has been abased. He feels bad enough about needing healing – now he assumes he has been intentionally humbled by people he has conquered. He just refuses to put up with it any more and heads out toward the road home. It is again a servant who talks him into going through with the Jordan bathing ritual. Lower and lower. But, give him credit, he does it.

Naaman must not ever before have had a god to put faith in, to trust in, perhaps. He didn’t have a true and deep relationship with any god of the Arameans. And he was a foreigner in Samaria, Elisha’s country – how and why would a foreign god help him? Gods were seen to rule over territories then. But Naaman was completely healed. This is a true mystery and revelation to Naaman. Cured, he goes back and actually meets Elisha, who won’t accept the boatload of gifts, for it was God and not Elisha who healed Naaman. Naaman vows to worship Elisha’s God back home in Aram, and he takes two cartloads of Samarian dirt back to Aram to build an altar that Elisha’s God would recognize as on and of Samarian soil. God helps the foreigner, through a Samaritan prophet. I think Jesus must have loved this story, too. It reveals a lot about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And us.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the story of proud Naaman who let himself be taken down a peg or two in order to be open to receiving your gift of healing. Thanks for letting us see these human beings from so long ago whose lives you touched. Help us to see your touch in our lives today and to testify to others that you are still working and able to be seen. Amen.