Some Great Thing
2 Kings 5:1-14

February 12, 2006


We don’t sit around the campfire and tell stories about how our God enabled our enemy to defeat us. You might tell a tale about the arch enemy and how he or she is defeated by the good guys who bear close resemblance to you and me. The Bible does not hesitate to talk about something strange and perhaps even treasonous. After all, the silent, always present actor is the God of the Universe who observes what is happening on both sides of the spiritual Maginot line.

Na‘aman was not one of our kind of people. He was the general of the army of Aram, well-respected by the king of Aram, and recently very successful. Under his leadership the army of Aram had defeated Israel: “the Lord God had given him the victory over Israel,” a phrase usually reserved only for Israelites.

The Hebrew author of 2 Kings wants the reader to know just how important Na‘man was - “a mighty man of valor/strength,” a gibor hayil - you can feel the guttural, visceral power of such a person. He had accomplished the stuff history remembers, but he was a leper. His external life was unassailable; his internal life was now powerless.

Na‘aman is a contradiction of terms: mighty in the world, yet weak and defenseless as an individual human being. Lepers in Biblical lore were seen to be the worst sinners, unclean and infectious for the healthy community. No one would suspect or accuse Na‘aman of such sinfulness, even if he were a pagan, a non-believer, and a cruel enemy. Most readers were far too impressed by his military feats to worry about his supposed sins. To them, it just does not make sense that someone so powerful could be so afflicted.

Now the story twists in a way that affronts our sensibilities. On one of their raids, the Arameans captured a young Hebrew girl and took her back to be the servant or slave of Na‘aman’s wife. This is an obscene dimension of warfare that listeners then probably took for granted. Kidnapped women for slavery and bondage are still in our news, considered among the most disdainful of atrocities.

Prisoner in a strange land, yet something unexpected happens. The anonymous young woman loves her captor and offers a solution to his personal dilemma. Go to the prophet in Samaria to be healed. She doesn’t care if he’s from Aram or from Saskatchewan, nor is she interested in who won the war. She has compassion for another human being. We don’t know her name, just that she is Hebrew. Maybe that’s what “Hebrew” means - having a god like the Lord God compels your nature to be compassionate, no matter what your nationality, party, team or religion. The only affiliation that matters is your humanity.

Her compassion is genuine and effective, for Na‘man obviously is struck by her sincerity and believes her. He tells his king about the possibilities of the prophet in Samaria and he likewise gets excited. All the king wants now is the healing of his trusted general and friend, so he sends him to the king of Israel with a letter of introduction, and lots of money as a peace offering and a fee.

The king of Israel, however, is still looking at the world from the perspective of a wounded, defeated, and subjugated leader. Look at this king the wrong way and he would scream bloody murder. “He’s trying to provoke another military action against us,” he wails and tears his clothes, the dramatic way of demonstrating that one has been subjected to a blasphemous statement which profanes the character of God. One cannot hear such an obscenity and go on with business as usual. Hard to keep working with all your clothes ripped!

Israel’s king wanted to be offended, so he interpreted the king of Aram’s naively worded request the wrong way, that he was personally to heal Na‘aman - or else! - something beyond a mere mortal’s ability. He wasn’t God, and thus the rent garment.

Amazing how fast word of torn clothes travels, and Elisha hears the report as quick as an email. He understands what the words really mean, so he tells his king to simply send Na‘aman to me so that he may learn there is a prophet in Israel and a God as well.

Na‘aman arrives with pomp and circumstance at Elisha’s house, but the prophet does not show his face. A messenger relays that if Na‘aman washes seven times in the Jordan River he will be healed and clean. The general is insulted on several flanks. Don’t you think he could have come out of his house and talked to me face to face? Surely I was important enough for him to call on the name of the Lord his God and make a big production, a proper healing for someone of my accomplishment and prestige. Add on the geographical insult that the dirty Jordan is better for divine interventions than the great Abana and Pharpar Rivers of Damascus, and Na‘aman was not happy and stalked off in a rage.

Again it was lowly servants who turned him around. Their argument was not one of piety, but of plain logic. Look, you would have done some great thing, incredibly difficult if he had demanded. You’d have considered it worth the effort, but this prophet has made it easy, just go and wash. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.

Na‘aman has one remarkable quality for a mighty man of valor: he listens to wise advice, no matter the source, and that is what makes him a great man. He follows the directions with seven baths in the Jordan and comes out of the dirty water clean.

Na‘aman returns to Elisha acknowledging that the Lord God is the only real God in the universe, and tries to repay Elisha, but of course there is no repayment for God’s gift except praise and worship and a new life. One more odd thing. Na‘aman knows that he still has to assist his friend the king of Aram, accompanying him into the temple of Rimmon to worship a god he now knows does not exist. But it’s his duty, and he asks the Lord God to forgive him on this one count. Elisha nods, I can imagine with a wink, “Go in peace.”

Some great thing. Na‘aman assumed his powerful status obligated even a man of God to grant him a spectacular occasion, another set of labours of Hercules, to prove himself even greater in overcoming his disease and misfortune. He was granted no audience with the prophet, given no difficult task to prove himself. Instead, he listened to a young woman - herself a victim of his power - and his own servants and humbly did nothing except the little thing God asked. Only then did he become whole and a truly great person.

The readers and hearers of this tale had to be confused and disoriented. They had to listen to the woes of an archenemy and know that God had specifically blessed him - and not the readers - even though he really had no clue who God was. The Hebrew captive servant girl is one of the heroes because she is compassionate for someone who is a Gentile, the kind of person anyone knows is not worthy of God’s favour and love. In the end, this enemy general is allowed to convert to the true faith while still pretending to worship an idol on the side, for the sake of his employment, and goes back to his business of subjugating the Chosen People.

You know what Na‘aman’s servants mean by “some great thing.” The nature of things is to work hard and prove oneself against adversity and overcome the greatest obstacles for the greatest rewards. You pride yourselves on the rigour of your discipline, the strength of your will power, resolve and determination. We tend to believe we Christians have the right idea and the right methods, yet are continually bewildered by how many Na‘amans are more “Christian” than us without being Christian at all. How can they be more humble than me? The “some great thing” is an act of utter humility, allowing the simplest, even the silliest actions to cure us of our pride and make us clean again.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan