No Gifts Please!

Text:  2 Kings 5:1-16

            It didn’t surprise me in the least.  Everyone else was ‘oooing’ and ‘ahhhing’.  They couldn’t believe what they saw.  My mistress broke down.  She was relieved and elated all at once.  At last she had back the man whom she had married.  The chapter of illness with its unspoken fears and endless pursuit of a cure had come to an end.  I knew all along that the prophet of God would come through for my master who now stood tall and erect before us.  The scarring and discolouration of the skin disease had disappeared leaving him with the youthful complexion of a young boy.

            I was a servant to Naaman’s wife.  I was one of the lucky ones.  I landed on my feet to find myself in his household.  Don’t get me wrong.  I will never forget the terror knotting my stomach as Aramean raiders stole me from everything that was familiar.  The Arameans wanted slaves and I was one of the spoils of their superior military strength.

            Naaman and his wife were good to me.  But there wasn’t a day that passed when I didn’t think of my home country.  I was so homesick for Israel.  I cried myself to sleep every night for months.  The only thing that got me through was my faith in God.  I couldn’t figure out why I had been kidnapped.  I didn’t understand why God had let this happen to me.  Yet somehow I knew deep down that my God was not limited to the boundaries of Israel.  He was the God of the whole earth.  He was with me.  He hadn’t forgotten me.  I was comforted when I remembered the story of Joseph, sold as a slave, imprisoned, and yet eventually used by God to save his family and the Egyptians from starvation.  There must be a purpose in all of this. 

            My master Naaman was a powerful, well respected man.  He was a commander in the king’s army.  The king had a lot of time for my master and thought the world of him.  Naaman was a mighty warrior not only because he was skilled in the art of war but because he was a man of substance.  There was no flim flam and froth in his character.  He was solid.  My master’s name means ‘gracious’ and that was the way he was with me and with everyone he dealt with.  Though in command, he had a way with authority.  Everyone who knew him liked him.

            Naaman didn’t know what I knew.  He didn’t know that his victory over Israel hadn’t been his own doing.  It was my God...my LORD...who had helped him to triumph.  He didn’t know that his war medals had been pinned on his uniform by the LORD’s own hand.  He didn’t know that my LORD is always on the side of doing what is right.  That’s why my God used Naaman to nudge Israel and her king back onto the right track.

            I discovered the reason for my abduction when life was turned upside down for Naaman and his wife.  It’s crystal clear in my memory.  The doctor had come to visit.  Naaman’s skin was show signs of a dreaded disease.  Though the story you read in the Bible says he had leprosy, it wasn’t the kind of leprosy you know as Hanson’s bacillus disease.  There were all sorts of different skin conditions in our day of which we were frightened.  Some meant you were cut off from all social contact.  Other types meant you could still live in community but had to put up with the unpleasant symptoms and the stigma.

            My master and his wife were devastated.  Naaman had never been sick a day in his life.  He was the type of man who never went to the doctors.  He was used to being in charge of his life.  This skin disease knocked the stuffing out of him because he couldn’t control it.  He couldn’t issue an order for it to go away.  He couldn’t order people not to be afraid that they would catch it from him.

            It’s one of the hardest things in life.  People dread it.  They’d rather be given a blue pill than to live a limited life.  A full diary and an active lifestyle is now confined to four walls, depending on others for help...an illness that means we can never go very far or do much...condition that means we have to let other people do things for us.  We don’t want people looking at us and wondering what’s wrong.  The worst thing would be to have someone dress us and perform private functions.

            My master tried his best.  He got all the top medical help available in Aram.  The sky was the limit.  The king was keen for Naaman to get better too.  He didn’t want to lose his commander and did everything he could to support him back to work.  No matter what they tried nothing seemed to do the trick.  I couldn’t bear seeing my mistress and master so miserable.  Naaman was coming to the end of his tether.  He was getting depressed. 

            It took a bit of courage.  I wasn’t sure how my mistress would react to my suggestion.  I told her that I knew a prophet who lived in Samaria who would be able to cure her husband.  I was relieved that she didn’t get angry.  She could have been totally offended by the idea of help from outside the kingdom of Aram.  Anyway, she passed on the message to my master and he in turn when to the king.

            Naaman was sent to the king of Israel with a letter.  We said our goodbyes and watched him trundle down the road with his entourage and an extravagant gift of silver, gold and textiles.  Naaman was willing to pay any price to get his bankrupt health back.

            It wasn’t until all the excitement died down after my master’s return that I drank in the details of what had happened after he’d left for Israel.  I loved hearing him tell the story.  I laughed when he recounted the kafuffle that the letter caused in the king’s court.  The king of Aram wrote:  “I’m sending Naaman to you with this letter asking that you would cure him of his skin disease.”  How could the king of Aram know that Israel’s king did not get along with the prophet of Samaria?  The king of Israel paced up and down wringing his hands.  He tore his clothes in despair.  “Me?  Cure Naaman?  I’m not God.  I haven’t the power to take away life or to give it!  Nor have I the power to cure Namaan.  The king of Aram’s looking for an excuse to declare war on me.  I can’t do the impossible and when I don’t then he’ll come and wipe me out.”

            King’s don’t tear their clothes for fun.  News that the king of Israel had ripped his robes reached the ears of Elisha.  The king of Israel didn’t believe what I believed:  there’s a prophet in Israel.  Elisha told the king not to wreck his wardrobe and to send Naaman to him.

            From my memories of Israel and the prophet’s house I pictured Naaman rolling up in front of Elisha’s house with his horses and chariots.  When Naaman told the story he admitted that he was proud.  He was a commander.  He was pretty important.  He expected respect.  When he stopped in front of Elijah’s house with his horses and chariots he had no idea that they were nothing compared to the LORD’s chariots and horses of fire.

            My master’s told of how he’d swallowed a few bitter pills since coming down with this disease but swallowing my pride was the hardest all.  He bristled with fury when Elisha didn’t make an effort to come out to meet him.  What cheek to sent his PA with a message to bathe seven times in the Jordan with the promise of being made clean.  Clean?!?  The Jordan was a filthy murky stream compared to the majestic flow of the Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus.  My master was livid.  He felt that he could have stayed home and dipped his way to cleanliness in his own country.

            My master stomped off in a rage.  He couldn’t believe he’d wasted a journey on yet another dead end hope.  He felt so demeaned.  The prophet had been rude and his so called cure an insult.  He had thought that the prophet would have had the decency to come out and say a prayer in the name of his God, wave his hand and magic away the spot.

            When he told us the story he acknowledged that it was his pride that almost kept him from receiving what the prophet had to give.  It was a good job his servants had the guts to shake him to his senses.  They challenged him.  ‘Look, if the prophet had asked you to something really difficult like fire walking or bungy jumping or skydiving you’d have done it.  Right?  So why won’t you do this simple thing – to wash and be clean?’  Naaman knew they were right.  The volcano of anger died down and he decided he had nothing to lose but my ego.  He left his ego on the banks of the Jordan and immersed myself seven times.  He did what the man of God told him to do and was healed. 

            My master went back to the prophet and told him of his discovery.  Not only was his skin was cleansed but so was his life.  He knew that the God of Israel was the God of all the earth. 

My master had brought all his wealth and wanted to pay Elisha but the prophet refused point blank.  And that was another thing my master learned:  you can’t buy God.  God gave him victory.  God gave him me to be his wife’s servant.  God gave him healing.  God gave him the knowledge that he is God.  No money on earth could buy these things.

            I loved when Naaman told the story.  My master’s name means ‘gracious’.  His story is a story of grace.  I might only be a slave in a foreign land but I know why God put me where I am.  I pointed Naaman to the prophet.  I was a part of Naaman being humbled and healed.  Through me God gave his gift and refuses any gifts in return.  Naaman’s life was changed forever.

            I know you live in a different world from mine.  Millennia separate our customs and culture.  There’s one thing that hasn’t changed:  there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.  Sure you know him more fully through Jesus.  As with Naaman so with you and me:  “‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’  Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:6-7).  My master learned that his military victories and reputation as well as his healing came from God.  All is a gift of God.  Humility is the knowledge that God has given you life and made you all that you are.  Humility is the knowledge that we cannot repay God for the lavish grace he has poured into our lives.  Of what are you most proud?  What are your greatest achievements?  What gifts and talents do you have that you feel chuffed about?  Do you recognise that all these come from God?