Simple Instructions
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
February 12, 2006
2 Kings 5:1-14; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45
2 Kings 5:1-14. Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favour with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. 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. She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, ‘Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.’
He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, ‘When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.’ 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 leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’
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.’ So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. 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.’ 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 leprosy! 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. 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”?’ 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.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable garland, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
Mark 1:40-45 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.
I. BEGINNING
So, I once got a telemarketing phone call trying to sell me life insurance. “I don’t really need life insurance,” I said to the telemarketer. “Everyone needs life insurance. How will you provide for your children….” “I don’t have any children.” “Well, what about your spouse…” “I’m not married, and really don’t feel like spending premiums on life insurance that I don’t need and that by definition I don’t benefit from.” Well, for the first three months, there are no premiums for first time subscribers.” “So, let me get this straight,” I said. “The only way I come out ahead in this deal is if I die in the next three months.” Silence.
Ah, there’s always a catch, isn’t there?
In most of our dealings and purchases and other transactions, it is only a matter of time before we find out what the catch is, what the small print is.
We’re inundated by offers on a daily basis that seem too good to be true, and for the most part they are. The price quoted on TV is the “starting price”. . The free minutes are between hours that no one in their right mind would be up and talking on the phone. Or the terms of the contract overall are different than the “introductory rates”. Like Homer Simpson’s complaint about the record club: “The first 10 were only a penny but then they jacked up the price!”
Whether it’s life insurance, cable subscriptions, cell phone plans, or CD clubs, we’re always waiting for the catch. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
II. THE TEXT: NAAMAN AND ELISHA
Not even God’s salvation. At least, that’s what Naaman believed. Naaman was a “great man”, a big shot, an important Aramean military leader. We read that Naaman contracts “leprosy”—now, in Hebrew, the word ???? tsarat means any variety of skin diseases including psoriasis and others—it doesn’t refer to Hansen’s Disease. But whatever it is, it is an affliction that Naaman wants to be healed from.
Fortunately for him, his wife is being served by a captured Israelite girl who says that there is a prophet in Israel who can heal him. The King of Aram, sends a message to the King of Israel along with Naaman asking him to cure Naaman. The king interprets this literally and believes he is being asked to heal Naaman and suspects that he is being set up for a reason to be attacked. Elisha contacts the King and tells him to send Naaman to him. Naaman comes to Elisha’s house but Elisha doesn’t even come out. Instead, he sends a message to Naaman that he should bathe in the Jordan seven times and he will be healed.
Naaman is disappointed (and perhaps not a little bit wounded) by this response. He objects that this great healer shouldn’t even come out to see him and that he should be told to bathe in the Jordan, an inferior river in his opinion, to the rivers of Damascus. But his servants say to him “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’?” So Naaman does as Elisha instructs and he is cleaned of his disease. In the portion that follows this text, we learn that Naaman is converted to faith in the God of Israel, saying “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel….”
Naaman came to this faith because of the healing power of God that he experienced. But Naaman didn’t expect that healing power to come easily.
III. MAKING THINGS DIFFICULT
That’s to be understood, I suppose. The whole situation was kind of complicated. Naaman was an Aramean general who had defeated Israel in battle—the same battle where he’d acquired the Israelite slave-girl. Now, it’s not a simple matter for him just to show up in Israel and ask to be healed. No instead he brings ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and 10 sets of garments, and gets a diplomatic letter from his king. Already, this is proving to be a costly task and one that requires getting help from the king. The situation is further complicated by the geo-political implications. The king of Israel believes that he is being asked for something by the Aramean king that he won’t be able to deliver and thus the Arameans will declare war. When Elisha’s message comes inviting Naaman to come to see him, the situation is already complicated. [1]
Until Elisha tells him what to do. Simple. Go bathe in the Jordan 7 times. Too simple.
Instead, Naaman expected that God’s healing would be difficult. He expected Elisha to come out to him and make a big scene, wave his hand around, invoke the name of his God and then wave his hand over Naaman’s skin and heal it. He was looking for a little more show. Instead all his got was the instruction to bathe in the Jordan 7 times. He was expecting it to be a little more complicated.
But it wasn’t. He was healed and his skin restored to that of a young boy’s: free of blemish.
IV. GRACE FOR FREE
We shouldn’t be too hard on Naaman, I guess. Because we all have a hard time accepting that God’s love is as simple as it is. Perhaps, we like Naaman, have been conditioned to think that love and grace are something complicated.
This time of year you might be forgiven for thinking that they are. All you see are commercials of people who are securing the love of their significant other through the purchase of expensive jewelry. And don’t get me started on the commercial that says, “We have holidays devoted to thanks and to presidents, but only one to love…” Love, my friends, is not something that requires a month’s salary to show or to receive.
And yet, how often do we think about love that way? How often do we quantify love as something that we get in return for some other commodity? And how hard of a time do we have in accepting the simple idea that God’s love and grace come freely, without cost?
Such a hard idea for us, since every other message in our culture is about how everything we have we earned or paid for. We are self-made, self-sustaining. No one gave us anything. We earned it all. No one gives away something for nothing without…
…a catch.
And yet, there is no catch. God’s instructions are simple: trust me. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. God’s salvation is available freely, simply. No catch.
Not to say that we don’t try to invent those catches. Well, you have to worship in this way. Or believe exactly these things. Or do exactly this. Or follow this religious leader or other. Or accept this teaching or that teaching.
We’re always making it more difficult than it need be. Perhaps because we’re so jaded by experience that we cannot accept something like love and mercy from the Eternal God, Ruler of the Universe, Creator of Heaven and Earth, could be simple.
V. GRACE FOR ALL
And we’re just as disinclined to believe that that love could be for us. That kind of love should be showy and awesome and wonderful—far beyond any worthiness of our own. That kind of power and grace could only be experienced in crystal clear waters of shimmering mountain streams, not in the muddy ol’ Jordan. That kind of love could only be divined by high priests and prophets and philosophers, not by captured slave girls. That kind of love could only be experienced through lavish ritual, not through simple obedience to a command to bathe. [2]
But if there’s anything that Elisha and Naaman’s story tells us is that this love and grace are not only free but they are for all. God’s salvation is not just for those who seem to deserve it, or who are in the “in crowd”. It is for those who are on the margins, too. [3] Those who are the despised enemy. Those who are the misunderstood and often feared victims of disease—leper or AIDS victim—God’s salvation is for all.
VI. END
It is important in remembering that this story got complicated when human beings got into the picture. It was the human beings who got together the hefty fee of ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and 10 sets of garments. It was human beings who drafted and sent the diplomatic letter. It was a human being who fretted over the political implications of a request to heal someone. It was a human being who expected a complex ritual of healing. It was God who made grace and love available simply and freely.
If people are having trouble connecting to God, it is usually because we have constructed so many obstacles of our own. It is as if God has set up a free national park, and we have put up tollbooths on the road that gets there. Maybe we know that people are too suspicious of things that seem easy and too good to be true. Maybe we ourselves are too disbelieving of things that seem too good to be true. We keep waiting for the catch and when we can’t find one, we create some.
The Good News is that God loves us and saves us without regard to our merit, but solely out of grace and love for us. In a world that is too often beset by cynicism and skepticism, in which we have a tendency to make things more complicated than they need be, and when we live under the myth of our own self-sufficiency and self-reliance, the free grace of God stands out.
It is an offer that is not too good to be true, but is both good and true. It is an offer that we should accept and trust in. That is all that is required of us—trust in God’s promises and accept God’s forgiveness for the sin we confess.
In the end, it is a fairly simple matter. Here we stand on the shore of the Jordan. God has told us simply how to be clean. Will we stand on the shore, waiting for something more elaborate, more complicated to come along—or will we trust in God and dive right in?
[1] New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. III, p. 193
[2] Id., at 198
[3] Id., at 197
