Stubbornness and Healing

2 Kings 5:1-14 NRSV

The Healing of Naaman
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 leprosy.[a] 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 leprosy.”[b] 4 So Naaman[c] went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5 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. 6 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.”[d] 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 leprosy?[e] 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 leprosy![f] 12 Are not Abana[g] 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.

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I want to share a picture with you this morning. Take a good look. I realize that the black eye might be the first thing you notice, but do not miss the creative hair cutting on the bangs. Believe it or not, this is me a few years ago and I was known to be a bit of a stubborn child. Actually a lot stubborn and I think my family tried to put it in a positive light by calling it “strong-willed.” And it often landed me in situations like this one. I’m sure none of you can imagine that and I’m even more sure none of you have had experiences with people like that. When I think about it now I bet there were hundreds of times that my parents, or relatives, or teachers or bosses or husband said to themselves, “Why is she making this so difficult?” “Why won’t she just listen and do what I tell her?” “Why is she being so stubborn?”

Well in the scripture for today we encounter a guy that I would consider pretty stubborn, Naaman. We learn early on that Naaman is a military leader of sorts; he’s a mighty warrior, he’s well respected not only by those he commands, but by the king as well. He has physical strength, political favor and military success, he is in a great position. Except for one thing. He has leprosy. He is a leper. The original language this was written in, the Hebrew, puts it this way “And the man was a great man – leprosy” And leprosy wasn’t just a physical problem at this time, it creates a social problem for him as well. He is unclean, potentially shunned from his community, he wears this defect on his skin wherever he goes. This is a big problem than can affect all of the other things he has going for him. He’s in a tough position.

This situation isn’t all that uncommon today. You’ve heard the saying that cancer or any other illness doesn’t discriminate. I bet we can all think of examples of powerful people, privileged people, people who have resources and clout but become the victim of a terrible illness, or a terrible accident or an unexpected life change. And they’re powerless, all of the things they’ve done to maintain a certain life none of it can’t save them, none of those things can’t fix it. Like Naaman no matter how much power, wealth, prestige they seem to have, they become powerless.

So in Naaman’s story all of a sudden we have this servant girl, who’s not just any servant, she is actually an enslaved captive of a military raid done by Naaman’s army. So he and his army had essentially kidnapped this little girl and brought her back to be a slave, to serve his wife. But this girl, this slave potentially has the answer, she knows how to get him out of this bind. She tells her mistress, Naaman’s wife that if he just goes to Samaria, there’s a prophet there that will heal him. And the tables are really turned here, Naaman who is powerful in almost all aspects of his life is powerless to heal himself from this illness. And this little slave girl who is essentially powerless is all aspects of her life, holds the key to his healing. I doubt that Naaman would have ever looked to that little girl or asked for her opinion about how he might be healed; I imagine he was actually pretty desperate to be taking her advice in the first place. I think about how often we only look to certain sources for information or guidance; we always want the expert opinion, the best in the field. But here we see that God chose this little, seemingly powerless girl to bring hope and healing.

So to Naaman’s credit, he listens. Maybe he’s desperate to try anything, maybe he had heard of a prophet in Samaria too, but either way he listens, he jumps at a chance for healing. Now the king also has an interest in getting one of his greatest military leaders healed as well so he sends Naaman off with gifts and letter to the king of Israel. Hopefully a nice letter and some bribes will help the king of Israel forget that this king and this warrior had ransacked their country not too long ago. So Naaman sets off in royal style to Israel.

So he gets there, gives the letter to the king, he reads the letter, rips his clothes and says “Am I God? to give death or life?” Now the king’s reaction seems a little odd to me. I mean it’s a little melodramatic doesn’t it. No need to tear your clothes buddy, just a little friendly request. But this letter potentially sets the king up for failure, the king thinks that Naaman’s king is try to give him an impossible task so he can fail at it and beat him up again. It seems like another dead end to Naaman, he traveled all the way to Israel desperate for some help and the king does not seem to be in a position to help him. But that’s not what happens.

What happens is Elisha enters the picture. Elisha is an important prophet in the Old Testament, he is a connection between the people of Israel and their God. Now I imagine that during this next part of the story Elisha is just working away on prophet stuff in his house, barely looks up and says dryly, “Tell the king this: ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn there is a prophet in Israel’” and then goes right back to his work. So somehow this gets back to Naaman and he heads over to Elisha’s place, finally about to get his healing, finally done with this nightmare. He arrives with his chariots and horse all the pomp and circumstance. And do you remember what Elisha does? He sends his servant out to talk to him. He doesn’t come out himself, I imagine he’s busy with prophet stuff, he doesn’t even send out a prophet in training, he sends out a servant to talk to the great and mighty Naaman. And he tells him that it’s real simple, just head on down to the Jordan River, wash yourself seven times and you’ll be healed. Have a nice day.

Sounds great, super easy, he’ll even get to go home with a bath, right? Wrong. Naaman is mad, really mad, the Bible says he went away in a rage, a rage. But why? He had the chance for healing, the chance to get what he came for. Elisha didn’t ask for something unreasonable, for money, or power or a diplomatic truce. Why won’t he do what Elisha tells him? Why won’t he make this easy on himself? Why is Naaman being so stubborn? Healing is right in front of him, it’s so close. It reminds me of horror movies which I generally don’t watch, but there always seems to be a scene where you want to scream “don’t go into the basement! Don’t open that door! Turn around and run!”  But they never do. And it makes me frustrated with Naaman, I would just tell him that if he can’t follow directions then he doesn’t deserve healing, he doesn’t deserve to get better, serves him right to wallow in his leprosy.

Now you see the Bible tells us that Naaman was mad because Elisha didn’t do what he expected. He didn’t conform to his expectations for healing. Naaman thought that he deserved a big ceremony, some laying on of hands, some holy words, maybe a big flash of lightening to cure him of this disease. But that’s not what he gets, he gets a servant telling him to take a bath, no 7 baths. How dare he! Who does he think he is sending that servant out here? Doesn’t he know who I am? Doesn’t God know who God’s about to heal! Forget this, I’m going to go back to my country, wash myself in our rivers, I don’t need this.

Does that sound familiar or am I the only one that is that stubborn? It’s kind of painful right. It might even sound a little childish. Luckily Naaman is not hopeless because once again the powerless come to bring the powerful to healing. Naaman’s servants level with him: “Look if he had told you to do some elaborate thing, you would have done. So why is it so hard for you to do this easy thing and be healed? What’s the hold up? Why are you being so stubborn?”

I think we know what the holdup is, don’t we? It’s us. It’s our expectations, it’s our preconceived ideas about how and when God should do God’s job. If it doesn’t fit into our ideas, our limited possibilities for healing and wholeness then we’re not taking it. Get back to us God when you’re ready to do things our way, we’ll just sit her a little longer in our own filth. Jesus asks a man in John 5, “do you want to be healed?” Do we want to be healed? Of course! Do we want to be healed however God will heal us? Ummmm maybe not. Naaman experienced healing from unexpected sources, through the slave girl, through his servants, through the river in a land that he terrorized and ultimately through a God who called him to let go. A God that calls us to let go, to be open to wisdom and healing from unexpected place, from the powerless, but a God that always makes a way.

So do you want to know how I got that black eye? I will admit first that I had a self-hair-cutting problem as a child, but I am allowed to have scissors again. But really, my stubbornness got me that black eye. We were pretty much forbidden from going into my grandma’s attic, it was just a storage space with just beams on the floor. Which made it all the more awesome in my tiny mind, so one day my cousin and I decided we were going to explore the attic. I was determined, stubbornly clinging to the idea that there was something magical that I was missing up there and no one could tell me different. So we got up there, it was dark and hot, but there was a light coming from a little window with the exhaust fan in it. And this is where the horror movie reaction should kick it. No, don’t do it, stay away from the fan, turn around and run! And of course I did nothing of the sort. Instead I stuck my face in that fan and got quite the black eye.

We do this you realize? We stick our faces in the fan when we know it’s going to hurt. We deny ourselves the possibility of healing because we’re concerned about how it’ll look to other people, or what it’ll do to our social standing or who we’ll have to apologize to or how we’ll have to change the cozy little life we’ve built for ourselves. Do you want to be healed? Do you really want to be healed? The good news is that God is prepared to heal us, heal us from physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, environmental illness in our lives. And the even better news is that most of the time, most of the time, it doesn’t take the shape or form of what our little minds can imagine. So what healing are you looking for? What have you been asking God to change in your life? Today I want to challenge you to listen to the story of Naaman, and listen to what we would say to him: Why are you making this so hard on yourself? Why are you being so stubborn? Healing is right around corner, it’s so close. God is ready willing and able to heal you, you just have to do it God’s way. It may not look like you expected, and it may not be what you would have planned, but you can be healed, you can. You just have to let go, be open to the possibilities and let God do God’s thing. These are not just words for Naaman, these are words for us today. Thanks be to God, Amen.

Pastor Jen Hibben