The next few blog posts will frustrate me because I feel caught in the tension of pulling ourselves off track onto a various number of rabbit trails. Yet, it must be done; it would be foolishness to skip so much of the Text. Just know that at some point, we will be pausing to review the larger (as we’ve referred to it before, the “10,000 foot view”) narrative arc of the story God is telling. The guts that we find “in the midst” of this period of history are incredibly important. While they will often feel as if they are disjointed and disconnected tales from the larger narrative, if you look closely, you’ll see they are intricate stories to larger drama that’s unfolding.
Nevertheless, the next one of my favorite stories of this period of history is the story of Naaman, found in 2 Kings 5. The chapter/story begins with the following verse:
Now Naaman was the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.
Now there is actually a lot we could unpack with that short verse, but the first stop I’d like to make is with this phrase: “He was a great man.”
It’s not a bad translation necessarily, but it somewhat fails to capture what the Hebrew communicates. Naaman is said to be an ish gadowl. In the Hebrew, the word ish simply means “man”, but the word gadowl is a word that refers to the weight and significance of object (not literal weight). This man, this ish, is incredibly significant. He has a certain cultural “heaviness” about his presence. When he walks into the room, everybody “feels” it. He is a weighty, heavy, important man.
Naaman is an ish gadowl.
And this important, significant man has leprosy.
Now, leprosy doesn’t necessarily mean what we think it means. The word does not refer to the actual disease of leprosy itself. The word is used to describe any contagious skin disease that would make one ceremonially unclean. At different points in history, even a case of severe acne would cause one to be declared “a leper”. However, whatever it is that plagues Naaman is making his job, his position, and his role very difficult. We’re told that he has tried multiple action plans from his home land, to no avail. He is not able to find healing. However, this land of Aram has heard about the “God of Israel” who can heal leprosy, and so Naaman is persuaded to find healing from a foreign God.
So, this foreigner — this ish gadowl — travels to Israel and shows up at the house of the man of God. The prophet happens to be Elijah’s successor, Elisha. Before one reads about Elisha’s response, they have to understand the kind of entourage that would travel with a person like Naaman. Naaman travels into foreign lands with great pomp and circumstance. His armies and calvary and his right-hand men travel with the parade of trumpeters and messengers. The Text will call them “his horses and chariots”.
After all, Naaman is an ish gadowl.
After appearing at Elisha’s door, Naaman isn’t even graced with Elisha’s presence. Elisha is unimpressed by the status and prestige of this ish gadowl at his door. He sends a simple servant to Naaman and his entourage with a simple message: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times… you will be cleansed.”
Naaman is enraged that he would come all this way and be told to wash in the Jordan. The reader needs to understand that the Jordan, 10 months out of the year, is one of the most unimpressive rivers in the Middle East. It resembles more of a dirty creek than it would a “river” in our North American books. Naaman is from the land of great and majestic rivers like the Tigris and the Euphrates. Great and beautiful rivers that flow from the hands of their gods.
And he is told to go and wash seven times in the dirty creek out back.
Naaman is fit to be tied and decides to head home, disgusted with the treatment he’s received. But again, Naaman is persuaded to at least give the prophet’s instructions a shot — they have traveled all this way. So, Naaman follows instructions and indeed finds healing in the God of Israel. Transformed both externally and internally, he returns to Elisha and has one of the most perplexing conversations in the record of 2 Kings:
Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”
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.
“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.
First of all, we often miss the gravity of Naaman’s initial claim. Naaman lives in a world that has never heard of monotheism (belief in one god) outside of the nation of Israel. For them, there is a huge list of acceptable gods, all battling for dominance in the world. This epic, heavenly battle rages on and the positions of gods are constantly changing. This is his reference point of the normal status-quo. For him to claim that there is “no God in all the world except in Israel” is a stunning leap of understanding and faith.
Second, Naaman asks Elisha for a bunch of dirt? Not only does Naaman have an initial belief of pluralism that is being overturned in his consciousness, but his understanding of these gods is also geographical. Those gods are linked to certain pieces of real estate. If he intends to worship the God of Israel, in his understanding, he has to have a piece of Israelite earth, because YHVH is connected to the ground.
Naaman doesn’t have a proper understanding of basic theology. He’s going to need a little bit of education. Please understand this. Naaman is entering this conversation about a new God completely blind. He knows NOTHING of where to begin. And to make matters worse, the story doesn’t even end there! Watch what Naaman says next:
"But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”
Naaman's job requires his worship in the temple of a false god! He is asking Elisha to plead to God to have mercy on him when he does this.
Now, what is Elisha’s proper response here?
I know what I’ve been taught growing up:
Hey, Naaman. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
Turn or burn, heaven or hell, Naaman.
Choose ye this day whom you will serve, Naaman.
At the very least, this poor guy needs some basic education. Maybe we need to pull him aside for a few intensive Bible courses and sign him up for “Biblical Worldview 101” before we send him home. He has no community, no church, no temple to YHVH, no education. He’s armed with nothing but his story and a mess back home.
But isn’t that the way life is? We often like to talk about life as if it’s clear-cut, black and white. But it isn’t that easy. Many of us have family situations and job placements that make simple, daily decisions messy and complicated.
Elisha’s response?
“Go in peace.”
Which is the Middle Eastern equivalent to: “That’s ok. You’ll figure it out. You’ve got a long walk home.”
Unbelievable. If I would have put that “master plan of evangelism” on a Bible college assignment, I would have gotten some special attention before they gave me a degree.
Go in peace?
Apparently, it’s ok for life to be a sticky mess. And apparently, the most important piece of education you could be armed with is a personal experience and story of transformation.
So take your story back home to your job that makes things complicated. Take your story and tell people about the dirty creek that you washed in and the God that doesn’t care about ish gadowl credentials or appearances or mighty rivers — but is in the business of healing. Tell them about the God that puts the world back together and is infusing the sacred into the common.
Tell them your story as you wade through the mess. And invite them to join you in trusting it.
Keep coming back to this one... thanks Marty!
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