No One Is Immune

By

Reverend Litton Logan

Scriptures:

2 Kings 5:1-27 (NRSV)

¹Naaman, 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. ²Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. ³She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”^{£ 4}So Naaman^£ went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. ⁵And 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. ⁶He 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.”^{£ 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?^£ Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

⁸But 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.” ⁹So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” ¹¹But 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! ¹²Are 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. ¹³But 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’?” ¹⁴So 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.

¹⁵Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.” ¹⁶But he said, “As the LORD lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!” He urged him to accept, but he refused. ¹⁷Then Naaman said, “If not, please let two mule-loads of earth be given to your servant; for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the LORD. ¹⁸But may the LORD pardon your servant on one count: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow down in the house of Rimmon, when I do bow down in the house of Rimmon, may the LORD pardon your servant on this one count.” ¹⁹He said to him, “Go in peace.”

Gehazi’s Greed

But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance, ²⁰Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, thought, “My master has let that Aramean Naaman off too lightly by not accepting from him what he offered. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something out of him.” ²¹So Gehazi went after Naaman. When Naaman saw someone running after him, he jumped down from the chariot to meet him and said, “Is everything all right?” ²²He replied, “Yes, but my master has sent me to say, ‘Two members of a company of prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim; please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.’” ²³Naaman said, “Please accept two talents.” He urged him, and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and gave them to two of his servants, who carried them in front of Gehazi. ²⁴When he came to the citadel, he took the bags from them, and stored them inside; he dismissed the men, and they left.

²⁵He went in and stood before his master; and Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” He answered, “Your servant has not gone anywhere at all.” ²⁶But he said to him, “Did I not go with you in spirit when someone left his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to accept money and to accept clothing, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves? ²⁷Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you, and to your descendants forever.” So he left his presence leprous, as white as snow.

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible

First

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The books of I and II Kings were originally a part of a larger body of writings, which included I and II Chronicles.  These books were split at the time of the writing of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew Scriptures.  It is believed this was done for reading convenience.  I and II Kings reflect many of the ideas of the Deuteronomic Reform movement instigated by King Josiah. 

It seems that during a renovation of the Temple in Jerusalem, there was found a scroll that had been hidden away, whose contents later came to form the bulk of the material in the book of Deuteronomy as well as inform the writer of our scriptures today.  This scroll contained Laws, ordinances, statutes and testimonies of God along with the consequences of not keeping these divine instructions.  So the story goes, the contents and warnings of this scroll so concerned King Josiah that he launched a major reform of Israel’s religious practices.  Those reforms included an attempt to centralize worship of God in the temple at Jerusalem and to remove all the outlying, upcountry shrines along with clearing out all the wizards, witches, and all forms of necromancy from the land of Israel.

In fact, the author of our scriptures today holds King Josiah up as the model king for God’s people.  In general, the books of I and II Kings tend to look at the responsibilities and morality of kingship, leadership, or what we might call divine statecraft.  However, as much as the author focuses on the kings’ actions and behaviors, he also is very clear about the people’s responsibility to keep God’s statues, commandments, ordinances, and testimonies.  (1 Kings 2:2b-4 (NRSV))

          The author is very clear that the King and the people are to worship the LORD, and the LORD alone, and they are to keep God’s laws, statutes, and commandments or suffer the consequences.  Likewise, the people are assured of God’s blessings if they keep the laws, statutes, commandments, and testimonies of the LORD.  The writer of our scriptures today in essence is telling the greatest and the least of his day not to take God’s blessings for granted just because one happened to be Israeli.

          Not unlike the story of a lawyer, this illustrates this point most clearly.

A stingy old lawyer who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness was determined to prove wrong the saying, "You can’t take it with you”.

After much thought and consideration, the old ambulance-chaser finally figured out how to take at least some of his money with him when he died.  He instructed his wife to go to the bank and withdraw enough money to fill two pillow cases.  He then directed her to take the bags of money to the attic and leave them directly above his bed.  His plan: When he passed away, he would reach out and grab the bags on his way to heaven.

Several weeks after the funeral, the deceased lawyer’s wife was up in the attic cleaning and she came upon the two forgotten pillow cases stuffed with cash.

"Oh, that darned old fool," she exclaimed.  "I knew he should have had me put the money in the basement."

          Let us look again at the story of Naaman’s healing very closely.  There is far more to this story than meets the eye. 

The story opens with a very unusual twist—the LORD, Israel’s God--has blessed a prominent general of one of Israel’s enemies by giving him many victories.  (Possibly victories over the Israelites?)  We see here the beginnings of a universalistic understanding of Israel’s God.  This great and powerful general has some minor form of leprosy or dermatitis that may be uncomfortable and unsightly but does not seem to render him socially unacceptable. 

          We further see this idea of God’s universal care for all peoples in the person of a little, Israelite slave girl, who was captured in a raid by the armies of Aram.  This little Israelite girl is Naaman’s wife’s slave and the little girl tells her mistress that there is a prophet in Samaria, who could cure her husband.  One would think that this child couldn’t care less about Naaman and his condition given her plight as a captive and as a slave.

          Naaman’s wife tells him what the slave girl says.  Naaman goes to his king and tells him what the slave girl had said.  Now, here is where its gets funny and so typical of the arrogance of government leaders and bureaucrats.  Naaman’s king writes a letter for Naaman to carry to the king of Israel demanding the Israelite king cure his general.  Not a word about the little, slave girl’s prophet.  Governments and government officials haven’t changed much have they?  They can still mess up a one car funeral.

          Naaman loads up a lot of gold, sliver, and fine garments, with which to pay for his healing and heads out to see the king of Israel.

          Naaman shows up on the king of Israel’s door step with a letter that reads, “heal my general.”  The king of Israel goes into hysteria and starts tearing off his clothes.  The king of Aram demands the healing of one of his most important generals by him, a vassal king.  The king of Israel is out of his mind.  Everyone knows that God alone is the author of life and death, health and disease.  How is he, a mere mortal, expected to do what God alone can do?

          Well, thank God for the worker bees.  Soon Elisha, the great prophet, hears of the king’s predicament.  He sends word to the king for him not to get his knickers in a knot.  Send this Naaman guy to him.  The king does so. 

          Naaman and his entourage arrive and present themselves to Elisha.  However, Elisha doesn’t come out and flatter Naaman’s sense of self importance.  He doesn’t cure Naaman in some grandiose manner befitting Naaman’s sense of himself.  Naaman thought the prophet would at least have come out and done something spectacular if for nothing more than a public relations stunt for his god.  Nope, Elisha sends a messenger, who tells Naaman to go wash in the dark, muddy, river Jordan seven times.  In this, Elisha makes the point that the LORD of Israel is not like other localized gods.  The LORD can cure anyone, from any distance, and in anyway the LORD chooses.

          Naaman, as is typical of many important people, takes great exception to these simple instructions delivered by an underling.  Shoot, he had two beautiful, clear rivers in Damascus in which he could have bathed.  He was not going to bath in a muddy river at the instructions of some holy-man he hasn’t even seen and knows about only through the words of a slave girl.  (Do you notice that it is two women, the least likely of people, who become the source of Naaman’s good news of healing?  We see the women fulfilling this function many times in scripture especially in Mark’s Gospel as the tenacious and faithful followers of Jesus who also become the first evangelist of the risen Lord.) 

Naaman must have thought himself crazy to think this would work.  Yet, desperate people do desperate and foolish things at times.  Even the rich and powerful have been known to go to their knees seeking God’s healing, forgiveness, and blessings.

          Naaman, stomps off enraged and headed home.  However, thank God for the worker bees again.  Naaman’s servants persuade him to do as Elisha has instructed.  He relents, goes and bathes in the river Jordan, and is healed.  His is restored and he has the skin of a young boy.

          In humility and gratitude, Naaman returns to Elisha as a healed convert to the LORD.  He speaks to Elisha and offers him all the riches he has brought.  Elisha refuses his gifts.  Thus, telling Naaman and his readers that God’s blessings are not for sell no matter who the person is or how much they offer.  Some of our modern day evangelists would be wise to heed this lesson.

Naaman in an understanding of the day asks if he could take two mule loads of Israel’s dirt home with him so he may worship the LORD on the Lord’s land.  The theology of the day said that one could only worship a god on the land of that god.  Elisha gives him permission to take the two mule loads of dirt and doesn’t address Naaman’s thinking even in light of the emerging sense of God as the God of all people, every where—on the land or not.  Naaman was a new convert, he had the essentials, and Elisha didn’t burden him down with theology. 

          Naaman has one more requests.  He asked for a divine exemption for himself in those times when he had to bow down to another god along side his king when his king worshiped his god.  Since Naaman was his king’s right hand man, he would have been expected to attend and to participate in religious matters of state. 

          Now, this is an important and practical question facing many Jewish captives or servants in foreign lands.  Notice what Elisha says:  “Go in peace—shalom”.  Go in health, wholeness, prosperity, etc.”  Saint Augustine’s insights to such a dilemma would be, “Love God and do what you will.”

Elisha’s lack of condemnation of Naaman’s request would have angered many of his readers, who would have rather died than bow down to a foreign god for any reason.  The story is bad enough in that God had blessed and healed an enemy of Israel much less accommodating the practicalities of the man’s life.  The author, as much as he is a strict reformist, was none the less practical and understanding about kings, gods, loyalties, etc. as well as understood that one truly worshipped God in one’s heart out of the sight of prying, pious, religious eyes.

          Next, we see Elisha’s servant Gehazi doing an end run around Elisha’s refusal to accept payment or an honorarium for Naaman’s healing.  Elisha rejected the honorarium because Elisha knew that God, not he, had healed the obedient Naaman.

          Elisha’s “second spiritual insight” sees what Gehazi has done.  The consequence of Gehazi’s greed is that the leprosy that Naaman had is now transferred to Gehazi and his descendants forever.  Wow, what a way to remember great, great, great granddad Gehazi.  Gehazi, the crook, who gave his family some scaly dermatitis.  Every time Gehazi’s descendent looked down at a patch of scaly skin or scratched a scaly spot it would be reminded them of the consequences of Gehazi’s sin.

          Now we may understand diseases and genetic conditions differently today but these scriptures are not with out modern merit. We will see this later.

          On Court TV there is a program hosted by Dominic Dunes called Power, Privilege, and Justice, which is an investigative, exposé program that features the crimes and sins of the wealthy and powerful.  The underlying theme is that as much as the wealthy and powerful think they are above the law, and I would add the laws of God, they are not.  No matter how clever and well connected they are, they too are subject to the laws of the land just as the rest of us are.

          Over the last decades, we’ve seen big religious empires crumble or decline and their prophets either go to jail or go into shameful seclusion.  We’ve seen the consequences to both high and low because of various religious leaders’ duplicity and greed.

          We’ve seen presidents toppled or rendered ineffective in office because of their high crimes, misdemeanors, and sins.  We’ve seen senators, representatives, several governors, and other elected officials bite the dust for their crimes and sins.

          No one is immune from the consequences of breaking God’s moral laws.  It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or not; in the end the consequences of breaking God’s laws catch up to us regardless of who we are—No one is immune. 

          Money and connections may help a person escape the consequences of their actions in our judicial system but not in God’s.

          I am reminded that sometimes even the innocent and the supporters of our justice system may suffer secondary and tertiary consequences.

          It seems that the devil visited a lawyer's office and made him an offer.  "I can arrange some things for you, " the devil said. “  I'll increase your income five-fold.  Your partners will love you; your clients will respect you; you'll have four months of vacation each year and live to be a hundred.  All I require in return is that your wife's soul, your children's souls, and their children's souls are mine for eternity."

The lawyer thought for a moment.  "What's the catch?" he asked.

          Yes, I believe that even those who defend the immoral in our system of jurisprudence often suffer unintentional consequences of their vocation.  As one lawyer told me, a lawyer must never confuse what is legal with what is moral.  Sounds noble, but such thoughts often, but not always, produce their own effects in the lives of those who hold such views.

          Some times the consequences people suffer may be gross such as prison, death, or social disgrace.  More often than not, there are more subtle consequences as well.  Sometimes in getting away with some crime or sin time after time breeds boldness and over confidence.  A person takes too many cookies from the cookie jar or commits to much hanky-panky, and they are caught out by their arrogance and greed.

          At other times, really clever people get away with things so often that they become terminally cynical and desensitized to the moral.  They loose faith in the justice system and in the goodness of life.  Such people are constantly looking over their shoulders or involved in an obsessive-compulsive searches for security, peace, and happiness all because they have so perverted their moral sensibilities to choose or to do the good, the moral, or the wholesome.

          Such subtle justice for the rich and powerful may not appeal to those they have injured, but know this, such people live with the consequences of their actions every second of every day for the rest of their lives.  They may seem to escape just punishment, but they can not escape God’s justice.

          I believe such people can and do find God’s forgiveness and to some degree peace in their lives, but they are never the same because of their actions.  All they could have been has either been lost or severely restricted because of who they were and what they did.  Not only that, but their family members will often suffer the shame and disgrace of their actions for generations to come.

          For example, did you know that the grand children of Alois Hitler, the half-brother of Adolph Hitler, have made a pact not to have children so that the Hitler blood line will die with them?

          There is none so powerful, so wealthy, or prominent that they can demand God’s blessings or thwart the eventuality of the consequences of breaking God’s laws.  God’s blessings come to people as the consequences of their obedience to God’s laws and from loving God, their neighbors, and themselves.

          Yes, it may seem that some people get away with horrible things, but the truth be told they don’t.  We trust that God balances the scales of justice whether in this life or the life to come according to God’s standards of justice, mercy, and compassion not ours.  None of us would ask for God’s justice but rather beg for God’s mercy and compassion.  If we didn’t believe that God is just then anarchy and hopelessness would rule.  If we didn’t believe that God is in charge of justice, we could not establish governments, social order, or even religion.  If we didn’t believe this, we would have little hope in this life or the life to come.

          Say what you may, the human spirit knows that no one is immune to the consequences of breaking God’s laws nor is anyone immune to the blessings of keeping God’s laws.  Not even a general in our enemy’s army.

          And, know this also, God is the God of all people and will work God’s will and ways through the greatest or least, even a little slave girl--if, if, people are open to the possibilities of God’s healing in their lives as the story of Naaman tells us.

          This may offend some people’s sensibilities, it may distort our sense of self-importance as Christians, but rest assured God is the God of all people whether we like it or not.  I personally like it.  The thought of God ruling the universe and the affairs of humankind according to my prideful, petty expectations is a hell-of-an idea.