II Kings 5:19–27
David A. Davis
October 4, 2015
Before I offer the scripture lesson from the second half of the 5th chapter of II Kings, let me tell you the story of Naaman one more time. Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram. That’s Syria. As it is told in the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament, Naaman was great man and held in the highest esteem by the king. He was a mighty warrior but he suffered from leprosy. The writer of II Kings tells that tt was because of Naaaman that the Lord had given a victory to Aram. It is way too easy for the reader to gloss over that point—that Yahweh would be at work in the military affairs of a foreign country, a country other than Israel. That God would bring about a victory for some OTHER nation.
In one of their conquests, the Arameans captured a young girl from Israel and forced her into the service of Naaman’s wife. The young girl was foreign to Naaman’s land and household. She never has a name in the story. She is little more than OTHER. Knowing how the mighty warrior suffered from leprosy, one day the young girl said, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He could cure him of his leprosy.” Her reference was to Elisha the prophet in Israel. If Naaman could only go and present himself to Elisha. Naaman told his king what the young girl had said and the king sent him off with his permission, telling him he would write a letter to the king of Israel on Naaman’s behalf. Naaman, a man of wealth and power, who could buy or trade or conquer just about anybody or anything, loaded up for the trip with silver and gold and garments. He was expecting to buy his health or at the very least to pay handsomely for the services of the Hebrew prophet.
At this point as the narrative unfolds, the two kings do what kings and leaders and politicians so often do. They thought that this was going to be all about them. Never mentioning Elisha the prophet of God in his letter, the king of Aram writes to the king of Israel that, “I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” The king of Israel was immediately convinced that the foreign king was trying to trick him or embarrass him, asking him to do something that was clearly impossible. He tore his clothes in lament and consternation. “Am I God, to give death or life, that his man, this king, sends word to me to cure a man of leprosy?” The king of Israel was sure that the OTHER king was just looking for a fight.
From somewhere offstage in this brief, self-absorbed, royal drama, Elisha overhears the king of Israel and says, “Why tear your clothes? Let the man come to me so that he may learn there is a prophet in Israel.” The king must have told Naaman the address for Elisha’s house because the mighty military leader—with his whole procession of horses and men and all his stuff—shows up outside Elisha’s door. The prophet, with a remarkable lack of flair and little response to the display outside the house, simply sends a message that instructs Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times to be made clean. That’s when Naaman hit the roof. “Does he not know who I am” was the gist of his reaction. Naaman screams that he thought at least the prophet would come out and wave his hands and call on the name of his God. The rivers in Damascus are better, cleaner, wider, and deeper than all the waters of Israel! And he turns and stomps off in a rage.
Once again wisdom and calmer heads come from the nameless and the lowly. Naaman’s servants talk some sense into him, saying, “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? So if all he said was, ‘Wash, and be made clean,’ why not do it?” So Naaman headed over the Jordan and dipped himself seven times. According to the word of the man of God, according to Elisha, the prophet’s word, Naaman’s flesh was restored. He was made clean. He had the flesh of a young boy. Like that of a young boy, which of course brings the reader’s mind back to the young girl whose idea the whole thing was in the first place.
Naaman returns to Elisha and affirms the God of Israel as the one true God. He tries to pay Elisha for his services, but Elisha steadfastly refuses. Naaman asks for some dirt from the land of Israel so he can create an appropriate place back in Aram to offer sacrifices to the Lord. But he asks one more favor from the prophet. “If my boss, the king, needs my help to enter the house of Rimmon—as he bows down to the gods of Baal for worship—when I bow down with him because he is after all the king, may the Lord pardon your servant on just this one count, this one little bowing down to a foreign god thing, this little pickle of being a warrior who acknowledges the one God of Israel while still serving a foreign king who worships other gods. And in a rather stunning Old Testament nod to the OTHER, Elisha says “Go in peace.”
II Kings 5:19–27
Gehazi. That’s not a name from the Bible you hear very often. Gehazi. Most likely a name from the Bible you’ve never heard before, period! To be honest, I never paid attention to a the servant named Gehazi until last Monday morning. Gehazi. The servant of Elijah who was convinced that Naaman should have given something for the healing, that Elijah and his household deserved something for all the effort, that at the very least, Elisha should have taken what the foreign soldier offered. Gehazi. The one who set out after the healed and transformed Naaman determined to get something out of him. The one who flat out lied and took advantage of Naaman’s willingness to give. The one who thought he deserved a little something-something. Gehazi, the only named servant in the story. The servant of the man of God who then bears the leper’s mark as the foreign mighty man, a prototypical OTHER, rides away clean and restored. That clinging leprosy here in the last act of the one-chapter drama reads less like some kind of judgment of God and more like an unforgettable Shakespearian-like twist. Gehazi. It’s a name to remember.
Not surprisingly scholars and commentators don’t spend much time with Gehazi either. In his commentary on I and II Kings Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann subtitles this last section of chapter 5 as, “the Infection of Greedy Gehazi.” According to Brueggemann, the mischievous servant’s role in the story offers the faithful a lasting warning about greed and covetousness in the consumer-driven, the one-who-acquires-the-most-wins culture we live in. Another Bible scholar, Terence Fretheim, argues however that the issue at stake in the prophet’s indictment of Gehazi is, “more than deception or greed.” The sin, Fretheim concludes, is a theological one that “endangers the very nature of faith and obscures the gracious work of God.”
The story of Naaman is full of boundary twisting and crossing. Yahweh brings victory to a foreign king. The servant girl from Israel offers the healing word in Naaman’s Aramean house. The prophet Elijah gives a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to Naaman, who knows he will have to bow down to the gods of Baal when he helps the king of Aram into the house of Rimmon. And Naaman, who was a mighty man of valor—but he was a leper, but he was a foreigner—received the healing, restorative, transformative power of God at the word of the prophet of God without any charge, or cost, or gift. It was, as we say in Reformed theological circles, a taste of the unmerited grace of God. And in Fretheim’s view, Gehazi’s action, his sin, was exactly that post-healing demand for a gift that threatened to “obscure the gracious work of God” by offering even a hint that Naaman had to engage in a transaction, offer a gift, pay for the healing and his newfound faith. As a result, Gehazi, the servant in the prophet’s house, receives the curse of leprosy and the OTHER is restored and has faith. The foreigner has become the insider. The one inside ends up as the shunned and unclean other. As Fretheim concludes, “The boundary lines of the community of faith are less clear then the insiders often suggest.”
Last month I was invited to participate on an interfaith panel at a large Hindu conference up in Edison. They said there were 1,000 people there. The panel included a rabbi, a Buddhist priest, a Hindu leader, a Sikh, a Jainist monk, and me representing the entire Christian tradition. After each panelist presented on beliefs or doctrines that can bring us together and that which can drive us further apart, the floor was opened for questions. A young Hindu student came to the microphone and said, “This question is for the rabbi and the pastor. I apologize for being blunt and naming the elephant in the room, but after death, when you are heaven, will you expect to see me there?” I graciously let the rabbi answer first. Rabbi Justus Baird from Auburn Seminary in New York City explained that if there were six rabbis up on stage instead of the interfaith group and the same question were posed, the rabbis would argue amongst themselves, avoid a firm answer, and everyone including them would leave frustrated. Because in the Jewish faith, he said, we’re sort of ambiguous about heaven.
It was my turn to answer. I said that if the panel included six Christian pastors, I was pretty confident that five or even 5.5 of them would look that young man in the face and tell him, no, they would not expect to see him in heaven. And then I told him that that I am more and more convinced that Christians underweigh or even neglect the radical nature of the boundary-shattering nature of what Jesus did in his ministry: his touch, his healing, his hospitality, his embrace, his eating with sinners and tax collectors, his conversation with the Samaritan woman, and on and on. It’s easier to lift a quote from Jesus’ teaching than to be humbled and brought to your knees by how he lived. And I finished by telling the room that I long ago committed to a preaching ministry and a theological understanding that left such decisions about heaven to God and God alone. After all, God’s love and mercy and grace have to be so greater, so much greater, than the doctrines we create and cling to. Or as the professor wrote, “The boundary lines of the community of faith are less clear then the insiders often suggest.” Isn’t that right, Gehazi?
Gehazi. He must represent the person of faith who insists that the love and mercy of God can go no further than the boundaries we create, can never go beyond the doctrine we hold dear, or must always come with the price and expectation we define. Gehazi must be the forebearer of that follower of Jesus who, if she is honest, really does think God’s grace is something you have to earn by your piety or by the formula of your prayer. Or that grandpa in the family who holds so firm to his convictions and believes that even right there in his own family that Jesus must decide to shut the door on some who will never enjoy eternity’s banquet. More truthfully, grandpa sort of decides for Jesus, right? Or those really public Christian voices who so easily accept the mercy of God for themselves and try to withhold it from others. Gehazi. If you will excuse the expression, he is a kind of patron saint for all those who act like and believe that God’s favor is theirs to dole out and theirs to collect on, that they ought to get a little something-something for the effort. For Gehazi, Jesus would be more like a political candidate whose platform agrees with everything he thinks, thus earning his vote, and thereafter Gehazi would expect Jesus to work for him, to please him, to answer to him. Undermining the gospel at every turn. Undermining the gracious work of God.
“People will gather from east and west and north and south and sit at table in the kingdom of God.” Those are the first words of the Table Liturgy on World Communion Sunday. A first thought for you and me every time we come to this Table. And the overwhelming thought for those of us who take the name of Christ, instead of who is here and who is not, who can be here and can not, who is in and who is not, here and at the banquet table in glory—instead of all that, your first thought ought to be, “I can’t believe Jesus invited me to this party!”
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