July 6, 2025 Sermon
Sermon title: “Naaman the Arrogant General”
Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1-14
(Other lectionary suggestions include Psalm 30, Galatians 6:7-16, and Luke 10:1-11 and 16-20.)
2 Kings 5:1-4
The Healing of Naaman
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.” 4So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.
A reminder: Drak Druella will be the preacher next week. We are going to a Celebration of Life event for Harlane’s cousin Mike, who died at age 82 of Alzheimer’s. Drak’s sermon is on Luke 10:38-42, with the title “Present with Jesus.” Today the sermon is about a Syrian general named Naaman, and I have to say that I like this story. It shows a lot of things, including arrogance on the part of Naaman, who changes his mind, and that’s a good thing! It also shows how the ancients got along with each other, even when they were perceived as enemies. And I learned something: the leprosy that is spoken about was probably more like a skin disease and NOT like the dreaded disease of Jesus’s day. How do I know this? Wikipedia says that Alexander the Great’s armies brought it from India in about 325 BCE. That’s interesting, isn’t it? In 1492 didn’t Columbus’s men bring disease from Europe that killed off some of the native American population? War is terrible and even brings on unintended consequences.
One of the things I like about today’s Scripture reading is the generosity of spirit that we see in the servant girl. We don’t get her name, but she is so concerned about this foreign general that she wishes he’d let the prophet Elisha do something for him!
By the way, Naaman’s name means “pleasantness.” And we are told that his men liked him - so he was certainly a decent commander. His arrogance shows when Elisha asks him to bathe in the Jordan River, and his feeling is that the rivers in Syria are every bit as great as the Jordan, so why can’t he bathe in his own rivers? It would be like a man in our country trying to say that the Mississippi River is better than the Thames or the Ebro or the Tiber in Italy. But the lucky thing here is, his own servants talk him into doing as Elisha says. And it is also interesting that this non-Israelite is dealt with in a kind manner. He gets a SECOND CHANCE! In some parts of the Old Testament, God strikes down disobedient sorts - but Naaman gets another chance. I can’t tell you why, but he is dealt with rather generously. Could this be another example of God doing what God wants to do WHEN God wants to do it? Maybe. And one more thing: Naaman tries to give Elisha gifts for his cleansing activity, and Elisha refuses them. Why? Maybe to show that God’s goodness and generosity can’t be bought. If so, that’s a good point: the gift of Eternal Life is a GIFT, and there is no way of BUYING such a gift. Just a thought.
The skin disease called “leprosy” could have kept a person excluded from the community. The fact that Naaman still had access to his king indicates that the disease was not that serious YET.
The affliction could also keep people away from worship, so the servant girl thought that Elisha as a religious figure might be able to cure Naaman.
It is interesting to me that Elisha does not immediately go to Naaman himself, but he uses an intermediary. This also shows Naaman’s arrogance: he doesn’t want an intermediary! He wants the man himself. In other words, Naaman thinks he deserves TOP DRAWER treatment, not some lower representative! Says the commentator Graeme Auld, Elisha’s response to Naaman “is not the sort of diplomacy which normally wins hearts, not the kind of bedside manner that generally cultivates rich private patients with any success!"
Naaman’s staff are a bit more pragmatic, and they may even LIKE him. And we should keep in mind that he even impressed the captive Israelite slave girl. Naaman’s staff “have more experience than their master at being at the receiving end of official high-handedness.”
The New Testament mentions Naaman and his leprosy in Luke 4:27. So, Jesus knew this story. “There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” According to Wikipedia, “Christian theology depicts Naaman as an example for the will of God to save people who are considered by men as less than pious and unworthy of salvation. The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, uses the word BAPTIZEIN for the dipping that heals Naaman the heathen from the skin disease called “leprosy”.” And, of course, we all remember that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River centuries later.
Finally, there is a little joke here! Naaman asks for some SOIL from Israel to take to Syria. And then Naaman is able to say that there is no God in all the EARTH as great as Israel’s God. Surely, we are intended to be amused by this little joke about SOIL and EARTH. But we get the answer right at the beginning: Yahweh had given victory to Syria. That’s right: Israel’s God had given thru Naaman victory to Syria. The meaning is that GOD rules over all, and because of a righteous general – or ALMOST righteous general - God grants victory to one of Israel’s enemies. That’s astounding, don’t you think? God does what God wants whenever God wants to do it, and that sometimes means granting victory to an enemy of Israel! Amen.
Pastor Skip
