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"Dismounting from the High Horse" | 2 Kings 51-14 | July 4, 2004 |
That may be the reason why we (or at least I) love today’s story from 2 Kings, the story of Namaan and the little servant girl. It is also a story that is full of little hilarious scenes.
Namaan is a general and a hero in his home country but he has leprosy. In his house is a slave girl who attends his wife. The girl is one of those who has been carried into captivity from Israel. She tells her mistress that she knows of a prophet back home who does wonders and she is confident could cure the master. The wife relates this to her husband. He will try anything so he asks for permission to take a leave and go check this out. The king of Syria not only gives him leave but offers to give him a letter of introduction which turns out to be much stronger than "Here's one of my favorite generals please receive him warmly--it commands, heal my general.”
Now here is the first hilarious scene. The king of Israel reads the letter and turns white as a ghost. He wails, "Who does he think I am? Does he think I am a God??
"He’s trying to pick a fight. He's trying to start a quarrel."
The king begins to tear his clothes. "Why is he treating me like this?"
News of this reaches the prophet Elisha (you remember him from last week’s reading as the successor to Elijah). And he communicates to the king saying, in effect, “Don’t’ get your shorts in a knot. Send him on over to me."
Namaan heads for Elisha's house with what for that day was the equivalent of a motorcycle escort, in a stretch limo, with a suitcase full of $50 bills and a rack of designer clothes as gifts. (He obviously knew a thing or two about going to a health spa). Namaan arrives at Elisha’s little parsonage, probably expecting to meet some wise sage, some exotic guru with a long white beard who has some secret incantation to pronounce over him that will give him some relief.
Out of the house to greet this entourage comes a servant--not Elisha, not even Elisha's executive secretary, just a servant. What kind of treatment is this for a VIP?
Furthermore the servant does not even invite him in. He merely delivers a message from the prophet, "Go dip in the Jordan 7 times and you'll be like an Ivory soap ad."
Namaan throws a fit. He is insulted. He is furious. With face purple with outrage and voice shaking in anger he sputters, "What Effrontery! I can't believe how I've been treated.
I expected to be greeted 'in person' by the prophet, not by some flunkey.
I expected to see some kind of religious ceremony--some prayer or ritual.
I expected the prophet to wave his hand over me, or lay his hands on me, or give me some ointment or some healing cloth--something tangible--some kind of show.
And as for these instructions about washing in the Jordan river -- why it wouldn't even be considered a good drainage ditch back in Syria. Why not go wash in one of the lovely and powerful rivers back home, rivers worthy of the name???
The treatment he received he considered an insult to his intelligence and his prestige.
So he slams the door of the limo, rolls the windows up and instructs the driver to peel out of the parking lot in a spray of gravel headed for home in a huff. Then once again a little servant dares to confront and advise the great man. (Maybe the general is one of those people who flare quickly and then calm down and listen.)
His advisors say
Sir, if he had asked you to climb a mountain, you would have done it.
If he had asked you to drink some foul smelling potion, you would have done it.
If he had asked you to live for a week on carrot juice and figs, you would have done it.
If he had asked you to kill some beast or catch a huge fish you would have done that.
If he had asked you to make a big gift, you were prepared to do that.
If you had been asked to do some great thing, you would have done it.
Why not do what he asks even if it is a bit odd?
Namaan sees their point and goes to the Jordan river and dips himself seven times. We are not told if he almost quits when he slips unceremoniously on the muddy bank or whether after the 5th dip he gets that "huh nothing is happening" look.
You know the look, "I've exercised for a whole week and I haven't lost a pound" look. Maybe he still believes he is being made a fool of--but he continues for the prescribed 7 times and after he submits for the 7th time to the indignity of slithering down into the Jordan mud hole and washes the scripture says "his flesh was restored as a little child's, and he was clean."
Gushing with gratitude he returns to Elisha and offers a big gift.
Then he gets another surprise. Elisha says something like "I'm a prophet of God not a dermatologist. I won't accept anything."
At this Namaan orders his staff to get a truck load of dirt from this place to take back home and build an altar on so that he may worship Yahweh.
The story doesn't end there. Elisha has a servant, Gehazi, who can't believe that Elisha is going to let Namaan take all that lovely loot back to Syria. So he catches up with Namaan and tells him that some new seminary students have just arrived and sure could use some money and clothes, which Namaan quickly supplies. When Elisha asks Gehazi where he has been he responds "Nowhere"
"What have you been up to?" "Nothing."
Elisha confronts him with his scheme and Gehazi ends up with Namaan's illness.
I love the way the unexpected dances in and out of this wonderful story. Namaan is not treated as he expects. The treatment for his ailment is not what he expects. And Elisha's refusal to accept anything from Namaan is quite unexpected.
This postscript to the story is doubtless there as a warning to any who would misuse God's grace for greedy purposes. A message that apparently needs retelling each generation.
You can see why this story would appeal to a people frequently either in exile or under domination by powerful conquerors. The powerful general has to dismount from his high horse. The humble slave girl knows more about a cure than all the fancy court physicians. The power of the God of Israel is shown. Furthermore the grace of God is made available even to the foreigner. I love this story of servants telling their masters what to do. Enemy kings doing one another’s bidding. Elisha’s moxie. Namaan’s injured pride overcome by his desire to be made whole. The backstairs conversations between servant and mistress. The official missive from one king to another. The Syrian “dissing” the River Jordan.
Now, where are we in the story? We know what it is like to not get the treatment we want. I feel miserable, achy, feverish, sick. I go to the doctor and tell him I’m really sick, have the flu or something. “Nope,” he says, “you’ve got a cold.” “Well give me something,” I demand. “Nope,” he says again. “No cure for the common cold. Go home, rest, drink lots of liquids.”
“That’s all you can do for me, tell me to drink liquids? That’s something my mother would have told me,” I say.
“Your mother was right,” says the doctor.
Like Namaan, I leave determined never to go back to that quack.
More seriously, most of us are Assyrians. That is, most of us Americans who celebrate the 4th today are members of a powerful, secure, self-sufficient empire. We have achieved a degree of control over our world that most of the world’s people can only dream about. We are powerful and it is difficult, very difficult to dismount from our high horse.
If you have not read Anne Lamotts’ Traveling Mercies, I recommend it to you. Lamott was raised in a well-educated, relatively affluent family on the West Coast. She had learned well the lessons that we are self-sufficient, potentially powerful people who have within us what we need to make it through life. She writes, “I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try to save the world. . . .God forbid that someone should ever think I needed help.. I was a Lamott–Lamotts give help.”
But she discovered she needed help, lots of it. Beginning as a teenager, she gradually sunk into complete dependency on drugs and alcohol. Her life came completely unglued. She was appalled to find herself drawn to a little multiracial church.. She says,
I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, “I would rather die.”. . . One week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the song, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid and I opened up to the feeling–and it washed over me.”
It washed over her like the muddy Jordan River.
I don’t know why God tends to work this way, using the insignificant to get the pompous to dismount their high horse. There was one who came from a dusty, little nothing of a place and stood among us and offered us healing of the soul. He gathered his friends together, on the very night he was going to be betrayed to the forces of power who would kill him, and said to them, as he continues to say to us that this humble bread and wine symbolizes a new way of being that no amount of power and prestige can give. Take, eat, drink–this is for you. Amen
Joe Dunham
| Copyright © 2004 by Joe Dunham. All rights reserved. |