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2 Kings 5.1-15
Naaman, 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.Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And 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. He 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.” 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.” But 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.”
So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But 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! Are 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. But 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’?” So 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.
Then 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.”
A mighty commander. Raids and captives. A treasure readied to secure healing. “Go then,” the king of Aram tells his champion, Naaman, “and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”
The king of Israel is dismayed at what he reads: “When this letter reaches you, know that . . .”
For me, one of this past year’s defining characteristics is an ever-present ellipsis . . . the news alert . . . . the email bing . . . the phone ring . . . multiple times this past year I understood the urge to clench my hands and tear my own clothes . . .
“So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots . . .”—the message was clear to the king of Israel, the show of power and its implicit threat. Elisha, however, is literally unmoved. He sends a messenger out to Naaman. The army commander is enraged at the perceived slight, anger triggered by his sense of personal superiority (“I thought that for me he would”) and nationalistic bias (wash in the waters of Israel?).
But, for the second time in this passage, when given advice by his servants—persons far below his social station and over whom he likely has absolute authority, including as to life or death—Naaman listens and acts. In this listening and doing, he is made clean. Healed. In the words of the text: “restored.” When he returns to Elisha, Naaman testifies that he knows something new about God.
Surely, healing and restoration—returning to God—may be sparked by arduous, acute trial or tragedy, a healing catalyzed by emergency forged into lasting commitment. But I don’t think that’s how it happens for most of us most of the time. Something I’ve been trying to return to, as these pandemic months of what for me has become mostly a day-to-day routine of at times grinding monotony and near isolation, is the idea of practice.
It’s an idea that for me recalls early life lessons at school, in music, in sports: repetition and routine, repetition and routine, until, incrementally, the new becomes the known becomes instinct becomes reflex. So I’ve been trying to remember to practice: to breathe and keep calm like Elisha, to remember that God is working (“ . . . by him the Lord had . . . ”), to listen like Naaman, to do and do again and do again whatever blessed thing can, at times, feel infuriatingly routine, to keep myself open for what new thing I might learn to know of God.