Mountains and Molehills (July 6)

Readings, 2 Kings 5: 1-14 and Luke 10:1-11
Image, Ernst Schiess, Boy Bathing in the River (1872-1919)


Let’s go through this story from Kings, replete with fake problems, invented obstacles, and raging egoism. Naaman, a decorated general of the Arameans, suffers from leprosy. He is alerted, through a young Israelite he enslaved that there is a prophet in Samaria who could heal him. Naaman goes to his king to request a letter of introduction in order to go into Israel and seek this prophet. 

The king of Aram gladly grants his request and Naaman fills his coffers with gold, silver, and fine garments and heads to the court of the Israelite king. When the king of Israel reads the letter from the king of Aran, which says When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy, he freaks out. 

The king of Israel assumes that the request is a deliberately impossible one; aimed to set him up for failure and provide pretext for the Arameans to increase their military assault. Thankfully Elisha hears of his king’s panic and tells him to send Naaman over.

So Naaman heads off and arrives at the house of Elisha and receives no welcome. Instead, Elisha sends out a messenger to say: Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean. Naaman takes this rather poorly. And while the story is clear this is a fault in his character, we might pause here to notice our glass houses before we start throwing stones.

Because if I travelled a great distance to see a one-of-a-kind specialist who might be able to heal my chronic health condition, but when I get there they just send out an assistant to tell me to go wash myself… I might be a little put out. Naaman walks away in a rage, ranting about his mistreatment, declaring surely the glorious rivers of his own country are better than those of Israel. If he’s going to wash himself clean, he may as well do it locally.

His servants correctly (though delicately) diagnose Naaman as someone who looks at a molehill and wishes it were a mountain. They appeal to him: Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? 

Again I think this is an attitude we can all succumb to (even if we are not noble or notable figures in our society). We all want to feel that our problems are at least a little unique and their solutions worthy of a story. We might have found ourselves, at one time or another, telling a story about how difficult our day was, or what a saga our trip to the shops turned out to be, only to get 2/3rds through and start to realise maybe this story doesn’t quite have the juice we hoped it did, maybe it is coming up short in the requisite twists and turns to justify the increasing length it is taking to tell it. In a panic we start to stretch a few of the obstacles we faced “the wheel of the trolley was not just wobbly but basically falling off”, or maybe we jump back to clarify that “when I said I had to go back and forth between the shops three times I forgot to mention that on the second go there was this huge truck blocking the way.” Perhaps Naaman worries it will sound silly, if on his return to home, the story he has to tell is “a servant of the prophet told me to bathe in a lake.” It’s basically like spending hours trying everything to fix your computer, only for someone from IT support telling you to turn it off and on again and that working.

The question comes down to this for Naaman, do you want to be healed, or do you want special treatment? Do you want to be well, or do you want to appear heroic? Because if you want to be healed then what are we doing here: do what Elisha says and be healed. Good sense prevails upon Naaman and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy.   

At its heart, the message of this story is summed up by Naaman himself when he returns from the Jordan: Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Despite worldly appearances and military records, this is the truth of the world. Naaman himself declares the essence of the Shema, the central prayer of the people of God, Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. This is the theological bedrock of the passage. But beyond this, there are, as we have seen, insights to be gleaned about our human proclivity to desire not only the result we want, but to get it in a suitable way.

Now when it comes to wanting courteous bedside manner, this is understandable and justified. When it comes to wanting a story which felt dramatic to us to land as captivating to another, this is relatable. It can be taken to a fault and we ought to be aware of, like Naaman, cutting our own nose to spite our face. But the bigger risk in this story and for us, is the risk we take when we believe that we should receive God’s grace in a human way.

For what God has promised, what God has accomplished, what God gifts is bestowed upon all in a manner at once sufficient and impartial. What Christ accomplished on the cross, the salvation and reconciliation, was achieved once and for all and there is no special more glorious and honourable way to attain it. What Christ gifts to the church by way of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are given through humble materials of water, bread, and wine, and there is no more special, glorious, or honourable way to receive them. What the Spirit pours out on the church, fruit and gifts, are poured out on all flesh and there is no special, more glorious or honourable way to receive them. We see time and again across Scripture the desire to receive a special blessing, a unique gift, a secret initiation to an upper-tier and these are denied and spurred by prophet, apostle, and messiah. There is no attitude more antithetical to the kingdom of God, than expecting to enter it through a special door reserved for those used to using special doors in earthly kingdoms. Likewise, there is no false teaching more pernicious as to claim that your blessing, your ritual, your church holds the keys to just such a hidden, special, unique door. Elisha, we learn if we read on in the story just a little more, refuses even to accept payment from Naaman, for such would teach that the gift and blessing of God is something that can be accessed through earthly riches. 

Such egalitarian simplicity pervades Jesus’ instructions as he sends out the seventy. Do not go out with goods and gifts that could buy you special treatment. When you arrive in town, do not withhold your peace until you see what prosperity it might garner. Settle in the same place, don’t trounce from house-to-house shopping for the most honourable treatment. Disciples are to receive hospitality and dignity, not prestige and profit. Likewise, they are not to go out looking to become heroes. They are not asked to ascend unforgiving mountains. If they are not welcomed, they may offer words of warning, but then they are to move on.  
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What Christ has accomplished is freely given. Worldly prestige based on human values cannot procure it in any secret or special way befitting an inflated sense of superiority. Which is good news for those of us who might not have slave-girls to alert us to the power of prophets, might not have the ear of the king to arrange our travel and treatment, might not have coffers full of gold and garment to purchase the prophet, might not have servants and confidants to talk down our egos. These things are not needed to be restored and enter the kingdom of God. The waters of baptism and the bread of the Lord’s table, the righteousness of Christ is made freely available to all who cry for help: gifts of God for the people of God.