Dirty River

The Old Testament story of Naaman and Elisha is very human story. Naaman is a foreign general who has leprosy. He learns there is someone in Samaria who can cleanse him of this disease and Naaman’s king writes the Israelite king to request a cure for Naaman. The prophet Elisha takes on the job. But not in the way Naaman expected.

Naaman rides up in front of Elisha’s house with his entourage, no doubt expected to be greeted by an awed Elisha. What an honor it is to be asked to provide a cure for this very important man who has come such a great distance. But Elisha doesn’t come out to meet him. Instead, he sends word that Naaman is to go to the Jordan River and wash seven times. It’s helpful to know that the Jordan river generally is a slow moving, muddy little river, hardly bigger than a creek in many places. When Naaman hears what he is to do, he’s incensed. In a rage, he and his horses and chariots turn from Elisha’s house and head off.

Here’s what he says. “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?"

Naaman came to Elisha with a preconception about what the interaction would be like. He was clear about what a man of his stature deserved. So when asked to bathe in a muddy river, he left, uncured. It’s as if he’s saying, “My way or no way.” As I thought about this story, I reflected on two important periods in my life where I was sure of the outcome that would be best for me. My prayer wasn’t “Show me the way.” It was more like, “This is the outcome I want.” When that outcome didn’t happen the way I wanted, I was disappoint in God’s unwillingness to provide what I wanted the way I wanted it. Yet, in the two instances I thought about, what did happen because I didn’t get my way was at least as good for me as if I had. 

Naaman acted like a petulant child when he didn’t get the attention he wanted and it prevented him from getting the cure he needed. To his credit, when his servants tried to reason with him, he listened. "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'?"

The story doesn’t tell us if Naaman struggled with the decision. I suspect he did. I imagine it took his servants more than one try to help him get past his rage. However long it took, he did go down to the humble little Jordan and give himself to it’s muddy embrace. Just as Elisha had promised, as he emerged from the seventh dip, he was cured.

His reaction was interesting. He headed back to Elisha with all his company. Face to face with the prophet, Naaman said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel." Perhaps that was as close as he could come to an apology and a show of appreciation; I don’t know. I’d like to believe he was a different man from that moment on, though.

I know I was when God mystified me with his love in the face of my lack of imagination.

Peace, Jerry+