Today’s gospel story from the first chapter of Mark has an unsettling ending. Near the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus has just performed one his first healing miracles, curing a man identified as a leper. But this is followed by Jesus “sternly warning” the man to tell no one about the miracle— a warning that the man is of course unable to follow— and then by Jesus being visited by publicity that he does not welcome.
When I saw that the gospel reading was about Jesus curing someone of leprosy, my first thought was that it would be the more familiar tale to many of us, about Jesus healing ten men, only one of whom then comes back to thank him (Luke 17:11-19).
Now that is a preacher-friendly gospel—especially for a volunteer, part-time preacher and moonlighting high school history teacher. It has a nice, useful moral lesson. It’s a special favorite for parents driving home from church who want to review what we learned in church today: Jesus healed ten people. Only one of them came back to say thank you— and two thousand years later we’re still talking about it. Always remember to say thank you!
But here in the first chapter of Mark (and in versions of this same story in Matthew and Luke), one man with leprosy is encountered, and one is cured. What Jesus says after he heals the man is, “See that you say nothing to anyone.”
That’s not preacher-friendly.
So of course I decided to turn my attention to the reading from the Hebrew bible, from the Second Book of Kings.
(By the way, the lectionary schedules this same passage from Second Kings as the first reading when Luke’s story of the healing of ten IS the day’s gospel. It’ll be coming around again in October 2013. You’ll want to be here.)
This story, of the healing of the Aramaean general Na’-aman by the prophet Elisha, is full of drama, personality, controversy, and extreme behavior.
Naaman is a successful general from Aram, where Syria is today. We learn that he has won victories over the Israelites, taken Israelites captive, and brought them home to be his servants.
We also learn that his servants are devoted to him— they seem to worry a lot about his health. And we learn that Naaman listens to his servants, and values their opinions. The Israelite servant girl says, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria,” and before we know it Naaman is asking his King for permission to go find this prophet.
The King of Aram seems to assume that the prophet the servant spoke of is somehow answerable to the King of Israel. He sends Naaman on his search for the prophet by writing a letter to the king, and loading him up with gifts for the king.
More about those gifts in a minute. But first—that’s not the way things are in Israel.
The prophet, Elisha, is a persistent critic of the King. This particular king is Jehoram, the second son of Ahab and Jezebel (2 Kings 3:1-3). He has continued the devotion to the golden calf of his predecessor Jeroboam, and (to some extent) the dreadful worship of the Phoenician god Baal that his parents had promoted.
A few chapters after this, Elisha’s messenger will be the one who anoints Jehu, the faithful army commander who will kill Jehoram and Jezebel in a coup (2 Kings 9:1-13).
By the way, learning this about King Jehoram certainly helped me understand the seemingly surprising statement in the text, that by Naaman, the Lord had given victory to the Aramaeans, Israel’s enemies.
Anyway, Naaman arrives at the palace of Jehoram, bearing as gifts ten talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold—and ten sets of garments.
One of the reference sources I consulted told me that this amount of silver would be worth about $2,000, and the gold about $3,300— but that source was published in the mid-1960s, so multiply it times about 15 to get today’s values. Another source told me that it’s approximately 750 pounds of silver and 150 pounds of gold.
Either way, that’s a big load to travel with, and a lavish gift— worth somewhere between $80,000 and a million dollars or more today.
It makes the ten sets of garments seem like a trivial throw-in— a bit like the box of Belgian chocolates you get, if you up your donation and spring for a second dozen Valentine roses from WBUR this week.
Naaman also brings this incomprehensible letter from the King of Aram, and the King of Israel freaks out. Is it a trick? Is he trying to start a war? It never enters the Israelite King’s mind that the letter refers to the prophet Elisha— just as it never entered the Aramaean King’s mind that Jehoram might not have control over the prophets who live in his kingdom.
Elisha, we learn, has access to some very good intelligence. Somehow he hears of Naaman’s visit to King Jehoram, and he sends an imperious message to the King : “Let him come to me.”
So Naaman goes to Elisha’s house, and now it’s his turn to get angry. Naaman bristles when Elisha won’t come out to greet him, and again when he hears a message bearing Elisha’s simple instructions to bathe seven times in the River Jordan. Is that all?
Naaman doesn’t do things the easy way, ever. Just after the passage we heard today, we will learn that once he’s cured, Naaman will try to load up two mules with earth from the land of Israel. When he returns home, you see, he wants to be able to pray and offer sacrifices while standing on the soil of Israel, because, he says, “there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”
This time, though, Naaman listens to his servants again. And here’s what they say: “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?”
This seems to me to be the essential lesson that ties together today’s readings about men cured of leprosy.
It’s a warning against the sin of pride— in this case, the pride that says that for the practice of our faith to be true, it must be difficult.
Naaman’s servants remind him that faith doesn’t have to be difficult, especially if that difficulty only serves to reinforce his own sense of specialness. He just needs to listen and pay attention to what the Lord is really asking of him. As we all do. And sometimes we need to accept that that might be something very simple.
We don’t have to practice the faith heroically— just faithfully.
Now some people are called to do great and wondrous deeds, which Naaman certainly had done in his career as a general. Members of our own parish are called to an astonishing number of heroic missions, in the city and around the world, up to and including the work of medical missioners to Haiti.
And sometimes we are called the way Naaman is called in this story— to simple acts of devotion and service, of faith and love.
This brings us back to Mark’s Gospel, where Jesus and the man he cures of leprosy have a conversation very similar, in its import, to the one between Naaman and his servants.
You see, the conversation I should have focused on in the Gospel is the one that takes place before the healing, not after.
Jesus and the man he will cure both utter two phrases, and they are mirror images of each other.
The sick man says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”
The words call to mind the essential phrase in the Lord’s Prayer— “Thy will be done.” This man seems to understand this part intuitively, acknowledging it by saying to Jesus, “If you choose. . . .”
Jesus replies, “I do choose. Be made clean.”
Jesus’ response to the sick man’s simple profession of faith is just as simple, but it goes to the heart of his redemptive mission.
“I do choose.”
The promise behind this exchange is: If we are faithful, so will Jesus be. The one thing we all must do is to humbly profess our faith in him— faith that he will choose to make us clean, to set us free— and then to trust that all the rest of our calling will grow from that
And oh yes— don’t forget to say thank you!
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