July 6, 2025

Pentecost 4 Lectionary 14

2 Kings 5:1-14; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Epiphany, Winnipeg

I know you were listening, but there’s a whole pile of detail in that story we heard from Second Kings a few minutes ago, so if you’ll bear with me (and even if you won’t) I’ll review it and maybe even embellish just a bit.

There’s a man named Naaman, and he’s the commander of the army of a place called Aram. Aram and Israel are neighbours who go to war against each other now and then. You know, that’s just what countries do now and then, with or without reason.

So Naaman is the commander of the army of one of Israel’s enemies, OK? Now Naaman has some weird skin condition. The word gets translated in our bibles as leprosy, but the fact is that nobody’s quite sure what exactly that meant way back then. Whatever it is, it’s a skin condition worth noting.

Now Naaman doesn’t live alone; he lives with a woman whose name is…well, we don’t get to hear what her name is. She has a servant, who is a young girl from Israel, whose name we don’t hear, and who was captured in battle by Naaman’s army. So in other words, she’s a prisoner of war, and a slave. She says to Naaman’s wife, “You know, there’s a prophet in Israel who could help your husband.” So Naaman’s wife tells Naaman, and Naaman tells his own king, and the king sends Naaman to his enemy the king of Israel with a letter, a hundred and fifty pounds of gold, seven hundred and fifty pounds of silver, and ten sets of clothes. Because, you know, if you’ve got all that silver and gold you should be able to get whatever you want, right? And if you’ve got ten sets of clothes to boot that should really seal the deal?

So Naaman comes to the king of Israel with all that money and all those gifts, but the king of Israel just panics and thinks that the king of Aram is trying to pick a fight or make fun of him. He knows that even with all that money on offer he can’t heal someone’s skin disease. He can’t meet the king of Aram’s demands. “Does he think I’m God?”, he asks?

But there’s this prophet in Israel named Elisha. He sends a message to the king and says, “It’s going to be OK. Send Naaman to me.” So Naaman, with all of his horses and chariots and silver and gold and ten sets of clothing, goes to Elisha’s house. He knocks on the door, but Elisha doesn’t answer. He’s busy with something more important or at least more interesting than an army commander with silver and gold and ten sets of clothing. So Elisha just gets someone else to go give a message to Naaman, and the message is, “We don’t need the cash. Just go have a bath in the river over there, the Jordan.” That’s all. Just go have a bath.

That makes Naaman lose his mind. He says, “This Elisha wouldn’t even come to say hello, he didn’t even see all of this money and clothing and power and chariots, and he didn’t do anything dramatic or showy and wave his hands around all over the place and make a fuss over me. He just told me to go wash in this little river. Why should I do that? We’ve got perfectly good rivers back home in Aram. We’ve got better rivers there.”

So Naaman storms off and aims for home…but his servants come to him and say, “Sir: If he told you to do something complicated you would do it. If he gave you some secret words or a special prayer you would say it. But all he said was ‘Go and wash in the river.’ Why don’t you just go and see if it works?”

So Naaman goes and has a bath in the Jordan River, and suddenly he has the skin of a youngster again.

Where is that river?

This could now become a sermon about healing. Naaman had this skin thing going on, and maybe he’d tried everything or maybe it didn’t really bother him – it didn’t keep him from being in charge of the nation’s army, right? But when he went to the land of the God of Israel, who is the God we worship and the God who raised Jesus from the dead, the God who came to the world in Jesus and healed so many just like Naaman, he was healed.

That sermon would be OK.

Or this could become a talk about power and wealth, and about how God just doesn’t much care if anyone’s got a hundred and fifty pounds of gold and seven hundred and fifty pounds of silver and ten sets of clothing. If the world is run by a handful of billionaires who think that their money can get them whatever they want, God is not impressed with them at all.

Or we could just say that God doesn’t ask us to do anything complicated or showy to get ourselves healed or forgiven or saved or whatever we think we need the most. Just ask. Take a bath in that water in that font. Ask to be made well. Ask for the person sitting next to you to be made well. Ask for the world to be made well.

But maybe this story isn’t really all about healing a skin disease, or kings and riches and someone named Naaman and someone named Elisha.

At Bible Study on Monday, I asked what really stood out for everyone in this story we’ve just heard. After a few of us responded to the question, there was a little lull in the conversation, and then someone at the table said, “I’m just noticing the young girl.”

“I’m just noticing the young girl.”

Did you notice the young girl? Maybe you did. I’d forgotten about her already. And for me, at least, when someone said they just noticed the young girl, everything about this story changed right there. This story is about this young girl, who is a servant, a slave, really, in Naaman’s house, and a prisoner of war on top of that.

The first time I heard this story, someone called it “The Healing of Naaman the Leper.” That seemed obvious at the time. But maybe we should call it, “The young girl who knew where to get help.” Or “The young slave who told her master what to do and he listened.” Or maybe, “The young girl who told the general to get help from his enemies.”

There was a commander of the army of Aram who had this weird skin disease. There was a slave in his household, a prisoner of war, and she stood right up and put her hands on her hips and said to her master, “I know where you can get help. From your enemy.” She had guts, she had nerve, she had, you know the word, chutzpa, and she spoke right out. And her mistress listened. And the master who kept her captive listened. And the king listened. Her own king back home in Israel didn’t listen, but not everybody can get the point, right? And Elisha the prophet listened.

That’s the real miracle of the story. The one who has the least power of all spoke, and everybody listened. That’s the miracle. And because of that, Naaman’s skin became like the skin of a youngster again.

The story does all kinds of things, but for today it paints a picture of a new world, where someone who has suffered the worst effects of war is the one who gets heard, and the word of someone who has been enslaved matters. This story called “The young girl who tells her master what to do and he listens,” this story paints a picture of a new world where the ones with all the wealth and position don’t get to silence the ones they might see as weak. Someone listens to the young girl who has something to say. The servants tell their master what’s what – “Go take a bath” - and the master listens. A young girl speaks and for a moment, even if only for a moment, old enemies are crossing each other’s borders not to fight but to find help from each other. And healing gets underway.

Here’s a thought: When you read the Bible, look for the characters who don’t get noticed, and hear what they say, and see what part they play. When we do that, we just might hear something new. And maybe when we read the world around us we could do that same thing too. Look for the ones who are part of the story but who just get overlooked. Listen for the voices that might not always get heard.

And you know, that’s how God deals with us. God hears the voices of the smallest of characters in the story of our lives and the stories of the world. God hears the voices that no one else hears, even if one of those voices is yours. And as hard as it might be, God will open the ears of those who will not hear.

It’s not all about the strong and all the wealth and all the power. God hears your voice too, and not because you have silver and gold and ten sets of clothes. But because your voice matters. Even the smallest of voices matters.

God takes what seems small, like the voice of a young girl in Aram, like a few disciples with no names who Jesus sends into the world to do and to say what Jesus does and says. God takes what seems small and silent, like a voice gone silent on a cross and in a tomb; then like a voice that speaks a quiet “Good morning Mary,” on that first Easter Sunday morning. God gives all those voices. And the healing begins.