A Place in the Peaceable Kingdom
Intro
One of the many peculiar graces of my upbringing was the opportunity to grow up in a community that put a high value on reading the Bible. Now, keep in mind, I grew up in a pretty small town, and there weren’t a lot of things to do, but I remember one evening being invited over to my friend’s house where we sat around in a circle and read through the 4 gospels aloud out of a chronological bible my one friend had. Who does that kind of thing? Well, we did. You see, one of the programs our church offered was something called “Bible Quizzing,” and yes, it’s exactly as nerdy as it sounds. Essentially, we were given portions of the new testament every year that we were supposed to memorize. Every week we would learn a new chapter of the material and then every few months we would get together with teams from other churches all across the Prairies for Quiz Meets where we would be tested on our bible memorization.
The “game” aspect of quizzing was sort of like “Reach for the Top.” There would be three teams of four people who would sit on electric benches waiting for the Quiz Master to ask questions. Whenever somebody thought they knew the answer to the question, they would jump up and get a chance to answer it. There were a variety of types of questions one could answer such as finish the verse, quote this verse, interrogative questions, etc. Some of the more sophisticated quizzers (not me) would actually specialize in question types and would, in addition to learning the material everyone else knew, memorize the answers to all of one specific kind of question.
One of my favourite question types was only used in years where we had narrative passages, like the Gospels or Acts. These questions were called “Situation questions.” Situation questions would give you a line of dialogue and then ask you to name who said it, to whom, and where, or perhaps when or how. I didn’t realize it then, but this question type was actually an introduction to a very basic type of narrative text criticism.
What I love about the situation question is that it makes you pay attention to the little details of the text, it’s this kind of attention, for example, that allows us to notice details such as this from our passage in Kings today, “She said to her mistress” where “she” is the Israelite slave girl and the mistress is Naaman’s wife. How remarkable that a quiet word between an unnamed slave girl and an unnamed wife becomes the catalyst for the entire narrative of Naaman’s journey to Israel in search of healing.
As I began reading some of the literature on our passage for today I was quickly drawn to many of the narrative analyses of the text. This makes sense, as the type of text we find in 2 Kings ch. 5 is a narrative, so that kind of analysis is quite fitting. However, I suspect many of the scholars I was reading didn’t have the good fortune of growing up as bible quizzers, because their understanding of “situation questions” seems to be limited to asking “who said it and to whom.” Hence you get the types of observations I made above about the unnamed slave girl, and her outsized role in such a patriarchally focused text. But a good quizzer would understand that the quiz master is going to demand that you exhaust the entire range of possible “Who, what, where, when, why, and how” questions before you will be awarded any points. So, in the interest of partially satisfying the demand of that lingering quiz master voice in my head, I want to draw our attention to the question of “where” in our analysis of our lectionary reading this evening.
The Priority of Place
I focus on the question of “where” this evening, on the basis of a line from the ancient Greek philosopher Archytas of Tarentum who once said, “It is obvious that one has to grant priority to place.” But of course I suspect that for many of us, the priority of place is not obvious at all. We have largely lost a sense of place in our contemporary culture and this affects the way we read the Bible. You can see this being played out in the literature on this passage as the story of Naaman is deconstructed to provide us with a generic account of ironic subversions of power.
But if, as Archytas suggests, we must grant priority to place, we should begin our study of Naaman’s story by placing him. While there are a number of characters in this story that are unnamed, our text actually gives us a fair bit of information about where this story unfolds. We begin in Damascus in the Kingdom of Aram. A close reading of 1 and 2 Kings reveals that Aram is the major rival of the Omrides, the fourth dynasty of the northern kingdom of Israel.
Arguably, the most famous and influential King of the northern Kingdom of Israel was King Omri, the founder of the city of Samaria, yet the Bible devotes only 8 verses to his reign. We know he was the most influential, however, because of the archaeological evidence found in surrounding civilizations, such as the Meshe Stele, that refer to the kingdom of Israel as the kingdom of the Omrites over a period of a couple of centuries.
While the Bible does not have much to say about Omri, it does have a lot to say about Ahab. Ahab inherited the expansionist ambitions of his father Omri and entered into an alliance with one of the military superpowers of the region, the Phoenecians, or as the Bible knows them, the Sidonians, through his marriage to Jezebel. Attentive readers of the Old Testament will remember that these are the same people with whom King Solomon entered into a treaty in order to get the cedars with which he built the Temple in Jerusalem. As Solomon’s treaties with foreign powers lead to idolatry and failure, so to will the Omridic dynasty come to ruin through the idolatrous compromises of expansionist imperialism.
As the Omrides grow in power under Ahab, they soon come into conflict with the Arameans to the North-East. In 1 Kings 20:34, Ben-Hadad, the king of Aram mentions that the conflict extends back at least to the time of Ben-Hadad’s father and Ahab’s father Omri. The biblical record, however, only begins narrating the conflict with the first failed raid of Ben-Hadad in that same chapter. Ben-Hadad leads a large coalition of kings against Samaria and has the city surrounded when the Lord intervenes to deliver Ahab through the bravery of a handful of young men. Israel wins the day, but knows that the Arameans will be back in the spring with an even larger force - the prophets warn Ahab to begin preparations.
Meanwhile, back in Damascus, the Aramean generals are strategizing their next raid. They figure that the reason they were beaten back in their previous raid is because the “gods of the Israelites are gods of the hills.” They decide to attack Israel on the plains, which will negate the power of the alleged hill-gods and so, give them the victory.
We see where this going, I hope. The prophets of Israel receive word from the Lord - the Arameans think that the Lord is a god of the hills only, therefore the Lord will deliver the Arameans into the hands of Israel once again in order to prove to the nations that he is the Lord of the whole earth. The Lord tricks Ben-Hadad into attacking prematurely and the Israelites quickly rout their forces, eventually capturing Ben-Hadad. But right at the moment of victory, Ahab makes a decision that will spell his own doom. Having captured Ben-Hadad, Ahab again pursues expansionist imperialism over justice and makes a treaty with the Arameans to open up new free-trade routes and receive back some previously conquered territory.
Ahab’s preference for foreign alliances had already raised up religious and cultural resistance from within a certain faction of the prophets (think of Elijah’s slaughter of the prophets of Baal), and this latest treaty only stiffened the resistance. The prophets of the Lord inform Ahab that he is in deep trouble for making this treaty with a king whom the Lord had declared herem, devoted to destruction.
Ahab laughs this warning off, and for the next few years, there is peace between the two kingdoms. But, as is so often the case in international relations, Aram drags its heels on returning the captured cities to Israel, so in the third year, Ahab calls up the King of Judah to form a coalition to head north to recapture those cities by force. The King of Judah says, “I’m in, but first, consult the prophets.” So they consult the prophets and they all say, “go for it.” However, there is one more prophet that Ahab wants to hear from, Micaiah, one of the Yahwistic prophets that has so often opposed his reign before. After a bit of needling, Micaiah reveals that the Lord has sent a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets in order to send Ahab to his doom as punishment for all of his many crimes of real politicking.
As predicted, Ahab is deceived and advances on the Arameans at Ramoth-Gilead. In a passage oddly reminiscent of the Iliad, a soldier fires his bow randomly into the crowd and manages to hit Ahab, wounding him and forcing his retreat. Ahab, however, refuses to abandon the field and as the day progresses, bleeds out in his chariot, at which point the Israelites abandon the field and Ahab is brought back to Samaria for his final humiliation among the dogs and prostitutes. Ahab’s death foreshadows the end of the Omride dynasty itself as his son Joram is eventually assassinated by internal forces during yet another war with Aram several years later.
From Ahab’s death the narrative of Kings moves to the transition of prophetic leadership from Elijah to Elisha and our story for this evening comes at the end of a cycle of magic stories about Elisha that prove his prophetic authority.
As we turn to the story of Naaman, situated as it is within the larger drama of the Book of Kings, I ask you to hold in your mind the priority of place in understanding this drama. Naaman’s story comes to us not as a generic story about powerful men, but rather as a story that is freighted with the tensions of particular lands and peoples who have experienced the displacing politics of militarism and expansionist imperialism.
No God in all the Earth except in Israel (2 Kings 5.15)
Now Naaman is introduced to us as a mighty warrior, through whom the Lord had given victory to Aram over Israel. Could this perhaps be the unnamed archer who shot down Ahab? The text doesn’t say, but it’s fun to speculate. Naaman, the mighty warrior, has a mighty big problem - he’s a leper. It’s only a matter of time before others discover his secret and he is displaced from society.
How fortuitous, then, that within Naaman’s household resides one who has already been displaced - a young slave girl from Israel. She tells her mistress, ““If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” In this quiet sentence resides the hope of all displaced people - that there exists a place where the displaced belong and can be made whole.
Naaman, fearing his own displacement more than anything, decides that it is worth the humiliation of finding a cure amongst a people he has conquered in order to maintain his place within Aramean society. So he heads to Samaria and demands healing from the King of Israel. Of course, given the ongoing tensions between Aram and Israel, it is entirely appropriate for the King of Israel to react in the way he does. Naaman, in his desperation not to be displaced, is willing to bring the displacing fury of war upon Israel unless they can help him.
Enter Elisha. Never one to avoid conflict, this heir of Elijah and leader of the local resistance to the expansionist elite understands that the brunt of Naaman’s threat will be borne hardest by the common people. It will be the local folk who will be displaced into slavery as their towns are swallowed up in Aram’s political orbit. It is the ordinary people of Israel, as it is the ordinary people of every imperialist society, that bear the brunt of their leader’s failed ambitions. As a defender of the Yahwhist covenant of land and fidelity, Elisha allies himself with the Israelite monarchy in one of those many compromises that political realism requires and offers his services to Naaman.
Naaman continues on to Elisha’s house. Once arrived, he awaits the promised miracle. But Elisha does not come. The man of God will avert disaster for Israel for the sake of the people, but he will not be manipulated by the whims of the elite. Sending a servant out to Naaman, Elisha instructs Naaman to bathe 7 times in the river Jordan. At this, Naaman flies into a rage - has he really come so far to be told to take a bath? Surely he could have done as much back home in the Pharpar and Abana rivers, both of which flow from heights of Lebanon, bringing with them the wealth and prestige of Phoenecian influence. But the Jordan? The Jordan is a muddy creek in a conquered land, what power could possibly reside in its brown waters?
Again it is the voice of the displaced who come to Naaman’s rescue. His slaves beg him to heed the Man of God’s word. For the second time in our tale, it is the voice of nameless slaves, the ultimate displaced people, who offer hope to Naaman on the very precipice of his own displacement.
Naaman relents, he washes, and his skin is made smooth as a young boy. The hope of his displaced slaves has been vindicated - in Israel there is a God who heals. Overjoyed, the mighty general returns to Elisha with one last ploy to try. Naaman 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.”
But Elisha sees through this ruse. The Man of God has entered into the fraught complexities of international relations for one reason, to preserve the integrity of God’s covenant people from the threat of elite warfare. Having healed Naaman, Elisha is not about to commit the mistake of Ahab by attempting to profit from the situation of advantage he now occupies. So Elisha rebukes Naaman saying, “As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!”
The Earth, O Lord, is Fully of thy Mercy (Psalm 119.64)
Elisha’s rejection of Naaman’s offer of payment is the moment in which Naaman discovers the hope of that far-away Israelite slave girl. Pay careful attention to the exchange between Naaman and Elisha. First, Naaman confesses that there is no “god” in all the earth except in Israel. This is the radical conclusion of the best of Aramean theology. Remember, as a young man, Naaman was probably part of the army under Ben-Hadad who had been rebuffed by Israel under Ahab. The conclusion of the Arameans at the time was that the Israelite god must be a god of the hills, and that is why they had been unable to defeat Israel, but if they took the fight to the plains, perhaps they would prevail. Of course this approach failed and they were ultimately defeated there too. Now, much older, Naaman has received healing at the hands of this nameless god who had previously prevailed against him militarily. The common wisdom of the time was that each nation had its own gods who had jurisdiction over the lands of the people who lived within them. When nations went to war, their gods went to war against each other too, and the victor of the combat was assumed to have the stronger deity. However, even in defeat, the gods of different regions could still cause trouble, and so must be appeased by appropriate ritual acts. Indeed, when the Assyrians eventually destroy the northern kingdom of Israel several generations later, they find that lions keep attacking their settlers until Yahwistic priests can be brought back to the land to appease what they presume is a local deity.
Naaman’s confession to Elisha, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel” is a radical rejection of this polytheistic theology. Naaman adopts the radical atheism of the monotheists, yet he still clings to the regionalist framework he has been taught. Naaman now thinks that the whole earth is void of the divine except within Israel. This is why Naaman still believes a price is owed for the miracle of healing, the Israelites have a monopoly on god, and the nations must pay up. But this is precisely where Elisha rebukes him. Israel does not have some sort of monopoly control over a generic deity. Elisha serves the LORD, Yahweh, whose name is the great living I Am. Finally, Naaman understands. It is not that this place is significant because it has a god that offers magical powers to those who come there, but rather, this place has been made significant by the Lord whose works are mighty. The slave girl’s longing for her master is at last realized, Naaman has been restored to a place of honour in society, not merely because his skin has been purged of leprosy, but because Naaman has discovered the name of the one who establishes a place for all, free of charge.
So Naaman takes some soil home with him, that he might worship and sacrifice to the Lord alone from this day forth. In this soil, Naaman brings with him a token of the place in which he met the Lord of heaven and earth. Naaman came to Israel to buy the power necessary to maintain his position with the royal court in Damascus. He takes home a load of dirt and a blessing of peace from Elisha.
What a trip this has been for Naaman! His bath in the Jordan river did more than just renew his skin - it baptized him into the peaceable kingdom of Yahweh. Naaman takes some soil from that peaceable kingdom back into the heart of enemy territory to bear witness to the Lord who is living and active. In so doing, Naaman becomes one of the firstfruits of Israel’s witness to the nations. Yahweh did not set aside Israel as a covenant people and give them a land and a future in order to do a bunch of magic for their benefit. Rather, Yahweh elected Israel to bear witness to the reality of his peaceable kingdom, that all the kingdoms of the world would stream to his temple in Zion and realize that they too have been given a place on earth. Naaman, in his sojourn in Israel, has discovered the one who made heaven and earth and gave everything that is, a place within this good creation. Naaman, by heeding the voices of those who had been displaced by the violence of the nations, has received the blessing of peace that is the hope of all displaced people. Naaman takes with him a reminder of the place of God’s covenant with Israel as a witness to the nations that they too have been given a place within God’s super-abundant grace. Naaman returns to Aram, perhaps echoing the words of the psalmist on his way, “The earth, O Lord, is full of your mercy - teach me your statutes.” And on his way he is encouraged by the prophet’s final word from Yahweh’s peaceable kingdom, “Go in peace.”
One of the many peculiar graces of my upbringing was the opportunity to grow up in a community that put a high value on reading the Bible. Now, keep in mind, I grew up in a pretty small town, and there weren’t a lot of things to do, but I remember one evening being invited over to my friend’s house where we sat around in a circle and read through the 4 gospels aloud out of a chronological bible my one friend had. Who does that kind of thing? Well, we did. You see, one of the programs our church offered was something called “Bible Quizzing,” and yes, it’s exactly as nerdy as it sounds. Essentially, we were given portions of the new testament every year that we were supposed to memorize. Every week we would learn a new chapter of the material and then every few months we would get together with teams from other churches all across the Prairies for Quiz Meets where we would be tested on our bible memorization.
The “game” aspect of quizzing was sort of like “Reach for the Top.” There would be three teams of four people who would sit on electric benches waiting for the Quiz Master to ask questions. Whenever somebody thought they knew the answer to the question, they would jump up and get a chance to answer it. There were a variety of types of questions one could answer such as finish the verse, quote this verse, interrogative questions, etc. Some of the more sophisticated quizzers (not me) would actually specialize in question types and would, in addition to learning the material everyone else knew, memorize the answers to all of one specific kind of question.
One of my favourite question types was only used in years where we had narrative passages, like the Gospels or Acts. These questions were called “Situation questions.” Situation questions would give you a line of dialogue and then ask you to name who said it, to whom, and where, or perhaps when or how. I didn’t realize it then, but this question type was actually an introduction to a very basic type of narrative text criticism.
What I love about the situation question is that it makes you pay attention to the little details of the text, it’s this kind of attention, for example, that allows us to notice details such as this from our passage in Kings today, “She said to her mistress” where “she” is the Israelite slave girl and the mistress is Naaman’s wife. How remarkable that a quiet word between an unnamed slave girl and an unnamed wife becomes the catalyst for the entire narrative of Naaman’s journey to Israel in search of healing.
As I began reading some of the literature on our passage for today I was quickly drawn to many of the narrative analyses of the text. This makes sense, as the type of text we find in 2 Kings ch. 5 is a narrative, so that kind of analysis is quite fitting. However, I suspect many of the scholars I was reading didn’t have the good fortune of growing up as bible quizzers, because their understanding of “situation questions” seems to be limited to asking “who said it and to whom.” Hence you get the types of observations I made above about the unnamed slave girl, and her outsized role in such a patriarchally focused text. But a good quizzer would understand that the quiz master is going to demand that you exhaust the entire range of possible “Who, what, where, when, why, and how” questions before you will be awarded any points. So, in the interest of partially satisfying the demand of that lingering quiz master voice in my head, I want to draw our attention to the question of “where” in our analysis of our lectionary reading this evening.
The Priority of Place
I focus on the question of “where” this evening, on the basis of a line from the ancient Greek philosopher Archytas of Tarentum who once said, “It is obvious that one has to grant priority to place.” But of course I suspect that for many of us, the priority of place is not obvious at all. We have largely lost a sense of place in our contemporary culture and this affects the way we read the Bible. You can see this being played out in the literature on this passage as the story of Naaman is deconstructed to provide us with a generic account of ironic subversions of power.
But if, as Archytas suggests, we must grant priority to place, we should begin our study of Naaman’s story by placing him. While there are a number of characters in this story that are unnamed, our text actually gives us a fair bit of information about where this story unfolds. We begin in Damascus in the Kingdom of Aram. A close reading of 1 and 2 Kings reveals that Aram is the major rival of the Omrides, the fourth dynasty of the northern kingdom of Israel.
Arguably, the most famous and influential King of the northern Kingdom of Israel was King Omri, the founder of the city of Samaria, yet the Bible devotes only 8 verses to his reign. We know he was the most influential, however, because of the archaeological evidence found in surrounding civilizations, such as the Meshe Stele, that refer to the kingdom of Israel as the kingdom of the Omrites over a period of a couple of centuries.
While the Bible does not have much to say about Omri, it does have a lot to say about Ahab. Ahab inherited the expansionist ambitions of his father Omri and entered into an alliance with one of the military superpowers of the region, the Phoenecians, or as the Bible knows them, the Sidonians, through his marriage to Jezebel. Attentive readers of the Old Testament will remember that these are the same people with whom King Solomon entered into a treaty in order to get the cedars with which he built the Temple in Jerusalem. As Solomon’s treaties with foreign powers lead to idolatry and failure, so to will the Omridic dynasty come to ruin through the idolatrous compromises of expansionist imperialism.
As the Omrides grow in power under Ahab, they soon come into conflict with the Arameans to the North-East. In 1 Kings 20:34, Ben-Hadad, the king of Aram mentions that the conflict extends back at least to the time of Ben-Hadad’s father and Ahab’s father Omri. The biblical record, however, only begins narrating the conflict with the first failed raid of Ben-Hadad in that same chapter. Ben-Hadad leads a large coalition of kings against Samaria and has the city surrounded when the Lord intervenes to deliver Ahab through the bravery of a handful of young men. Israel wins the day, but knows that the Arameans will be back in the spring with an even larger force - the prophets warn Ahab to begin preparations.
Meanwhile, back in Damascus, the Aramean generals are strategizing their next raid. They figure that the reason they were beaten back in their previous raid is because the “gods of the Israelites are gods of the hills.” They decide to attack Israel on the plains, which will negate the power of the alleged hill-gods and so, give them the victory.
We see where this going, I hope. The prophets of Israel receive word from the Lord - the Arameans think that the Lord is a god of the hills only, therefore the Lord will deliver the Arameans into the hands of Israel once again in order to prove to the nations that he is the Lord of the whole earth. The Lord tricks Ben-Hadad into attacking prematurely and the Israelites quickly rout their forces, eventually capturing Ben-Hadad. But right at the moment of victory, Ahab makes a decision that will spell his own doom. Having captured Ben-Hadad, Ahab again pursues expansionist imperialism over justice and makes a treaty with the Arameans to open up new free-trade routes and receive back some previously conquered territory.
Ahab’s preference for foreign alliances had already raised up religious and cultural resistance from within a certain faction of the prophets (think of Elijah’s slaughter of the prophets of Baal), and this latest treaty only stiffened the resistance. The prophets of the Lord inform Ahab that he is in deep trouble for making this treaty with a king whom the Lord had declared herem, devoted to destruction.
Ahab laughs this warning off, and for the next few years, there is peace between the two kingdoms. But, as is so often the case in international relations, Aram drags its heels on returning the captured cities to Israel, so in the third year, Ahab calls up the King of Judah to form a coalition to head north to recapture those cities by force. The King of Judah says, “I’m in, but first, consult the prophets.” So they consult the prophets and they all say, “go for it.” However, there is one more prophet that Ahab wants to hear from, Micaiah, one of the Yahwistic prophets that has so often opposed his reign before. After a bit of needling, Micaiah reveals that the Lord has sent a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets in order to send Ahab to his doom as punishment for all of his many crimes of real politicking.
As predicted, Ahab is deceived and advances on the Arameans at Ramoth-Gilead. In a passage oddly reminiscent of the Iliad, a soldier fires his bow randomly into the crowd and manages to hit Ahab, wounding him and forcing his retreat. Ahab, however, refuses to abandon the field and as the day progresses, bleeds out in his chariot, at which point the Israelites abandon the field and Ahab is brought back to Samaria for his final humiliation among the dogs and prostitutes. Ahab’s death foreshadows the end of the Omride dynasty itself as his son Joram is eventually assassinated by internal forces during yet another war with Aram several years later.
From Ahab’s death the narrative of Kings moves to the transition of prophetic leadership from Elijah to Elisha and our story for this evening comes at the end of a cycle of magic stories about Elisha that prove his prophetic authority.
As we turn to the story of Naaman, situated as it is within the larger drama of the Book of Kings, I ask you to hold in your mind the priority of place in understanding this drama. Naaman’s story comes to us not as a generic story about powerful men, but rather as a story that is freighted with the tensions of particular lands and peoples who have experienced the displacing politics of militarism and expansionist imperialism.
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| ("Elisha refusing the gifts of Naaman" Ferdinand Bol, 1661) |
No God in all the Earth except in Israel (2 Kings 5.15)
Now Naaman is introduced to us as a mighty warrior, through whom the Lord had given victory to Aram over Israel. Could this perhaps be the unnamed archer who shot down Ahab? The text doesn’t say, but it’s fun to speculate. Naaman, the mighty warrior, has a mighty big problem - he’s a leper. It’s only a matter of time before others discover his secret and he is displaced from society.
How fortuitous, then, that within Naaman’s household resides one who has already been displaced - a young slave girl from Israel. She tells her mistress, ““If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” In this quiet sentence resides the hope of all displaced people - that there exists a place where the displaced belong and can be made whole.
Naaman, fearing his own displacement more than anything, decides that it is worth the humiliation of finding a cure amongst a people he has conquered in order to maintain his place within Aramean society. So he heads to Samaria and demands healing from the King of Israel. Of course, given the ongoing tensions between Aram and Israel, it is entirely appropriate for the King of Israel to react in the way he does. Naaman, in his desperation not to be displaced, is willing to bring the displacing fury of war upon Israel unless they can help him.
Enter Elisha. Never one to avoid conflict, this heir of Elijah and leader of the local resistance to the expansionist elite understands that the brunt of Naaman’s threat will be borne hardest by the common people. It will be the local folk who will be displaced into slavery as their towns are swallowed up in Aram’s political orbit. It is the ordinary people of Israel, as it is the ordinary people of every imperialist society, that bear the brunt of their leader’s failed ambitions. As a defender of the Yahwhist covenant of land and fidelity, Elisha allies himself with the Israelite monarchy in one of those many compromises that political realism requires and offers his services to Naaman.
Naaman continues on to Elisha’s house. Once arrived, he awaits the promised miracle. But Elisha does not come. The man of God will avert disaster for Israel for the sake of the people, but he will not be manipulated by the whims of the elite. Sending a servant out to Naaman, Elisha instructs Naaman to bathe 7 times in the river Jordan. At this, Naaman flies into a rage - has he really come so far to be told to take a bath? Surely he could have done as much back home in the Pharpar and Abana rivers, both of which flow from heights of Lebanon, bringing with them the wealth and prestige of Phoenecian influence. But the Jordan? The Jordan is a muddy creek in a conquered land, what power could possibly reside in its brown waters?
Again it is the voice of the displaced who come to Naaman’s rescue. His slaves beg him to heed the Man of God’s word. For the second time in our tale, it is the voice of nameless slaves, the ultimate displaced people, who offer hope to Naaman on the very precipice of his own displacement.
Naaman relents, he washes, and his skin is made smooth as a young boy. The hope of his displaced slaves has been vindicated - in Israel there is a God who heals. Overjoyed, the mighty general returns to Elisha with one last ploy to try. Naaman 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.”
But Elisha sees through this ruse. The Man of God has entered into the fraught complexities of international relations for one reason, to preserve the integrity of God’s covenant people from the threat of elite warfare. Having healed Naaman, Elisha is not about to commit the mistake of Ahab by attempting to profit from the situation of advantage he now occupies. So Elisha rebukes Naaman saying, “As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!”
The Earth, O Lord, is Fully of thy Mercy (Psalm 119.64)
Elisha’s rejection of Naaman’s offer of payment is the moment in which Naaman discovers the hope of that far-away Israelite slave girl. Pay careful attention to the exchange between Naaman and Elisha. First, Naaman confesses that there is no “god” in all the earth except in Israel. This is the radical conclusion of the best of Aramean theology. Remember, as a young man, Naaman was probably part of the army under Ben-Hadad who had been rebuffed by Israel under Ahab. The conclusion of the Arameans at the time was that the Israelite god must be a god of the hills, and that is why they had been unable to defeat Israel, but if they took the fight to the plains, perhaps they would prevail. Of course this approach failed and they were ultimately defeated there too. Now, much older, Naaman has received healing at the hands of this nameless god who had previously prevailed against him militarily. The common wisdom of the time was that each nation had its own gods who had jurisdiction over the lands of the people who lived within them. When nations went to war, their gods went to war against each other too, and the victor of the combat was assumed to have the stronger deity. However, even in defeat, the gods of different regions could still cause trouble, and so must be appeased by appropriate ritual acts. Indeed, when the Assyrians eventually destroy the northern kingdom of Israel several generations later, they find that lions keep attacking their settlers until Yahwistic priests can be brought back to the land to appease what they presume is a local deity.
Naaman’s confession to Elisha, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel” is a radical rejection of this polytheistic theology. Naaman adopts the radical atheism of the monotheists, yet he still clings to the regionalist framework he has been taught. Naaman now thinks that the whole earth is void of the divine except within Israel. This is why Naaman still believes a price is owed for the miracle of healing, the Israelites have a monopoly on god, and the nations must pay up. But this is precisely where Elisha rebukes him. Israel does not have some sort of monopoly control over a generic deity. Elisha serves the LORD, Yahweh, whose name is the great living I Am. Finally, Naaman understands. It is not that this place is significant because it has a god that offers magical powers to those who come there, but rather, this place has been made significant by the Lord whose works are mighty. The slave girl’s longing for her master is at last realized, Naaman has been restored to a place of honour in society, not merely because his skin has been purged of leprosy, but because Naaman has discovered the name of the one who establishes a place for all, free of charge.
So Naaman takes some soil home with him, that he might worship and sacrifice to the Lord alone from this day forth. In this soil, Naaman brings with him a token of the place in which he met the Lord of heaven and earth. Naaman came to Israel to buy the power necessary to maintain his position with the royal court in Damascus. He takes home a load of dirt and a blessing of peace from Elisha.
What a trip this has been for Naaman! His bath in the Jordan river did more than just renew his skin - it baptized him into the peaceable kingdom of Yahweh. Naaman takes some soil from that peaceable kingdom back into the heart of enemy territory to bear witness to the Lord who is living and active. In so doing, Naaman becomes one of the firstfruits of Israel’s witness to the nations. Yahweh did not set aside Israel as a covenant people and give them a land and a future in order to do a bunch of magic for their benefit. Rather, Yahweh elected Israel to bear witness to the reality of his peaceable kingdom, that all the kingdoms of the world would stream to his temple in Zion and realize that they too have been given a place on earth. Naaman, in his sojourn in Israel, has discovered the one who made heaven and earth and gave everything that is, a place within this good creation. Naaman, by heeding the voices of those who had been displaced by the violence of the nations, has received the blessing of peace that is the hope of all displaced people. Naaman takes with him a reminder of the place of God’s covenant with Israel as a witness to the nations that they too have been given a place within God’s super-abundant grace. Naaman returns to Aram, perhaps echoing the words of the psalmist on his way, “The earth, O Lord, is full of your mercy - teach me your statutes.” And on his way he is encouraged by the prophet’s final word from Yahweh’s peaceable kingdom, “Go in peace.”
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