Isn’t it strange that we are told that Naaman, a Syrian, was
a mighty man of valor through whom the Lord had given Syria the victory over
Israel? This, in spite of the fact that
he did not know or worship the Lord.
Apparently the slave girl from Israel cared about her master and sought
to help him with healing his leprosy by sending him to Israel to the prophet,
Elisha. The king of Syria was willing to
take a chance on the matter but the king of Israel received the message as a
passive-aggressive declaration of war, his failure would result in a
“quarrel.” Elisha doesn’t act in the way
Naaman expects, perhaps he has some experience with “prophets” in his own land
and expected that Elisha would do similar things. Elisha, in fact, doesn’t even bother to come
personally, only sending a messenger with instructions. Naaman’s servants speak into his
disappointment and anger and ask essentially what Pascal’s wager states, try
it, why do you have to lose? The answer
turns out to be that what he lost was his leprosy there at the Jordan and what
he had to gain was faith in the one, true and living God. He was a sincere man,
willing to humble himself and believe based on evidence. Elisha sets a standard here for knowing the
difference between prophets and fortune tellers or shamans, he won’t take money
for what the Lord has done.
As always, Jesus raises the bar on sin. Anger leads somewhere ugly. When we are angry at our brother or sister
the first thing we tend to do is to de-humanize them. We forget that as fallen humanity we are
imperfect and fallible, all of us. It is
our default in anger to equate the person with the sin, “He’s a thief” or
“She’s a liar.” It is important that we deal honestly with sin but that begins
by realizing that the person is simply a person, not a thief or a liar. If we sin against one another we need to deal
with the sin between us but the goal should be restoration of the person and
the relationship. I can’t forgive
someone who is a thief but I can forgive someone who stole. When God sees us, does He see us as nothing
more than the worst thing we have ever done or does He see us in compassion and
love? The cross tells us the answer to
that question and it also gives us the ethics for living together with other
sinners.
It is Paul’s desire not to destroy the faith of the
Corinthian church but to humble them in their arrogance. In contrast to his own life struggles in
preaching the Gospel, he says they are rich and beloved. Is there something wrong with this? Paul certainly seems to think so, that they have compromised the
Gospel because when the Gospel is preached by apostles it results in persecution. It reminds me of the letter in Revelation to
the church in Laodicea, the lukewarm church, “For you say, I am rich, I have
prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable,
poor, blind, and naked.” A good portion
of the church in America today looks like the church in Corinth, believing it
is blessed because it is prosperous and allowed to flourish. We need to be
humbled a bit in order to see our own pitiable state.
No comments:
Post a Comment