A reading from the second book of Kings (5:1-15)
Naaman, army commander to the king of Aram, was a man who enjoyed his master’s respect and favour, since through him the Lord had granted victory to the Aramaeans. But the man suffered from leprosy. Now, on one of their raids into Israelite territory, the Aramaeans had carried off a little girl, who became a servant of Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, ‘If only my master would approach the prophet of Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ Naaman went and told his master, saying, ‘This and this is what the girl from Israel said.’ The king of Aram said, ‘Go by all means. I shall send a letter to the king of Israel.’ So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten festal robes. He brought the letter to the king of Israel. It read, ‘When this letter reaches you, I am sending my servant Naaman to you for you to cure him of his leprosy.’ When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes. He said, ‘Am I a god to give death and life, for him to send a man to me and ask me to cure him of his leprosy? Just look and see how he means to pick a quarrel with me.’
When Elisha heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent word to the king, ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, and he will learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’ So Naaman came with his team and chariot and drew up at the door of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go and bathe seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will become clean.’ But Naaman was indignant and went off, saying, ‘Here was I, thinking that for me he would be sure to come out, and stand there, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the spot and cure the part that was diseased. Surely, Abana and Parpar, the rivers of Damascus, are better than any water in Israel? Could I not bathe in them to become clean?’ And he turned round and went off in a fury. But his servants approached him and spoke to him, saying, ‘Father, if the prophet had asked you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? All the more reason, then, when he says to you, “Wash and become clean.” ’ So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, as the man of God had told him to do. And his flesh became clean once more like the flesh of a little child.
Returning to the man of God with his whole escort, he went in and, presenting himself, said, ‘Now I know that there is no God anywhere on earth except in Israel.’
Naaman is an outsider, and for two reasons. Why should an Aramean be healed by a prophet of Israel? Furthermore, he suffers from leprosy. It is the voice of the Israelite servant girl that speaks the truth and opens the way to the working of God’s mercy through the prophet Elisha. Naaman, like the king of Israel before him, is at first indignant at having to bathe in the river Jordan seven times. Once again wisdom comes from the servants, who counsel him to do what the prophet asks. Naaman, who has humbled himself, receives both healing and faith.
Psalm 42 (41) Once again the Lord uses water for life and healing.
A reading from the holy gospel according to Luke (4:24-30)
Jesus said, ‘Amen I say to you, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country. In truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these, but only to a widow at Zarephath, a town in Sidonia. And there were many lepers in Israel in the prophet Elisha’s time, but none of these was cured – only Naaman the Syrian.’
When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, intending to throw him off the cliff, but he passed through the midst of them and walked away.
These are the final verses of the story of the visit to Nazareth which Luke places at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. In the synagogue Jesus has proclaimed a reading from the prophet Isaiah and identified himself as the one who has been sent to ‘bring good news to the poor’. After initial appreciation the mood changes as Jesus quotes a popular proverb about the rejection of prophets by their own people: ‘no prophet is ever accepted in his own country’. They are enraged when he reminds them that Elijah and Elisha worked miracles beyond the confines of Israel: the widow of Zarephath and her son were fed, and Naaman the Syrian restored to full health. Rage leads to violence against Jesus. The people of Nazareth consider that their honoured place as chosen people has been usurped. The message of the kingdom however cannot be confined to a ‘chosen’ people.
As Christians do we value those of other faiths?
Pray for a heart open to the needs of all, and especially those on the furthest margins.