Improbability

 2 Kings 5:1-14

If we believe what we believe. Let me put it another way, if we believe God favors a certain people. If we believe only the righteous are saved. If we believe our enemies are condemned. If we believe there is a right and wrong way to live and the wrong will be punished. Then how on earth does this story come to us. There must be some great gap in our understanding. Why? Well let's break it apart.

Naaman, a leper, an Assyrian (enemy), a Gentile (non-Jew) is healed by God. Without having to repent. Without having to convert to Judaism. Without any of the things above having to happen in his life. God just heals him. It doesn't make sense. We must be wrong in our thinking then. This is the thing once we start uncovering all the things which shouldn't happen we get a different view of God and who God listens to.

For example, let's start at the beginning. An Assyrian captain has leprosy. His captive child slave tells her mistress that Naaman should go to the prophet in Israel. This girl is one who shouldn't be listened to. She is a child. She is a slave. She shouldn't have any status and yet the mistress tells the captain and off he goes.

So Naaman goes to his King to get leave to go visit Israel. The King grants permission. Now why would a King risk seeing his commander who has leprosy? Who would risk that. Not only does this king see him, but the king of Israel receives this leper as well. Really? Who would risk listening to a leper. The king of Israel though misunderstands the message and thinks the Assyrian king is trying to start a fight. Men posturing with one another, but that's another story. 

Somehow Elisha, the prophet hears the king of Israel has torn his clothes in fear because of this message. So he sends a message to the king. Like what are you thinking, send him to me. So the king sends Naaman to the prophet. 

The prophet does not come out to meet him though. He sends a messenger. This messenger tells Naaman to wash in the Jordan seven times. Well the Jordan in Israel is like the rivers and lakes in the north of Missouri, muddy and dirty. So Naaman sits on the bank lamenting the color of the water and how much cleaner the water back home is. After all the prophet didn't come see him himself, he sent a messenger. Another person not to be listened to.

He servants then ask, if the prophet had asked you to do something easy wouldn't you have done it to be cured? Well, Naaman decides to chance it. He washes and is made clean.

Who don't we listen to? Who are the unlikely people who might be carrying God's message to us? Good questions to think about. We are so polarized today, might we be missing the point? Just hear this story. No one should be listening to anyone else in this story and yet they do. No God of ours should be willing to heal an oppressor, but God does. So what does this story teach us?

When the prophet Samuel, later on in these stories of kings, goes to find a new king other than Saul he goes to the tribe of Benjamin. In it each of Jesse's sons passes by the prophet and they aren't right then God chooses David the last and the littlest of the brothers. 

There is someplace in the bible where it says that God does not see with our eyes. These stories, because there are more than one, are put in to remind us of God's promise in Isaiah. Where all people will go to Jerusalem because they see it as a light to the world. Everyone will come, all people, no one is omitted. We forget these things because it is easier to keep the wrong and right record. It is much harder to dig deeper and keep asking questions.

Like does God love everybody? If God loves everybody, then should I? How do I love my enemies? I had a good friend who asked me why we even had to have this word "enemies"? Another good question. 

So what unlikely person is calling you to take notice? Who is God speaking through that you are not listening to? Isn't it time to listen and hear?