Wisdom Doesn't Necessarily Come From the Top 7/7/19 Pentecost 4C

The Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Wisdom Doesn’t Necessarily Come From the Top

7/7/19   Pentecost 4C   COMMUNION

This story is about a person from the Top, and 2 persons from near Bottom in a society; a General and 2 slaves; a person who was in good favor with a King and 2 persons who served in his household.  The difference is that the slaves knew the true God and had learned God’s wisdom; and the person who seemed to be smart in the world did not.  Wisdom in this story does not come from the top down; it flowed from near bottom, up. 

It starts with a young Israelite slave girl who was captured in a military raid; taken from her village, her community, & maybe even her family - raiders would take who they could, & weren’t careful to bring whole families. The household where she is a servant is the household of her captor, General Namaan.  The girl is never named.  Although this young girl wasn’t a refugee but a slave, her situation of being separated from her family and in the foreign country of her captors, is similar to stories in the news these past weeks at our very own southern border. And her plight is similar to other young girls and boys stolen by various means who are brought here to serve rich families.  This alone, young, captured girl was put to work waiting on the General’s wife. I don’t know if they spoke the same language, or how onerous her tasks were. It sounds like she was a personal servant, as she had opportunity to speak with her owner.

     Several things about her amaze me. Its amazing to me that she seems to care that the General came out with leprosy. And even more amazing that she is willing to share her memories of her country of birth with her captors.  I don’t get the feeling that she’s bragging, like “MY country has a prophet that can cure that, not like here..”  or being cynical, like “Yeah, too bad (hehehe) he can’t get to the prophet back in MY country!”  I get the feeling she was sincere.  And THAT’s amazing because she has every right to withhold that information from her country’s enemy.  And if she wanted revenge for being stolen and captured and dragged away, withholding that information might feel good.  But no, she evidently has not lost her upbringing in faith, and remains a caring sort of person despite her captivity.

Leprosy was a feared disease, and usually lepers had to live apart from uninfected persons, cast out from those who were ‘clean,’ so to speak.  It doesn’t sound like the General was cast out yet - or else he was keeping it private. The king knew, his wife knew, and the servants he traveled with knew - obviously he wasn’t shunned yet. Many ancient societies had at least palliative treatments for leprosy, but by & large it was a slow disintegration of skin and cartilage & bone - fingers & toes falling off, noses, other parts of the face & body, until the inner organs failed. Unless it healed spontaneously, as it sometimes did, it was eventually fatal. And it was contagious, and so it was feared.

     Evidently Namaan did well for himself in plundering surrounding countries, as he seems to have a good income, house, & slaves etc. He was a Big Deal, he was On Top.  He is important to the King, and has the ear of the king, and the favor of the king. His King, as well as his household, hate to lose him. General Namaan is an important figure in his country; he’s made it both in the military & in the country. He gets leprosy anyhow, like anyone else might.

Perhaps for the first time in his life, this Big Deal realizes his vulnerability. He is threatened by this disease that will bring him down, and he is helpless before it. Not that hearing this fatal diagnosis is easy for anyone - but think of General Namaan in all his power, all his confidence, all his high position, all the things he has achieved in his own strength - and this disease has caught up with him.  All his power cannot heal him. All his armies cannot heal him. All his influence cannot heal him. All his money cannot heal him. This proud, successful, arrogant man who is used to people jumping at his command - imagine him struck down by perhaps a small sore that is identified as leprosy, and carrying with it all the indignations yet to come. 

            We know how when people get a diagnosis like this - we grab at any and every scrap of hope for treatment.  We try to get the best doctors we can,  and if we are rich and connected, we can get the best of the best.  We try and find the latest treatments, we travel to foreign countries to try things that are unapproved here. Some of us radically change our diets, and reach for the promises of Chinese medicine that we’d never have seen as legitimate before.  Those of us who have fought cancer have let our doctors put killing medicines into our bodies, medicines that make us feel worse than we did, medicines that do damage to our bodies as well as the cancer.  We endure it because we know what the disease will do. 

            So its no surprise that General Namaan grabs hold of that possibility of a prophet in another country that might heal him.  He goes for it, because its his only hope.  He is strong, he is a fighter, he has the money, and he can ask his King to write him this letter to get him attention.  He brings all his concentration and his power and influence to bear, throwing his all into finding a way to defeat this enemy inside of him.  Even going into enemy country and taking money to buy the work of this strange religion’s prophet.  All on the hope that the little slave girl is right.

     Now, the king of Israel, another Top Man and Big Deal in Israel, doesn’t know who this Aramean king is talking about, & is deeply fearful  that the country of Aram is fixing to pick a fight, or start a war--- he’s terrified. Why doesn’t the king know of Elisha? Elisha is a prophet of the most high God in his country’s region of Samaria. I guess Elisha was beneath his notice, or he didn’t take the worship of God seriously.  Elisha has to hear of the king’s fear & say, “Ah, excuse me, but I think it means me - send him here.”

        So Namaan continues to travel to the prophet that the young slave girl spoke of.  See what her words started! See what the General’s fear caused him to do for even a small hope!

Yet after all this effort and travel and display of power, General Namaan’s own arrogance & pride almost ruin it, because his pride gets tweaked -  Elisha won’t come out to see him, and just sends word for him to wash in the local ole’ Jordan River. General Namaan gets offended that this guy won’t even talk personally with him, a great General, & almost cuts off his nose to spite his face. Hmmm…. pride versus leprosy.  He’s willing to keep his pride & stay sick, it seems. Not submit himself to the healing words of this prophet of the little country of Israel and its dingy little river.

Namaan the great General wants his healing to be on his own terms, and to be credited to his own power and influence and feats of glory.  He can beat this; he CAN beat this.  Just give me a test of strength, and I will do it. Just ask me to do a difficult task, and I will accomplish it. He wants his own ego to have a part in his healing, so he will be looked up to, and be proud.  If Elisha had given him tasks like Hercules, he would have gone after these challenges in a second. That kept his pride intact, and was worthy of a great man like himself !  But to ignore his person, to send a meager word, to just ask him to dunk himself in a small river - that is not worthy!

Once again, the word is wisdom comes from a servant.  It seems to be difficult for Big Deals and Top Dogs to have the wisdom of the humble.  Maybe humble people don’t have to worry about things as “beneath” them.  There is a kind of caring and kindness that isn’t known at the top, isn’t known by those for whom the system has always worked right.  There is a wisdom that comes from those who already know the margins of a society, those who are familiar with the underside of life.  Those who can work as hard as they want and will never be General Namaan or King, and they know it.  Those who value their reliance on God, and who don’t depend on their own power and influence, but on God. 

So General Namaan is in a snit, and about to walk off, when someone who is not a Top Dog tells him what is.  “Hey, what’s wrong with just doing what Elisha said?  You’d do brave & bold things, right?  You can do this!”  So General Namaan the great warrior humbles himself to the words of a slave girl and another servant, and a prophet of Israel’s God. He plunges in the Jordan, & comes up healed.

     You’ve probably heard several applications and learnings from this story already, right? Let’s go through some.

God doesn’t often speak through the Big Deals & Top Dogs.  God often speaks through the marginal, the despised, the overlooked, folks we might consider of no account. God is not a respecter of pomp and hierarchy and positional power.  God looks on the heart, and sees faith.  I’m not meaning to glorify slavery here, or declare that how our civilization makes some people in lower and disempowered classes has a good side.  Because it doesn’t.

What I’m saying is that those in these bad situations develop a different perspective on what we Winners might think looks like success.  From seeing the underside that we hide from ourselves, they have a word for those of us who think everything is hunky-dory just because it has worked for us so far, and we’re doing okay.  Everything is NOT okay for many, many people, and those folks are our sisters and brothers, members of God’s family, and their worth is known to God, if not to us.  They are not invisible to God, even if they are invisible to us.  And it matters.  THEY matter. That we think everything is fine when our brothers and sisters are suffering, is not okay.  And if we think we are okay and therefore everything is okay, we are dead wrong.  God says that everything is not good until its good for all people. Because those we consider beneath us are our own kin, and we are ignoring them. 

General Namaan thought he had everything worked out and fine - but he didn’t.  He thought that of all people, he deserved better from Elisha - but he didn’t.  He thought he was powerful and strong and unassailable, but he wasn’t.  Those he thought were beneath him, and those he saw as his enemies - they actually are the ones that brought him humility, and brought him healing.  

This is a difficult lesson for those of us for whom the ways of our country seem to be working, those of us who know financial security, who have healthcare, who have enough to eat, who have good educations, who can afford cars and houses and who live in safety.  We forget that there are those for whom this system we’ve developed is NOT working. 

Maybe the great General Namaan’s views of the world were turned over by this experience, where the healing of God came to him through the mouths of slaves and enemies.  Maybe he began to sense the personhood and worth of all people, even those who, in the unjust system in which he lived, were slaves and servants. Maybe he began to see the injustice in his system.  Maybe he began to sense that the power and influence he had as a Big Deal and a Top Dog were really not so important.  Maybe he began to be more caring himself, maybe he was more humble about what he had, and shared it with others who were in need. 

I would hope so. Its a story that made the Scriptures.

If we learn to listen to the wisdom of those seeing the underside of our society, those we might consider lesser, or enemies, or not as good as ourselves - I hope we can also have our view of the world turned upside down.  Most of us here are those for whom things have worked okay.  We have food, houses, healthcare, education, security and safety, a nice church.  Yet we live among those whose stories are far different from our own.  They live all around us, although sometimes invisible to us as we go on our way.  There are people of color around us here that have a very different heritage in this country, and a very different experience of life in the U.S., and a very different take on how we see the 4th of July, for example.  There are single parents and even married parents around us who work hard and still don’t have the security and healthcare that we have.  There are those who experience struggles we can’t begin to know, struggles of discrimination, struggles with PTSD from fighting our wars, struggles from not having the education we take for granted, struggles from growing up in drug-damaged families, where survival is never taken for granted. 

They have a word to say to us - a wisdom to give us - - they are our sisters and brothers, friends, and speak to us of need to which we ignore at the peril of our souls. They tell us things are not right in what we take for granted.  Their stories can open our eyes to the needs of the world.  Their stories can tell us that the ways our country does things contains a lot of injustice, and ignores the voice of many.  They can expand our view of God’s kindom and the call of God to serve.  May it be so for us, as it is for General Namaan, and may God’s healing hand bring us all to the fullness of life. AMEN.