A woman pastor in the Bible School was reporting to me of the funeral she conducted on Saturday. She said she used 2 Kings 5, the story of the cleansing of Naaman. Two years earlier, I heard another woman preach this text to a group of young women. Both women made similar points. They focused on the role of the slave girl of Naaman's wife in the process of Naaman's cleansing.
Though the girl was a person of lowly status, they said, she had the knowledge Naaman did not. She knew where cleansing could be found, and she did not keep that knowledge to herself.
The text does indeed seem to draw a comparison between Naaman and the girl. She is "young," she is a "girl", she is a foreigner, a "captive" taken from Israel to Aram during one of the Arameans' raids. By contrast, Naaman is "commander of the army of the king of Aram", "a great man and in high favor with his master", one by whom "the Lord had given victory to Aram", and "a mighty warrior" (vv. 1-2). It is as if Naaman can do no wrong. Naaman has no weaknesses.
Except that "though a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy" (v. 1). The text seems to anticipate that this should come as a surprise to the reader. Persons such as Naaman are not sick. Yet he "suffered from leprosy."
The preacher used these details to make a point about the status of women in her own culture, indeed, in the church. Though regarded as the inferiors of men, God's Spirit chooses women to make God's purposes known. In fact, she preached the text under the suspicious glares of male pastors in attendance who were jealous of the honor of leading the funeral. Throughout the service, they kept looking, hoping, for the woman to make a mistake, to do something out of the time-honored order. Yet she conducted the service, beginning to end, flawlessly, beautifully, powerfully. "They were so surprised," she reports.
We talked on. We spoke of certain leaders adept in the evil arts of obfuscation, of secrecy, of hiding information from their people, of using power bestowed to hoard benefits. "That is the leprosy," the pastor said.
The affliction of Naaman was more than a disease of the skin. It was also more than the mere possession of power. Against the backdrop of the one who gave what she had for the sake of another, is the power of selfishness exposed. Only in light of the slave girl, or of a crucified Christ, might we turn and be healed (Isa 6:10).
-Joe
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