Category Archives: Bible Study

A Reflection on Naaman

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Namaan The first reading fro this Sunday’s worship service is taken from 2 Kings 5:1-14 and concerns a mighty man named Naaman who is stricken with leprosy.  Because it also deals with a man with leprosy, the gospel provides a nice bookend for this lection, but I will deal with it in a later post,  maybe . . .

First the text itself:

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.

Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."

So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, "Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel." He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, "When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy."

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me." But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, "Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel."

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean." But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, "I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?" He turned and went away in a rage.

But his servants approached and said to him, "Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?" So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Initially Naaman appears to be, as they say, “all that.”  He is an army commander, a great man, highly favored by his superior, a mighty warrior, and even more important, a victorious warrior.  What more could this man want or desire?  Well, his health, for one thing.  The litany of Naaman’s achievements and legacy ends with a three-word death sentence.  Naaman “suffered from leprosy.”

Without going into details about how leprosy in the Bible could mean any variety of skin diseases or ailments (and not necessarily what we call leprosy today – Hanson’s Disease), a diagnosis of leprosy almost always mean social isolation.  Naaman faced being ostracized from his friends and family, and would almost certainly face the loss of everything that seemingly made him who he was:  his power and might and success and favor in the eyes of others. 

Now I don’t know if you have ever faced such a prospect, but I can imagine that this was a traumatizing situation for Naaman to find himself in.  Think about it for a moment.  When people often define themselves by their jobs or occupations, how devastating it is for many when they lose this identification.  ‘What do you you do?” we ask others.  And in reply, people don’t say things like “I work as a baker,” or “I paint walls,” or “I spend my day assembling cars in a factory.”  No, people will reply, “I am a baker,”  “I am a painter,” and “I am a factory worker.”  Given this, what does one become when they no longer are what they used to do.  Part of the tragedy of this economic crisis is the loss of identity that comes along with the loss of a job.

The same is certainly true of Naaman.  He has, I am sure, spent his life rising through the military chain of command.  He has come to a place in his career where he is respected and favored.  People listen to him.  Even the king listens to him.  But now, all of this is threatened because of that one word:  leprosy.  Whatever power he has, whatever prestige he has, and whatever respect he has, will soon disappear as the ravages of this disease become more apparent. 

So what’s a man like Naaman to do?  And this is where the story gets interesting (at least in my opinion).   It is a slave girl who gives Naaman the only advice that will save him.  And on top of that, she is a slave girl from one of his raids against Israel itself.   This young girl, who is a nobody and who has all the reasons in the world to hate Naaman and wish him an early demise, offers him a lifeline.  That is some amazing grace right there, if you ask me.

Of course, Naaman, being who is, cannot just follow the young girl’s advice and seek out a lowly prophet.  No, he has to go and do things his way.  Bringing a treasure trove with him and a letter from his King to the King of Israel, he tries to maintain a semblance of importance and greatness, even though he is now (though he may not act like it) just another sick slob, just one more person about to be thrown on the dung heap, one more unwanted person – an outcast, in other words.

The letter and treasure accomplish nothing for Naaman, of course, though they do scare the King of Israel to death.  And it’s the King’s fear that finally brings the prophet Elisha into the story.  Now mind you, we never actually see Elisha in this passage. . . not here, nor when Naaman actually makes it to his home.  Elisha communicates by messenger, and this fact also infuriates Naaman, who clings to his illusions of grandeur.  “How dare this man not even come outside of his home to welcome me, to greet me!  Doesn’t he know who I am?  I am Naaman! I am a commander of the army of the king of Aram!  I am a great man, highly favored by my master, a mighty and victorious warrior!  Doesn’t this prophet know who am I?

And I can just imagine the prophet saying to himself, “Yes, Naaman, I know exactly who you are.  You, my friend are a leper.  And none of your titles, your pretentions, or your connections are going to help you right now.  You are a sick man, period.  And you need to be healed, period.  Nothing else matters,

But Naaman doesn’t get it, does he?  He keeps on with his rant. “I can’t believe this supposed prophet wants me to wash myself in the muddy little stream those Israelites call a river.  The Jordan River!  What a joke!  We have sewer drainage ditches bigger and cleaner than the Jordan back in my home country.  If that so-called prophet thinks I am gonna to wash myself in the Jordan even once, let alone seven times, he has another think coming.  Let’s go, b
oys!  This was a huge waste of time.”

And it is the nobodies in the story that save his skin again, literally and figuratively.  “But his servants approached and said to him, ‘Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?’"  And even though he is probably not through with his huffing and puffing, Naaman does listen to them, and lo and behold, he is cleansed of his disease.

A couple of things stand out for me about this story.  One, as previously hinted at, the “nobodies” in this story play central roles.  These supposed “little people” are the ones who actually put the whole healing story in motion and keep it moving until its conclusion.  Without the slaves/servants in this tale, Naaman becomes one of the untouchables and dies from a dreadful and painful disease.  Listening to those without power can sometimes be the best thing that those in power can ever do.

Second, Naaman has to learn to let go of his self-image of himself. He must deign to let go of his pride and become humble enough to do things he would never otherwise do.  He is no longer a army commander or person of importance, instead he is a man who is sick, perhaps unto death, and he needs healing.  This is, of course, where we all find ourselves after we strip away our titles and pretensions.  We are, all of us, sinners in need of saving.  We are, all of us, sick and diseased, and in need of healing.  We are, in other words, human, and need to approach God for help just as we are.

As the old hymn of the faith puts it:

Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, tho’ tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind-
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need in Thee to find-
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

The Akedah – Kierkegaard and Protecting God

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Note:  If you haven’t already done so, you may want to read the first post in this series:

The Akedah – The Binding of Isaac

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Perhaps the most famous of reflections on this passage of scripture comes from Soren Kierkegaard in his book “Fear and Trembling.”  After an introduction, four “retellings” of the story are given, each with it’s own emphasis and peculiarities.  At the end of of each vignette, Kierkegaard also includes a short description of how the story ties to a mother weaning her child.  Today, I post Kierkegaard’s introduction and his first reflection.

Once upon a time there was a man who as a child had heard that beautiful story of how God tested Abraham and of how Abraham withstood the testing, kept the faith, and contrary to expectation, got a son a second time. When he grew older, he read the same story with even greater admiration, for life had fractured what had been united in the pious simplicity of the child.  The older he became, the more often his thoughts turned to that story;  his enthusiasm for it became greater and greater, and yet he could not understand the story less and less.  Finally, he forgot everything else because of it; his soul had but one wish: to see Abraham; but one longing: to have witnessed the event. . .

His craving was to go along on the three day journey when Abraham rode with sorrow before him and Isaac beside him.  His wish was to be present in that hour when Abraham raised his eyes and saw Mount Moriah in the distance, the hour when he left the donkeys behind and went up the mountain alone with Isaac – for what occupied him was not the beautiful tapestry of imagination but the shudder of the idea.

This man was not a thinker.  He did not feel any need to go beyond faith . . .   Neither was he a biblical scholar.  He did not know Hebrew; if he had known Hebrew, perhaps he would have more easily understood the story and Abraham.

“And God tested Abraham and said unto him, ‘Take Isaac, thine only son, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon the mountain which I will show thee.’ “

I.

It was early in the morning when Abraham arose, had the donkeys saddled, and left his tent, taking Isaac with him.  Sarah watched them from the window as they went down the valley – until she could see them no longer.

They rode in silence for three days. On the morning of the fourth day Abraham said not a word, but he raised his eyes and saw Mount Moriah in the distance. He left the servants behind, and taking Isaac’s hand, went up the mountain alone. But Abraham said to himself, “I will not hide from Isaac where this journey is taking him.” He stood still, he laid his hand upon the head of Isaac in benediction, and Isaac bowed to receive the blessing.  And Abraham’s face epitomized fatherliness: his gaze was mild, his speech encouraging.

But Isaac was unable to understand him, his soul could not be uplifted. He grasped Abraham’s knees, he pleaded at his feet, he begged for his young life, and for the fair hope of his future, He called to mind the joy in Abraham’s house, and he called to mind the sorrow and the solitude. Then Abraham lifted the boy up and walked on, holding his hand, and his words were full of comfort and exhortation. But Isaac could not understand him. Abraham climbed Mount Moriah, but Isaac understood him not.

Then for a moment Abraham turned away from his son, and when Isaac saw his father’s face again, it was changed, his gaze was wild, his whole being was sheer terror.  Abraham seized Isaac by the throat, threw him to the ground, and said, “Stupid boy, do you think I am your father? I am an idolater. Do you think that this is God’s desire? No, it is what I want!”

Then Isaac trembled and cried out in his anguish, “0 God in heaven, have mercy on me. God of Abraham, have mercy on me. If I have no father on earth, then you be my father!” But Abraham said softly to himself, “0 Lord in heaven, I thank you. After all it is better for him to believe that I am a monster than he should lose faith in you.”

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When the child is to be weaned, the mother blackens her breast. It would be hard to have the breast look inviting when the child must not have it. So the child believes that the breast has changed, but the mother – she is still the same, her glance is as loving and tender as ever. How fortunate the one who did not need more terrible means to wean the child!

In this story  Kierkegaard seeks to show Abraham as being protective of God and God’s image to his son Isaac.  Isaac is shown begging for his life, imploring his father not to kill him.  “He begged for his young life, and for the fair hope of his future.”  Isaac does not, cannot understand how his father could do such a a terrible thing, and Abraham is unwilling to place the blame for his actions on the God who has commanded them. “Stupid boy, do you think I am your father? I am an idolater. Do you think that this is God’s desire? No, it is what I want!”

Isaac’s terror in this short story is palpable, and he begs for mercy not only from his father, but also from his father’s God. The later brings a quiet response to Abraham’s lips, “0 Lord in heaven, I thank you. After all it is better for him to believe that I am a monster than he should lose faith in you.”   Abraham seeks to hide from his son the terrible thing that God has asked him to do.

In another reflection on this passage of scripture, Dan Clendenin, on his website journeywithjesus.net writes:

Abraham faced at least four inter-related challenges to believing the command of God and then acting upon that belief. First, he would have been entirely reasonable to conclude that he was being deceived by malign influences—sickness, demons, hallucinations, infirmities of his old age, etc., and that the visions and voices that he heard originated not with a loving God but from a temptation of the worst, evil sort. If that was the case, he would have “obeyed” by dismissing the voices as delusions. Similarly, we can imagine praising Abraham if he concluded that he somehow deceived himself through religious zealotry couched in pious platitudes. Today we invoke this rationale to condemn in the harshest terms suicide bombers in Israel and Iraq, or Christians who bomb abortion clinics, all who claim that God told them to commit some atrocity. Third, at a simple, rational level, the command of God challenged Abraham to embrace the absurd, the irrational, or the unintelligible. What sense does it make to murder the son of promise through whom God had promised to bless all the earth? Fourth, Abraham had to transcend normal ethical expectations. Good parents love and nourish their children, they do not murder them in religiously-inspired violence and claim that “God told me to do it.”

Clendenin goes on to give voice to some of the questions the story raises:

  • What are we to make of a God who commands child sacrifice? Might God ask me to do something similar today?
  • How would we respond to a believer who invoked this passage to abort her baby as an act of obedience to what she heard as God’s command?
  • Does the Bible sanction religious violence?
  • What about the divine bait-and-switch in this passage, where God asks Abraham to do the incomprehensible, and then at the last minute provides an alternative (which smacks of psychic torture)?
  • How could Abraham possibly have known whether Isaac would be spared (as it so happened), whether he might kill Isaac only to have God raise him from the dead (the interpretation of Hebrews 11:17–19), or whether God might have him murder Isaac only to provide him with yet a third son of promise after Ishmael and Isaac?

And as many others have asked, I too ask the following:  How do we worship and serve a God who asks everything, absolutely everything and anything, of us?

Faith and Faith Alone.

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"But what do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ His son replied, ‘I don’t want to,’ but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and told him the same thing. He replied, ‘I will, sir,’ but he didn’t go. Which of the two did the father’s will?" They answered, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes will get into God’s kingdom ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, but you didn’t believe him. The tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. But even when you saw that, you didn’t change your minds at last and believe him."  (Matthew 21:28-32)

This is the passage that we read and discussed this past Tuesday morning at Bible Study.  For many of us, it is difficult to imagine that this short parable is anything other than a story in support of works righteousness.  After all, the one who does the will of the Father actually "does" something, right?  Given the story, it’s obvious that just saying you will "do" something is not enough.  Action is required. 

But if this is true, then salvation becomes a matter of our doing, or not doing, certain things.  The latter being especially true of the church of my youth.  You want to be saved, the church seemed to say, then don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t go to the movies or play cards, and especially do not dance, and never, ever swim with members of the opposite sex.   While me may have sung the song "Jesus Paid It All."  we acted as though the debt of our sin was still before us, and that this mountain of debt could only be moved little by little by our own feeble attempts to be good and to do good works.  Thank you Jesus for your grace, now please get out of my way while I try to whittle away at the evil within me and become good by the force of my own will.

And at first glance, the parable above appears to support this view.  Doing is the be all and end all of a life lived in Christ.  But as Robert Farrar Capon points out in his book "Kingdom, Grace, Judgment:"  a "works-versus-words reading is a mistake.  Jesus is on the subject of faith in his own exousia (authority), not on the subject of legalistic fine slicing by which a  no that turns into a yes can be construed as a more meritorious work than a yes that turns out to be a no (page 444)."

Capon goes on to add that though this is a parable of judgment, the judgment in this parable and in all the parables of judgment falls only upon unfaith.  To make his point he refers to the ending portion of the scriptures above which refer to John the Baptist.  Capon asks what the basis of salvation is for the tax collectors and prostitutes.  And by doing so, he makes it clear that salvation comes, not because these disreputable characters suddenly become respectable and law-abiding citizens, but because they believed (The tax collectors and prostitutes believed…).  Finally Capon brings this reasoning to the parable in question by rephrasing the question Jesus asks.

Q:  On which of these two sons will judgement fall?
A:  On the second.

Q:  Why?
A:  Because he did not do the will of his father.

Q:  And what then is the father’s will?
A:  [I quote from Jesus himself, in John 6:40]:  "This is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him may everlasting life, and I while raise him up at the last day. (Page 445)

Saved by belief, by faith, alone in Jesus.  Saved just because they believe in him.  How much easier could it be?  Of course that’s the problem.  If it is too easy, we tend not to trust it’s efficacy.  How can that be all that God wants or desires.  It can’t be that simple, can it?  And what does that mean, if it is true, for all the wonderful and good things that I do in my life?  Are they nothing . . . worth nothing?  And does this mean that anybody can waltz into the pearly gates just by believing in Jesus?  They don’t have to do anything else?  Well, that’s not fair.  Even worse, it is wrong.  Terribly, terribly wrong.  This kind of "injustice" can be downright infuriating. 

This attitude reminds me of a story in a book written by Louis Evely that I have.  The book is That Man Is You, and in it Evely describes a scene from a play by Jean Anouilh:

The good are densely clustered at the gate of heaven, eager to march in, sure of their reserved seats, keyed up and bursting with impatience.

All at once, a rumor starts spreading: “It seems He’s going to forgive those others, too!”

For a minute, everybody’s dumbfounded. They look at one another in disbelief, gasping and sputtering, “After all the trouble I went through!” “If only I’d known this …” “I just cannot get over it!”

Exasperated, they work themselves into a fury and start cursing God; and at that very instant they’re damned. That was the final judgment.

And this brings me to the most powerful couple of paragraphs in Capon’s book, which in fact serves a summary of sorts for much of his teaching on Jesus’ parables so far.  So please pardon the long quote that follows, although I think you find it an amazing read if you just take the time.  Writing about the parable, Capon says:

And if you then expand upon the parable, you get an instant application of it to the life of the church in all ages.  For no matter how much we give to the notion of free grace and dying love, we do not like it.  It is just too . . . indiscriminate.  It lets rotten sons and crooked tax collectors and common tarts into the kingdom, and it thumbs its nose at really good people.  And it does that gallingly, for no more reason than the Gospel’s shabby exhaltation of dumb trust over worthy works.  Such nonsense, we mutter in our hearts, such heartless, immoral folly.  We’ll teach God, we say.  We will continue to sing Amazing Grace in church; but we will jolly well be judicious when it comes to explaining to the riffraff what it actually means.  We will assure them, of course, that God loves them and forgives them, but we will make it clear that we  expect them to clean up their act before we clasp them seriously to our bosom.  We don’t want whores and chiselers and practicing gays (even if they are suffering with AIDS) thinking they can barge in here and fraternize.  Above all, we do not want drunk priests, or ministers who cheat on their wives with church organists, standing up there in the pulpit telling us that God forgives such effrontery . . .

Do you see now?  We are second sons, elder brothers, respectable Pharisees, twelve-hour, all day laborers whose moral efforts have been trampled on . . .  We are resentful at being the butts of the divine joke of grace that says nothing matters except plain, old, de facto, yes-Jesus faith.  And when we institutionalize that resentment by giving the impression that the church is not for sinners and gainsayers, we are a disgrace to the Gospel — a bushel of works hiding the Light of the World.  We are under judgment. (Pages 446 and 447)

We are under judgment, as surely as those "good people" in Jean Anouilh’s play.  In a great reversal (one of many we see in the Gospel), those we think deserve the judgement and punishme
nt of an angry God get off scot free, while we, who are expecting the loving embrace of the Father, find ourselves outside of his grace.  And not because God has withheld it either.  No, by our actions we have excluded ourselves, we have rejected God’s mercy and grace for others, and by extension, for ourselves.  And it is a grace and mercy that requires one thing, and one thing only. As Capon says, and this will be my last quote I promise:

The Father’s will for you — his whole plan of salvation — is that you believe in Jesus, nothing more.  He has already forgiven you, he has already reconciled you, he has already raised you up together with Jesus and made you sit in heavenly places with him.  And better yet, Jesus himself has already pronounced upon you the approving judgement of having done his Father’s will. But if you do not believe him — if you insist on walking up to the bar of judgment on your own faithless feet and arguing a case he has already dismissed — well, you will never hear the blessed silence of his uncondemnation over the infernal racket of your voice.  "He who argues his own case has a fool for a lawyer" is true in any court.  But in this court you will be more than a fool if you try that trick.  You will be an idiot.  There is no case.  There is no evidence against you.  And there is no courtroom to display your talents in.  It is all quashed . . . the whole thing, you see, stands forever on its head:  the last shall be first — just for believing. (Page 448)

In the end, faith and faith alone is all that matters.