Once upon a time, there was a great war hero, but not just any war hero.
He was the kind of war hero that inspired a generation of people, because he was one of them, having risen through the ranks from a mere foot soldier on the frontlines to the highest ranking, most influential military leader in the country.
Everywhere he went, big city or small town, people knew him and celebrated him because he was emblematic of everything good about their nation and her people.
In short, he was a very big deal, the biggest of deals. He was the champion of Damascus, the shining star of Syria, the arrow of the Aramean people.
He was Naaman, the Kingslayer.
But Naaman had a secret.
His fame, his power, his wealth—his whole life—was all built on a lie.
When he was a young man and a frontline archer in the infantry, his country, the Kingdom of Aram, had gone to war with their neighbors to the South, the Kingdom of Israel. But after the leaders consulted with the soothsayers of their warrior god Rim-un, they were given the oddest of wartime orders. Fight but kill no one but the king of Israel, King Ahab. It was an assassination, masquerading as a war.
The only problem was Ahab was a coward and he dressed his advisers up in his own attire and disguised himself as an ordinary soldier.
So when the Aramean army chased down the supposed king for execution, they quickly realized they had the wrong man.
And that’s where Naaman’s story really begins.
It was his arrow, from across the battlefield, shot into a thicket of soldiers that killed the incognito Israelite king. The entire army had caught its breath in amazement, that this common archer not only had managed to locate the king, disguised and hidden among the rank and file, but also that he had the steely nerve to fire a single arrow, so straight and so true. Clearly he had been touched by the gods. He was showered with praise, with parades, with gifts, with land, with fame, with a commander’s rank, with slaves from the defeated Hebrew people, with every privilege you could possibly imagine.
He became nothing short of a household name.
Naaman, the Kingslayer.
But it was all a lie.
Naaman hadn’t intended to shoot the king. He didn’t even know who the king was.
He hadn’t even meant to fire his arrow. It was an accident. It all happened completely by chance.
To this day, he still couldn’t actually remember what came over him. Maybe it was the sun in his eyes, or the desert sand in his nose, or a dung beetle in his beard, but with his arrow notched and ready, Naaman, out of nowhere, sneezed and accidentally let his arrow fly.
Watching in disbelief, terror seized Naaman as he envisioned the bloodbath that would follow as a result of his mistake. He hoped silently to die in the ensuing battle, rather than have to return in shame, explain his actions, and likely be kicked out of the army for disobeying direct orders not to kill anyone but the king!
But what came next was even more of a shock as he heard the enemies shouting in despair, “It’s the king! King Ahab has been shot!”
And that’s the truth of how Naaman actually slayed the king, became famous, the king’s favored commander, the biggest deal in all of the Aramenan Kingdom.
It was completely by chance, by luck, or if you believed in such things, by fate.
But he dared not tell anyone the truth, not even to his wife, and reveal himself as a hapless fraud and lose all he had gained.
And so, when the first white patch of diseased flesh started to bloom over his heart and under his warrior’s armor, the truth of his new affliction hadn’t been difficult to conceal. He was already adept at keeping secrets.
Still it was only a matter of time before the leprosy spread and became undeniable.
For now, only his wife knew. His wife, and her little Hebrew slave girl. But the girl wasn’t important. She was the only one disposable enough to do the laundry of a leper, but doing the laundry meant she knew the truth, but even if she did try to reveal his secret, no one would believe some nameless nobody.
Yet for reasons he couldn’t explain, the little slave girl offered to help him, despite his people kidnapping her from her home and from everything she knew and loved during a borderland raid and then enslaving her.
There was a prophet, a powerful man in the kingdom of Israel, she said, who could cure leprosy.
So Naaman departed, with the blessing of his own king, who didn’t want his people to know their national hero was a shameful leper, a disease known to be a sign of sinfulness and the gods’ disfavor.
So the King of Aram wrote a letter to the King of Israel demanding help.
There was just one problem.
This new king of Israel, King Joram, was the son of the very king Naaman had slain in battle all those years ago. He wasn’t so sure King Joram would want to help his father’s killer, and Naaman wasn’t so sure he’d leave alive if he arrived unarmed and unprotected.
It had the potential to get really messy and really awkward, really quickly.
So, Naaman took with him a whole retinue of chariots, soldiers, and servants, with chests full of treasure to buy his safety and his healing.
Upon seeing Naaman, the Kingslayer who had killed his father, poor King Joram had something of a nervous breakdown only a grieving son could manage.
He tore his clothes in mourning and shouted in despair that he had no such power to heal Naaman. Why had Naaman even come to him? Was he there to finish off the job he’d started so many years ago and end his father’s bloodline entirely by killing him too?
Or worse, maybe Naaman was there to spring a trap so that the King of Aram could blame Israel for their national hero’s affliction and use it as a pretext for another war.
Thankfully, after some time, Naaman was finally sent to the prophet Elisha. But when they arrived, in chariots and glory, they were greeted not with a red carpet or even by the prophet himself, but by one of Elisha’s staff members.
“The prophet Elisha sends his greetings,” the prophet’s middle manager said nonchalantly, as if Naaman’s glorious presence was more of an annoyance and not a big deal.
It was all too much for Naaman. Or rather not enough.
Insulted, Naaman flies into a rage.
“Don’t you know who I am?” Naaman had roared in fury and contempt. “I’m a really big deal. I’m Naaman, the Kingslayer … of your king! I’m the shining star of Syria,the Arrow of Aram. I walk into a temple and everyone but the god Rim-un himself bows down to me. Even your own king shrank before the greatness of my shadow, and your prophet can’t even come out to greet me?”
“So nice to meet you, Naaman,” the prophet’s manager responded. “You seem like a real treat. Why don’t you just go wash seven times in the Jordan River and go home? You’ll be just fine. No big deal.”
It was the ancient equivalent of dismissing someone by saying, “take two of these and call me in the morning.”
It enraged Naaman all the more. The rivers in his kingdom, he explained, were so much better and cleaner than the muddy streams this land had to offer, and he wasn’t about to dip a toe in their gross, stupid, crummy river, much less take a bath in it.
“Tell your prophet he needs to come out here and see me, and wave his magic hands all over me and my leprosy,” Naaman demanded.
He probably didn’t realize it, but Naaman was responding the exact way you expect someone to respond when they’re desperately trying to keep a secret that’s about to be found out.
After being convinced by his servants, they all go to the Jordan, and Naaman peels off his armor, his warrior’s garb, all the layers distinguishing him and disguising his disfigurement with status.
As that last layer comes off, and the extent of the raw, necrotic, oozing, leprous flesh covering his body becomes undeniably Cleary, the whole company with him catches their breath in amazement. His whole body looks like ground up lamb meat, and they realize that every step, every breath, for who knows how long, this secret would have been excruciatingly painful.
And so, proud Naaam, the kingslayer with his horrifying secret now exposed, the biggest deal in all the land, the warrior of warriors, submits to the unseen prophet of his nameless slave girl and the muddy backwaters of the Jordan River.
In more ways than one, Namaan walks stark naked into the Jordan, in front of God and everyone, knowing that this will be the story that now follows him for all eternity, that this humiliating moment will replace the all the tales of his greatness, his deeds of military might that had been built in on one big lie and an even bigger ego.
Healed and humbled, Naaman is made new.
Quite literally. No longer the big deal, his body becomes like that of a young boy, insignificant, small, innocent, and easily overlooked.
Naaman returns to the prophet a changed man.
Well, almost.
“From now on,” Naaman says. “I will only worship your God, Yahweh.”
“Sounds great,” Elisha responds.
“Well, except, now that I really think about it,” Naaman says, beginning to work out how much he’ll have to confess and change if he’s really to chart a different path. “Except maybe when I’m back in Damascus with the king. He’ll want me to join him at the Temple of Rim-un, you know, our warrior god and national patron. And since everyone considers me the unofficial emissary of Rim-un, as the most important warrior in all the land, I’ll have to bow down to him. But it’ll just be for show when I bow before our warrior god. I won’t mean it. Your God will understand, right? He won’t take back my healing, right, Elisha? Elisha, are you listening? Now that I’m changed, I don’t really have to change all the way.”
Elisha looks at him, and simply says to this great and mighty warrior, whose whole life is built on a lie.
Go in peace.
Walk in shalom.
Which you can take a couple of ways. At the very least, it means that Naaman can be at peace because this healing is God’s free and permanent gift. No strings. No obligations. No payment.
But given the context, I can’t help but think Elisha’s cryptic reply also might have deeper meaning, too, like having been healed by the God of mercy, he is now called to walk in the way of peace, not war, and to walk in the way of shalom and wholeness, no longer disfigured by the violence of half-truths and the lies we tell ourselves about how great we are.
And that’s the whole story of Naaman.
I know I’ve spent a lot of time retelling this story today, and while I’ve taken a few literary liberties, even those are rooted both in Scripture and the ancient historical record. Scripture tells us King Ahab really did disguise himself in war and was killed completely by chance, by an archer, and ancient rabbis and Josephus tells us that the archer was none other than Naaman himself who then became the commander of the entire army.
One of the reasons I’ve taken so much time to flesh this story out this morning is because it was an important story to Jesus himself. He used it in his first sermon ever to inaugurate his public ministry, and it enrages the people of his hometown so much that they lose their minds and try to kill him.
I’ve wanted to tell the story as completely as possible because it’s worth wondering this morning …
What was it about Naaman’s story that upsets people so much?
Was it that God would heal, without reservation or obligation, their enemies, even the man who killed their king?
Was it that a young slave girl, torn away and held hostage by neighboring enemies, would choose to seek her enemy’s healing rather than her people’s revenge?
Was it that in Naaman’s story, we can never again believe that nationality or other arbitrary boundaries matter to God, or that we are somehow more worthy of dignity, healing, and inclusion by virtue of our birthplace or of our good deeds?
Was it that Naaman’s story confronts us with a God whose love and grace is even for those, especially for those, who would do us harm, who would build their greatness on a lie, who are from a different country, speak a different language, who are the ones we believe are responsible for killing the thing about our nation we love?
Or was it simply that, in Naaman’s story, and Jesus’ use of it, we are faced with the often infuriating and ever-challenging truth that God not only doesn’t hate the people we hate, but also that God wants them healed and loved too?