II Kings 5:1-3,7-15c
II Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19
The prophet Elijah is a lot more famous than his successor Elisha, but the stories about Elisha are a lot more interesting than Elijah’s, like the one we heard at our first reading today. The story has a large cast of characters: two kings, a general, a prophet, the general’s wife and her slave, and the prophet’s servants. On the surface, the story seems to be about God’s healing power, and it is. However, on further reading and pondering, two other lessons are seen in the story: 1 – that of the harmfulness and uselessness of overreacting, or blowing things out of proportion, or unnecessary drama at hearing or seeing unwanted news; 2 – of the usefulness of calmly hearing or witnessing the entire story and getting other people’s opinions before making a decision about what to do in reaction.
The characters in our story who prematurely overreacted are the king of Israel and Naaman (the Aramean army general). Their fits of drama could easily have started wars, as is alluded to in the text. The calmer people around them saved the day by assessing the entire situation and looking at all options for response. By following the advice of the calmer people around them, the general was healed, both kings scored diplomatic points, and God’s love for all people was made known.
We live in a world much like that in our story this morning with too much drama, and it hinders us from taking care of things that really need our attention, because we are too worn out by all the yelling and pouting (our own and others’). How much easier it would be just let other people talk sometimes and listen to their entire point without interrupting. We can then think about what was said and calmly respond with something that might bring about good for everyone. We can get our information from a variety of sources rather than solely from sources that merely soothe our consciences by simply restating opinions we already have. We do not have to agree with everyone, but we do need to know what they are saying without it being filtered through other people whose goal is to skew things to fit their agenda. Then we can calmly ponder and pray for guidance about what we should do to bring about good, rather than making things worse with our emotionally overwrought first reactions. We just might learn the truth that not everyone who thinks differently than us is stupid and evil, and they might actually have a good idea every once in a while, and we just might be wrong sometimes. We can make room for others when we reel in our own smug haloes.
Doing all this is not easy, but it is good for us and everyone else. We don’t always react to things well, and neither do the people around us – it is understandable, but still inexcusable. May we give each other the time and space to work on becoming better at accepting unwelcome news, and may we never give up working on it – God never gives up on us. And – slowly we will be healed and wars will be averted, like in our story this morning. It is not just another weird Bible story – it could actually happen. AMEN