Do we make things too hard?

2 Kings 5
Naaman Healed of Leprosy
1 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.[a]
2 Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. 5 “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents[b] of silver, six thousand shekels[c] of gold and ten sets of clothing. 6 The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
7 As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”
8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.




Last Sunday this was the text of the sermon, and it got me thinking. I went past the obvious things to the simple.

I was struck by Naaman’s attitude toward the offer of healing; he was going to get exactly what he wanted, free for the asking, but he got angry. Why? Well, he wanted healing, but he wanted it to be difficult. Or impressive, or whatever his mind thought it should be. Instead he gets, “Go wash in the river”.

His servants tell him “If he’d asked you to do something hard you would have been done by now, go wash you idiot”

He did, and it worked.

Isn’t this like us?

How often do we pass up what’s right in front of us, because we want it to be more difficult? Is this why we have folks that think they can work their way into God’s kingdom? Is grace really too easy?

These are all good questions, but what really struck me is how this applies to how we read and interpret scripture.

How often do we skip over the plain meaning of the text, because it’s just too simple? It seems as though we just aren’t satisfied to read and accept the text as it is. We need Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries, concordances, interlinears, and all kinds of other tools to look for something beneath the surface. I’m not saying these things are bad, nor am I saying that there aren’t layers of meaning in the scriptures. What I am saying is that I think that we’re afraid of the simple. We want there to be complexity. We want that feeling of discovering the hidden meaning. Like Naaman, we want it to be harder than it needs to be.

Personally, I think it has something to do with our desire to be in control, but I’m not sure that’s the entire story.


Which leaves one question. Why?