Jumping to Conclusions

2 Kings 5:1-15 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
5 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. 2 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. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” 4 So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5 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. 6 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.” 7 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.”
8 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.” 9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. 10 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.” 11 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! 12 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. 13 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’?” 14 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.
15 Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.”
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One time I saw a couple sisters walking into the florist. I knew their father had been quite ill. I assumed that he had died and that they were meeting with the florist to plan funeral flowers. I went home and told Bim what I saw. He went up town and mentioned my observation. It turns out their father was very much alive and they were just shopping. I jumped to conclusions.
During my teaching years I had many students who shared a last name. In my early years I assumed they were all cut from the same cloth. Once I had a Burke or a Green or a Donahue or a McDonnell, I expected a similar version of the next sibling to sit in my classroom to resemble the elder brother or sister. So if I had a student who was quiet and well-behaved, I expected the younger sibling to also be quiet and well-behaved. That meant that any younger siblings or cousins who came into my classroom began the semester with an extra burden of being stereotyped to fit my first impression. I jumped to conclusions.
In our story today, jumping to conclusions nearly caused a war and nearly prevented a healing.
King Jehoram is king of Israel. Naaman is a military commander for the King of Aram. With such credentials, you would think they would be blessed not only with power, but with wisdom.
And they probably were, to have achieved such positions as king and commander. But they also had their weaknesses, and they jumped to conclusions.
The king of Israel, when presented with ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments, assumed that the king of Aram was trying to trick him into war.
7 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.”
Jehoram reacted out of fear. When he read that the king of Aram expected to have Naaman cured, Jehoram jumped to the conclusion that he personally was supposed to cure Naaman. The only thing he could deduce is that the king of Aram was setting him up for failure so that Aram could invade Israel. If Jehoram couldn’t personally cure Naaman, he was going to have to get his soldiers ready for war. To us, that seems like a pretty wild assumption, but if Jehoram is already feeling threatened by the possibility, then it seems logical to jump to that conclusion.
We know that it is not Jehoram who can cure Naaman. It is Elisha, the prophet. Elisha is important to the people because he is the one who speaks for God to the people. God works through Elisha to help the Israelites maintain their faith in God.
Elisha has worked miracles before. Apparently this is common knowledge among the people. Why else would a young woman, a prisoner of war, know about him? As a prisoner of war, she was given to a prominent citizen of Aram. Naaman was that citizen and he gives the young woman to his wife.
Despite his status in the kingdom of Aram, Naaman’s life is not perfect. The writer of 2 Kings tells us he has leprosy. It may not have been the kind of leprosy we know as Hansen’s disease. It may have been another form of dermatitis , such as psoriasis or eczema. Nonetheless, it is troublesome. Naaman’s wife evidently frets about this disease in front of the young woman and the young woman, tired of hearing about it, suggests to Naaman’s wife that a cure is available in Israel. Naaman’s wife tells Naaman, and Naaman tells the king of Aram.
Evidently Naaman and the king are not only professional colleagues, but also close friends. The king arranges for Naaman to go to Israel for the cure. He is so hopeful that Naaman will be cured that he sends generous gifts as a thank you to Israel. Evidently the king has also jumped to the conclusion that the King Jehoram is the miracle maker.
When Naaman arrives at Elisha’s doorstep, Elisha doesn’t even get up off his seat.
10 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.”
Naaman is insulted. First, he expects Elisha himself to administer the cure. Second, the cure is so simple that it can’t possibly work. Naaman was expecting a lot of hocus-pocus, mysterious ceremonies, and possibly some difficult challenges to effect his cure. But, no! Go wash in the river. Naaman could have done that with having to travel all this way. What a joke! Naaman jumped to the conclusion that his cure had to be complicated.
If it weren’t for his servants who convinced him that he had nothing to lose, he would not have bathed seven times and he wold not have gone home with clear skin.
How often do we jump to conclusions?
We are almost finished with this year’s political season. Day after tomorrow marks the end of campaigning and the end of all those commercials and advertisements we despise. The writers of those ads are counting on your jumping to conclusions. Each ad tells us just enough to send our brains in a certain direction and we come to the conclusion that we are in danger and can only be saved by the candidate’s plans fo us—or we can only be saved by voting against another candidate. The political workers expect us to jump to conclusions. They don’t expect us to do our own research, to find out what is really going to happen.
My daughter, Miriam, spoke at a candidate rally last night. One of the examples she gave described how a bill supporting mental health care was signed into law that would have helped her and people like her. The person signing the bill was surrounded by people who would benefit from that bill. They did not know that the bill would not be funded and they did not know that existing funds were being cut. They jumped to the conclusion that they were being helped.
On a lighter note, my son, at about four years of age, saw a can of peanuts sitting on the counter. He leaped across the room, plunging his hand into the can of “peanuts.” It was my grease can. Imagine his shock. And imagine my laughter. He turned on me and shouted, “Mom, you hurted my feelings!!!!”
Jumping to conclusions can hurt people. Fortunately, King Jehoram and Naaman both came to their senses. There was no intent of war and Naaman was cured. In fact, read the rest of the story. Naaman became a worshiper of God, the same God we worship.
This week I had to write a paper for one of my classes about how we carry on the work of a church that is 2,000 years old. One of my comments was that it is hard to be optimistic about our situation when our numbers are small. Sometimes we jump to conclusions about why people don’t join us here on Sunday mornings.
I think that everyone who is not here has a valid reason, a logical reason for not being here. Friends of mine had a daughter die when she was twelve. The father never went back to church. Perhaps he blamed God. More likely is that he knew that he could not get through a service without breaking down in tears and sobbing his heart out in front of the whole congregation. He was a tough, gruff man; he would not make a spectacle of himself in front of those who though they knew him.
Another thing that disturbs me is that I have finally realized that if you don’t read well, a typical worship service can be pure torture. What percentage of your time is spent reading, either liturgy or words to a hymn? I had jumped to the conclusion that our service is pretty user-friendly. I design our services just for us; I don’t use “the book.” But my services still depend on you being able to read—and to read pretty fast.
So, let us, when we judge, not jump to conclusions. Let us not be like Naaman and King Jehoram, measuring people by our own expectations.
One of my classroom tricks, acquired after years of practice—and after realizing that not all cousins are cut from the same cloth—was to look at each student, individually, as a child of God. That changes everything. Each of us is a child of God, redeemed by a God who sent his Son to walk among us, to save us from our own recklessness, our own prejudices. Praise be to a God whose final conclusion is eternal life. Amen.