TILL
This would have been Naaman the leper, a Syrian captain whom the king of
Syria sent to Elisha the prophet to be cured of his leprosy. According to
the story, Elisha didn't even come out to see him but had a servant deliver
a message telling him to go dip seven times in the Jordan River. Naaman was
insulted at the slighting and went away angry. "Behold, I thought," he
said, "that he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name
of Yahweh his God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the leper."
(1 Kings 5:11). Part of his complaint was that the rivers of Abanah and
Pharpar in Syria were just as good as all the waters of Israel, so why
couldn't he wash there and be clean? Naaman's servant suggested to him that
if the prophet had told him to do some great thing, he would probably have
done it, so why not do the simply thing and give it a try? Naaman then went
to the Jordan River, dipped himself seven times, and "his flesh became again
like the flesh of a little child" (v:14).
I used to preach a sermon based on this story, which I entitled "Behold, I
thought." The idea was that people often don't do simple things that God
tells them, because they make no sense to them, and so they try to make
religion, especially worship and the plan of salvation, complex. However (I
would warn severely), just as Naaman wasn't cured of his leprosy until he
had done exactly what God had told him, so we won't be saved and our lives
won't be pleasing to God until we do exactly what he has told us to do, no
matter how silly it may seem. What people should do, of course, is the
five-point plan of salvation of the Church of Christ, and then meet each
Sunday to mouth a few hymns and a prayer or two, eat a pinch of unleavened
bread and drink a shot of grape juice, and then listen to some preacher air
his views.
So how did I do, Jerry? Do you need a guest speaker to fill your pulpit
from time to time? I'll bet that those who don't know better would never
suspect that I'm not the real thing.
Does all of this give everyone on the list an idea of how stupid I was at
one time? I wouldn't object if anyone said that I was an idiot back then,
because I was.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net