God used a girl you've never even heard of to
make a general go take a bath. That's how this
works. Starts with a raid you don't see coming.
A village at dawn. A girl taken into a house
that isn't hers. No name, no say. Just a sentence
whispered from the back room, if only. And that
quiet word travels through a wife to a general
past the king down to the muddy river until a
proud man kneels and comes back new. The miracle
everybody remembers begins with the voice, nobody
does. And wherever you are right now, driving
a dark stretch of highway, standing in the kitchen
with a coffee going cold, sitting in a dorm room
with your thoughts getting loud, you just found
your way into our little church in Oklahoma.
The doors are open, the people are real, the
word is still moving. So slide into the pew,
take a breath, and listen close. And friend,
I'll see you on the other side. So this morning
I want to tell you a story you probably haven't
heard before. And I don't mean that it's one
of the stories you heard in Sunday school and
forgot. I mean, it's one the Sunday school teacher...
Never got around to. One the lectionary skips
over. One that has been sitting in your Bible
between the miracles everybody preaches. Genealogies
nobody reads. Waiting for someone to slow down
long enough to notice what's actually in it.
So before we get there, let me set the story
real quick. This morning, we are in the second
book of Kings. Old Testament now. And the kingdom
is already set. And so we have a northern kingdom
and Israel to the north, the southern kingdom,
Judah in the south, Solomon, the guy who built
the temple, his glory days are long gone. And
kings rising and falling pretty much one worse
than the next. Prophets are the only thing holding
the thread together at this moment. Elijah has
already gone up in the chariot of fire, and his
student Elisha has picked up the mantle, literally,
and is now the prophet of Israel. And he's doing
miracles, but quietly. The axe heads floating,
widows' oil multiplying. But it's the kind of
work that's happening in kitchens and along riverbanks,
not in the palace. And to the north of Israel
sits Aram. Aram, and that's modern -day Syria.
And they're not allies. Syrian raiding parties
come across the border of the Northern Kingdom
regularly. They burn, they take, and then they
go home. And one of those raids is where our
story begins. Not with a general, not with a
prophet, but with a girl whose name we never
learn, taken from her home and carried into the
house of the enemy. But we'll get to her. First,
I want to introduce you to the general. Because
the general is how God gets you to lower your
guard. His name is Naaman. He is the commander
of the army of Aram. That's Syria. He's decorated.
He's respected. The text says that the Lord...
Yahweh, had given victory to Aram through him.
So even the narrator of 2 Kings admits this man
has been used by God already, and he doesn't
even know it. He's a pagan general running errands
for Yahweh without a clue. And he has leprosy.
Now, picture this man's life. The armor polished,
the house full of servants, the king's favor
draped over him like a second robe. And underneath
it all, the skin is falling apart. He is covered
in metals and covered in disease. And no amount
of rank can make that rot stop spreading. So,
when the word reaches the king of Syria that
there is a prophet down in Israel who can heal,
the whole official machinery kicks into gear.
Naaman doesn't just go to see the prophet. He
goes through proper channels. The king of Syria
writes a letter to the king of Israel, diplomatic
pouch, official correspondence between heads
of state. And Naaman loads up the convoy, 10
talents of silver, 6 ,000 shekels of gold, 10
sets of clothing, and rolls south with a motorcade
fit for a summit. And he shows up. at the king
of Israel's palace, and the king reads the letter
and tears his robes. Am I God to kill and make
alive? That this man sends someone to me to carry
him on his leprosy? The whole political system
short -circuits because nobody in the palace
knows what to do with a miracle request. That's
come through the proper channels. And Elisha
hears word of this. And he sends word back. Send
him to me. So the convoy rolls up at Elisha's
house. Horses, chariots, gold. Standing at the
door of what is most certainly a modest house
in a modest neighborhood. and the general, Naaman,
waiting there for the prophet to come out. But
Elijah doesn't come out. He sends his servant,
Gehazi. And Gehazi walks out. He looks up at
this decorated general sitting on a chariot,
with the sun glinting off his armor, and says,
Go wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh
will be restored. Then Gehazi goes back inside.
That's it. No audience. No laying on of hands.
No dramatic invocation. The most powerful military
figure in the region. Just got the same treatment
as a note taped to the door. Go wash in the river.
Have a nice day. Kay thinks bye. Naaman is furious.
And listen to what he says, because it tells
you everything about how this general sees the
world. He says, I thought he would surely come
out to me and stand and call on the name of the
Lord his God and wave his hand over the place
and cure the leprosy. Are not the Abada and Parfar,
the rivers of Damascus, better than all of the
waters of Israel? Could I not have washed in
them and be clean? He has a ranking system for
rivers. There's a hierarchy of water. The rivers
back home are wider, cleaner, more prestigious.
The Jordan is a ditch compared to Damascus. And
if he's going to be healed, to him, That healing
must come from some place that matches his dignity.
Because that's his theology. The impressive thing
must, should come from the impressive place.
That big miracle should arrive in the big package.
The general should get the general's treatment.
And his servants, unnamed, unranked, the ones
who carry his bags, they're the ones who talk
sense into him. Father, if the prophet had told
you to do something great, wouldn't you have
done it? How much more then, when he tells you
to wash and be clean? If he'd have said climb
a mountain, you'd have climbed it. If he'd have
said fight a lion, you would have fought it.
But now he simply says go get in the creek and
that's beneath you? Your dignity is the disease,
sir. The cure requires you to get low. And Naaman
goes down. Seven times. Not once. He has to keep
choosing with each dip. Each dip in the river
is another surrender. The water closing over
the head of a man who has never bowed to anyone
and has to come back up and go back down under
again and again and again and again until the
number is complete. Seven. And the text says,
his flesh restored like the flesh of a little
child. The Hebrew here is specific. Naarkatan,
skin of a small boy. The general's skin becomes
a child's skin. The powerful man is made new
by becoming small. He comes back to Elisha dripping
wet, eyes wide open and says, now I know that
there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.
A Syrian general, a pagan, confessing Yahweh
on Israelite soil with river water still in his
beard. Don't take my words for this story, friends.
Let us. Consume this story for ourselves. Attune
your hearts and your ears to the reading of Holy
Scripture this morning. Our passage comes to
us from the second book of Kings, chapter 5,
beginning at the very first verse. Now Naaman,
captain of the army of the king of Syria, was
a great man with his master and honorable, because
by him Yahweh had been given victory to Syria.
He was also a mighty man of valor, but he was
a leper. The Syrians had got out in bands and
had brought away captive out of the land of Israel
a little maiden, and she waited on Naaman's wife.
And she said to her mistress, I wish that my
lord were with the prophet who was in Samaria.
Then he would heal him of his leprosy. One went
in and told his lord, saying, The maiden who
is of the land of Israel said this. And the king
of Syria said, Go now, and I will send a letter
to the king of Israel. He departed and took with
him ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces
of gold, and ten changes of clothing. He brought
the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now
when this letter has come to you, behold, I have
sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal
him of his leprosy. When the king of Israel had
read the letter, he tore his clothes and said,
Am I God to kill and to make alive that this
man sends to me to heal a man of his leprosy?
But please consider and see how he seeks a quarrel
against me. It was so when Elisha, the man of
God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his
clothes that he sent to the king saying, Why
have you torn your clothes? Please let him come
to me now. He shall know that there is a prophet
in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and
with his chariot and he stood at Elisha's house.
Elisha sent a messenger to him saying, Go and
wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh
shall come again to you and you shall be clean.
Naaman was angry and went away and said, Behold,
I thought, he will surely come out to me and
stand and call on Yahweh his God and wave his
hand over the place and heal the leper. Aren't
Abana and Parpar the rivers of Damascus better
than all the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash
in them and be clean? So he turned away and went
with rage. His servants came near and spoke to
him and said, My father, if the prophet asked
you some great thing, wouldn't you have done
it? How much rather than when he says to you,
wash and be clean? Then he went down. He dipped
himself seven times in the Jordan, according
to the saying of the man of God. And his flesh
came again like the flesh of a little child.
And he was clean. He returned to the man of God,
he and all of his company and came and stood
before him. And he said, behold, now I know that
there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.
Now, therefore, please take a present from your
servant. But he said, as Yahweh lives before
whom I stand, I will receive none. He urged him
to take it, but he refused. Naaman said, if not,
then please let your servant be given two mule
loads of earth. For your servant will from now
on offer neither burnt offerings nor sacrifices
to other gods, but to Yahweh. In this thing,
may Yahweh pardon your servant. When my master
goes into the house of Rimon, to worship there,
and he leans on my hands, I bow myself in the
house of Rimon. When I bow myself in the house
of Rimon, may Yahweh pardon your servant in this
thing. He said to him, go in peace. So he departed
from him a little way. Thus ends reading Holy
Scripture this morning. Now, I want to go back
to verse 2. Because we just spent 10 minutes
with the general, his convoy, his gold, his rivers,
his pride, his dipping, his miracle. And we nearly
forgot the way the text nearly forgets, the way
every sermon on this passage nearly forgets,
that none of it happens without her. Verse 2,
and the Syrians had gone out on raids and had
brought back captive a young girl from the land
of Israel. One verse, that's all she gets. One
verse for her entire existence in the story.
Captured, enslaved, serving, three verbs, she's
finished. The story. The narrator moves on. Naaman
moves on. The sermon moves on. But we're not
moving on this morning. Because we need to feel
what's underneath those three verbs. The Syrians
had gone out on raids. And you know what a raid
probably looks like in the ancient world. Soldiers
crossing a border at dawn. A village that isn't
expecting them. Doors kicked open, livestock
scattered, people screaming. Men cut down, women
and children sorted like grain. The useful ones
loaded onto carts, the rest left behind or worse.
She was a child. The text calls her Naara Katana.
Naara? Katana. A young girl. A little girl. It's
the same kind of word that's used for Naaman's
new skin after the healing. A small one. She
didn't choose to leave home. She didn't pack
a bag. She didn't kiss her mother and say, all
right. She was taken. Pulled out of her life
like a tooth. and carried north into the house
of man whose soldiers had burned her village.
And she ends up in the back rooms, serving Naaman's
wife, drawing water, folding linen, invisible.
She has no name in this house. She only has a
function. She is the help. And from that back
room, from that invisible life, in a language
that probably still tastes foreign in her mouth,
she says to her mistress, if only my master would
see the prophet who is in Samaria, he would heal
him of his leprosy. Listen to what she is doing.
She is speaking healing. over the man who has
stole her. She's offering the God of Israel to
the general of the army that destroyed her home.
She has every right to hope that leprosy eats
him alive. Every right to stay silent. Every
right to let the disease do what diseases does
and watch from the back room while her captor
rots away. And instead, she opens her mouth and
speaks the one sentence that changes everything
in the story. Now, she can't say this to Naaman.
She doesn't have that kind of access. She says
it to his wife, sideways, the way the powerless
always speak. Not as a declaration, but as suggestion.
Not a sermon, but a whisper in a kitchen. If
only. And that whisper travels from the wife
of Naaman, from Naaman to the king of Syria,
from the king of Syria to the king of Israel,
from the king of Israel to Elisha, from Elisha
to the Jordan, from the Jordan to a man kneeling
in muddy water with new skin. And every link
in that chain traces right back to a girl in
a back room who decided to bless the man who
had ruined her life. Now here's the part in the
story I can't stop thinking about. Because after
Naaman is healed, he goes back to Elisha, right?
He offers gifts. Elisha refuses them. Naaman
asks for two mule loads of Israelite dirt. He
wants to worship Yahweh on Yahweh's soil when
he gets back to Damascus. He asks permission
to bow in the temple of Rimnon when the king
of Syria leans on his arm. And Elisha says, go
in peace. They have a whole conversation. The
general gets closure. General gets theology.
The general gets a future. Girl gets nothing.
Nobody says let her go home. Nobody sends a chariot
back to her village. Nobody asks her name. Naaman
rides back to Damascus with clear skin and Israelite
dirt and a new God. And she's still in the back
room, still serving, still unnamed, still to
help. The text doesn't fix it. And I want it
to. I want verse 19 to say, And the girl was
returned to her family with honor. But it doesn't.
The story closes around Naaman's healing and
leaves her where it found her. Invisible. Essential.
Forgotten. And I think this is the truest part
of this whole chapter. Because some of you know
what that room feels like. You've been the one.
You said the right thing to the right person
at the right time, and nobody remembers you said
it. You carried something sacred into a house
you didn't choose for people who did not deserve
it. And when the miracle landed, somebody else's
name was wrapped all over it. You've been fateful
in the back room. Nobody came for you. Road didn't
feel like triumph. Felt like service without
recognition. Obedience without applause. Carrying
something holy in the wrong direction of your
heart. You did it anyway. Not because you were
brave, but because something in you wouldn't
let you stay silent. Something in you spoke the
word that needed speaking, even though no one
asked for your testimony and no one was going
to give credit to your account. But that's not
obedience. That's following a calling on your
life. And here's what I need you to hear before
you leave this room this morning. Her name is
not in the text. But her sentence is. And 2 ,800
years later, we are still here reading it. The
system didn't record who she was. But God kept
what she said. Verse 2 is still right there.
Every time someone opens this chapter and finally
sees her. Not the general, not the prophet, not
the river. Every time someone opens this story
and sees her, her testimony arrives again. Right
from the back room, without credentials, without
a name, and it still heals. Rivers heal. They
don't have rank. And neither does the voice that
sends it. So please, my dear friends, go from
this place this morning. Go knowing that God
does not need your name on the marquee to use
your mouth. He does not need your title, your
platform, your standing, or your access. He needs
your sentence. The one true thing you know how
to say from whatever room you've been planted
in. And if nobody remembers you said it, if nobody
sends a chariot back, that word, friends, it
still travels, still reaches the river, still
makes generals kneel. And may the God who hears
the unnamed, who keeps the words the world forgets,
who heals through back rooms and muddy creeks
and little girls the text almost misses, may
that God meet you where you are this morning.
Remind you that your testimony was never inadmissible.
It was just early. The river, the river's still
running. Amen. Amen. Maybe you see yourself in
the story, but maybe you don't see yourself as
the hero. Maybe you've been the one in the back
room, faithful, unseen, carrying a word that
seemed to go somewhere else without you. And
if that's you hear this, nothing you spoke in
obedience was wasted. The God who hears the unnamed
still keeps every word. And maybe you've been
the one resisting, standing at the edge of the
river, unsure if it's worth stepping into. Stay
with it. Same grace that met Naaman in the mud
is still meeting people right where pride runs
out and surrender begins. So wherever you find
yourself today, named, unnamed, or somewhere
in between, river is still running. And if something
you heard today caught you a little off guard,
maybe a thought you hadn't considered or something
familiar that landed a different way, go ahead
and throw your like in the offering plate, just
like we do down at the church. No pressure, just
a quiet way of saying I was here. And it mattered.
And if you'd like to keep walking with us Wednesdays
and Sundays, die that subscribe. That way you'll
know when we're gathering again. Till then, friend,
be blessed.