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“The Prophet Elisha and Naaman”
by Lambert Jacobsz, c. 1615 |
Readings for Monday of the Third Week of Lent [1]
Readings from the Jerusalem Bible [2]
Readings and Commentary: [3]
Reading I: 2 Kings 5:1-15ab
Naaman, the army commander of the king of Aram,
was highly esteemed and respected by his master,
for through him the LORD had brought victory to Aram.
But valiant as he was, the man was a leper.
Now the Arameans had captured in a raid on the land of Israel
a little girl, who became the servant of Naaman’s wife.
“If only my master would present himself to the prophet in Samaria,”
she said to her mistress, “he would cure him of his leprosy.”
Naaman went and told his lord
just what the slave girl from the land of Israel had said.
“Go,” said the king of Aram.
“I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”
So Naaman set out, taking along ten silver talents,
six thousand gold pieces, and ten festal garments.
To the king of Israel he brought the letter, which read:
“With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you,
that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
When he read the letter,
the king of Israel tore his garments and exclaimed:
“Am I a god with power over life and death,
that this man should send someone to me to be cured of leprosy?
Take note! You can see he is only looking for a quarrel with me!”
When Elisha, the man of God,
heard that the king of Israel had torn his garments,
he sent word to the king:
“Why have you torn your garments?
Let him come to me and find out
that there is a prophet in Israel.”
Naaman came with his horses and chariots
and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house.
The prophet sent him the message:
“Go and wash seven times in the Jordan,
and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean.”
But Naaman went away angry, saying,
“I thought that he would surely come out and stand there
to invoke the LORD his God,
and would move his hand over the spot,
and thus cure the leprosy.
Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar,
better than all the waters of Israel?
Could I not wash in them and be cleansed?”
With this, he turned about in anger and left.
But his servants came up and reasoned with him.
“My father,” they said,
“if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary,
would you not have done it?
All the more now, since he said to you,
‘Wash and be clean,’ should you do as he said.”
So Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times
at the word of the man of God.
His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
He returned with his whole retinue to the man of God.
On his arrival he stood before him and said,
“Now I know that there is no God in all the earth,
except in Israel.”
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Commentary on 2 Kgs 5:1-15ab
This story of the conversion of Naaman through Elisha’s office as prophet has some interesting historical and ritual material. First, it is ironic that the king of Aram, which was an antagonist of Israel, would send one of his key advisers to Israel. That is why the king of Israel tore his garments. He assumed that Aram was making an unreasonable request in order to provoke physical hostilities between the two countries.
Next, we see Elisha not coming out of his house to instruct Naaman but sending word to him. He did so in part because to come into the presence of one with leprosy could have caused him ritual impurity (see Leviticus 13-14). Clearly Naaman did not know this, since he complained about it. Finally, the Jordan River, from a hygienic perspective, is not as clean as the clear springs of Damascus. It is, at the best of times, muddy. The requirement that Naaman plunge (other translators say “dip” which has a different connotation [4]) himself into the water seven times is significant in that the number seven is, in Hebrew numerology, the perfect number, symbolic of completeness. This would also be in line with the ritual cleansing prescribed in Leviticus 14:8. The lesson taught was that Naaman, washed clean of his transgressions (outwardly expressed as leprosy) was given the salvation only the God of Israel could provide (not some magical ritual performed by the prophet himself). The healing accomplished was to bring Naaman to confess that there is no god but God (in Israel).
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4
R. (see 42:3) Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
As the hind longs for the running waters,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Athirst is my soul for God, the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Send forth your light and your fidelity;
they shall lead me on
And bring me to your holy mountain,
to your dwelling-place.
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Then will I go in to the altar of God,
the God of my gladness and joy;
Then will I give you thanks upon the harp,
O God, my God!
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
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Commentary on Ps 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4
Psalms 42 and 43 form a single continuous song. It is an individual lament for a return to Jerusalem where God may be encountered in the temple. The hind (female red deer) longing for water is used to provide the allusion to baptism, bringing belief out of unbelief.
CCC: Ps 42:3 2112
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Gospel: Luke 4:24-30
Jesus said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth:
“Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel
in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built,
to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away.
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Commentary on Lk 4:24-30
This Gospel passage places Jesus at his hometown speaking in the synagogue. The people there were questioning his authority, since they knew him as a child and knew his family. These verses give his response to their challenge to his status and authority.
We understand why the people were upset when we consider that, in his analogy explaining why he could accomplish no works from God to satisfy them, he used Elijah going to a widow in Sidon (not in Israel, see 1 Kings 17:9ff), and Elisha curing Naaman (a Syrian not an Israelite, see 2 Kings 5:1ff). This would have placed Jesus on a par with the great prophets, blasphemy in the eyes of his old neighbors. Perhaps even more upsetting to the people would have been that their God would not reveal himself because of their lack of faith. (Ironically, Jesus, who we know is God, was revealing himself. The people just could not see it.)
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Reflection:
As we hear Jesus speak to his friends and relatives in the synagogue at Nazareth, it is easy for us to understand why Jesus is frustrated at their lack of faith. Here they are, people that had the honor of growing up with him, knowing him as youth and man, yet they did not understand his divine nature. They scoffed and rejected his attempted revelation. In fact, many of them probably thought he had, as they say, “gone off his nut.” His experience with his eccentric cousin John (the Baptist), and his sabbatical in the desert immediately following, must have caused him to come “unhinged.”
Jesus, of course, saw all of this in their faces and heard what was behind their words. He would have felt intense sorrow, knowing that because of this familiarity and presumed understanding, his own friends and family would not be able to accept the great gift God had offered them. An analogy might be if we were able to invent a treatment that would cure any disease somehow, and then offered it freely to those in our community hospital, but they would not accept it because we did not have credentials as a pharmacist.
And what lesson do we take away from the Gospel? Don’t we fall into the same trap? Do we listen to those around us with the attention we would pay to a prestigious expert on the subject at hand? We commonly miss God’s revelation because we do two things. First, we judge the source, and if, in our opinion, that source is less credible than the wisdom we suppose we have already amassed, we tune it out. We ignore it. Second, we just plain don’t listen. Our own voice gets in the way of our auditory canals and we don’t hear what we should. This is especially true in, of all places, prayer. We are so busy telling God what we want that we don’t listen to his answers.
In the very truest sense, this is exactly the sin those ancient Hebrews committed when Jesus spoke to them in the synagogue. They were not really listening. This then is the lesson we take with us today. It is rather complex and very difficult. First, we must surrender our own pride and sense of superiority and listen intently to those with whom we communicate (even our children). The word we hear may be life changing. Second, as a people of prayer, we must listen to God’s response with our hearts, not simply bombard the Lord with our words. Let that be our prayer today, that our ears will be open that we might hear.
Pax
[1] The picture is “The Prophet Elisha and Naaman” by Lambert Jacobsz, c. 1615.
[2] S.S. Commemoratio[3] The readings are taken from the New American Bible, with the exception of the psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for English in Liturgy (ICEL). This republication is not authorized by USCCB and is for private use only.
[4] The Word Biblical Commentary, 2 Kings, Volume 13, © 1985 by Word, Inc. p. 65. Also,
The Navarre Bible: “Joshua-Kings”, Scepter Publishers, Princeton, NJ, © 2003, p. 534.
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