I always loved looking through old photo albums back when I was a kid and sometimes still do, though most of my pictures from the past 15-20 years are digital only and not in an album of any sort. But the reason I used to look through those photos was to remember experiences, but more importantly to remember people that had made those experiences worthwhile. For me, photo albums and scrapbooks are important for the sole fact that they connect us to the important people from our past. These days, we might look to our Facebook photo album or scroll through the photos on our phone to see those memories and those people who’ve been important in our past. For me, Facebook has become a sort of living scrapbook of life, with pictures and words that inspire memories of the important events and people of my life.

I have one old photo album at home that is full of pictures from when I was probably about seven to 10 years old. Some of the photos I took myself and others were taken of me. There are a few photos in there that I probably wouldn’t consider to be the most favorable photos of myself…like the one when I was about eight and my mom took a picture of me standing in the bathroom with no shirt on after I’d built a tower out of her curlers. Or the one from Christmas of me in red sweats, my mom’s furry red hat, and a beard made out of cotton balls so that I kind of looked like Santa Claus. Now, you may be wondering why I am telling you about these embarrassing pictures. And I will get to that. But first let me tell you about one other photo album I have at home. It is from high school and contains all the pictures I took of my friend group. In that album, I have a picture of a friend of mine with tiny little braids in his hair. And one of another friend with a whole bunch of marshmallows jammed in her mouth. Now, I tell you this because often times the memories that are important to us include both good and not as good snapshots from life.

The Bible is like a scrapbook or a photo album for the people of Israel…and now for us as those who stand in the same legacy. Each story or lesson is a snapshot of our people’s history. Many of those snapshots are good and remind us of things from the history of our faith that we can celebrate. But others are less pretty. And give us pause to think. The story we read today is one of those stories. It’s strange and doesn’t seem to have an obvious good guy. But let’s take a closer look at the three main characters and see the story from their perspective.

First, we have Naaman. Naaman is the commander of the army from Aram. Aram was a Gentile nation. Now, Naaman suffered from leprosy. But in his household was a slave girl who had been taken from Israel. And the slave girl said to Naaman’s wife, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” The wife told Naaman this and Naaman went to the king of Aram. The king then sent a letter to the king of Israel on behalf of Naaman, asking for Naaman’s healing. I wonder how Naaman felt at this point. Leprosy was a terrible disease, so I’m sure he wanted nothing more than to be cured of it. But taking advice from a Jewish slave girl had to be difficult. Girls were not highly regarded and this one was a slave and a foreigner. And her advice was to see another foreigner…a prophet of a foreign land, a prophet for a foreign god. That had to be tough advice to take. Yet he brought it to the king of the land. And the king reached out to Israel.

Then fast forwarding a bit, Naaman is sent to this prophet, Elisha. And Elisha tells him to go wash in the Jordan River. Now, this is the point at which I think Naaman loses it a bit. It’s just too many tough things. The Jordan was a river in Israel. So now this Israeli prophet was sending him to bathe in an Israeli river in order to be healed. And it felt like too much for him. Why did he need to bathe in an Israeli river when there are plenty of rivers in Aram? He wasn’t going to do it. But his servants approached him and said, “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’?” And so he changed his mind and bathed in the Jordan and he was cleansed.

How hard is it for us to take advice or allow ourselves to be helped or to learn something from those who are not like us? I want you to think for a moment about who in your life might be our Israelite? Who is similar and yet different enough from you that taking advice or learn from them would be hard to do? Maybe it’s that person who votes for a different party than you. Maybe it’s the person who speaks a different native language. Maybe it’s the person who works at the competing company. Or maybe it’s that person who doesn’t act like you or look like you or live like you do. Whoever it is, I challenge you this week to stop and truly listen to that person. You don’t have to agree with them or do everything they would do, but genuinely listen and see what healing comes in your life.

That leads us to the person of the king of Isreal. When he receives the letter from the king of Aram, he is immediately put off and worried. He fears that the king of Aram is out to start a war. He says this, “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.” The king of Israel thinks the king of Aram is trying to pick a fight. He is confused by the request. And he doesn’t know how to help. So, he worries and it says later that he tore his clothes, a sign of grief. Who was the king grieving for? Was it for Naaman? Or was it for himself?

Sometimes when we are confronted with the hurt of others, we find ourselves focusing instead of our own discomfort rather than trying to help. I had a friend in high school who I felt at the time was not a great influence on me. So, I cut ties with him. Just completely stopped being friends. Looking back on that, I’ve often simply felt some discomfort at how I handled things, but then quickly pushed that away. But only recently have I began to consider truly how that may have affected him. And that is the first step toward healing. Perhaps the king of Israel’s grief, displayed in the tearing of his clothes, was that first step toward healing Naaman. It certainly got the attention of our third character.

Elisha the prophet heard that the king had torn his clothes and learned of the request for heal Naaman. So, he sent word to have Naaman come to him. So Naaman came to Elisha’s house, but Elisha would not come out to meet Naaman. He spoke to him from within the house while Naaman stayed outside. And while Elisha’s advice to Naaman did truly bring Naaman healing, it seems he hurt Naaman a bit in the process. Naaman got angry and said, “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!” But Elisha did not do that. He didn’t come out of the house at all. And he didn’t pray over Naaman to bring him healing. He simply told him to go bathe in the Jordan River.

While Elisha’s advice did work, his refusal to go out and meet Naaman almost made Naaman refuse the healing advice. I think sometimes the way we treat people has a greater effect on people than the advice or the learning or the truth we give them. I had a teacher in middle school who was always grouchy and rarely very kind to any of her students. I had her in 7th grade and hated that class. I did not get a very good grade. In 8th grade, I ended up in her class again. Part way into the year, she lightened up a little, not fully, but some, and I began to enjoy her class more and actually began to learn. The way she treated the class had a deep impact on the class’s learning. How we treat others, the way we love them or don’t love them, the way we include them or exclude them, the way we are kind or the way we are cruel to them, makes at least a big of a difference on how our help is received than the help itself.

The three characters of Naaman, the king of Israel, and Elisha provide us with some helpful perspectives as we attempt to be loving and helpful to others. Naaman shows us not to dismiss the perspectives of others just because the people are different than us. The king of Israel teaches us to try to understand where others are coming from and put ourselves in their shoes. And Elisha shows us that how we treat people is just as important as saying and doing the right thing. Our attitude impacts our message. The people in our lives matter. They teach us through example how to live and to act. We learn from our friends and family. And we learn from the stories of our faith. May we hang onto those lessons this week and may they change us for the better. AMEN!