The first reading for mass today certainly gives us hope, that God can change our attitudes and heal us, and sometimes it can happen through the most unlikely people. Naaman never would have been healed of his leprosy except for a small servant girl. A little servant girl had compassion on his condition and told her mistress what might help. She cared enough about her master’s condition to think about what might help, without regard to his position or social status. Children are like that. They love indiscriminately and adults could learn a lot about love from them. But, we could also learn a lot from the fact that the little servant girl’s mistress and master too, listened to her.
You can’t buy love though, and that is what the king of Aram tried to do. It offended the king of Israel, who had the humility to know he could do nothing himself, only God could. And God’s healing could not be bought. The king wasn’t very compassionate with Naaman, but the prophet Elisha was. Elisha offered to heal Naaman for a very specific reason, and that was so the people would understand that there was a real prophet, sent by God in their midst.
The prophet Elisha told Naaman what to do to be healed but he wouldn’t listen because he thought the river Jordan’s waters were not good enough. If it wasn’t for his servants insistence, Naaman would have left in anger and never been healed. Naaman was healed by God only because he got over his anger and listened to his servants. How many of us really listen to those around us when we get angry though?
Jesus even mentions this story about Naaman’s healing from leprosy in today’s gospel. God doesn’t heal everyone indiscriminately. People shouldn’t expect miracles just because they hear that they occurred somewhere else, even in modern times. Jesus told us that when God healed people, it was for a specific person and for a specific reason. When miracles occurred it was to show the true presence of God among His people, or that a prophet really was sent by God and they should listen to him. The miracles gave credibility to the prophet.
But, Jesus knew that no amount of miracles he performed in his own hometown would give credibility to the fact that he was the son of God. However, the townspeople became angry at him for saying this, because they wanted him to perform a miracle for them and he wouldn’t do it. Jesus performed miracles for everyone else in the world, but not them. They didn’t really listen to what Jesus tried to tell them, and because of their own selfishness and anger they tried to throw him off the cliff.
There is quite a lesson about listening in both of the readings today. Naaman was very angry, but he got over it and listened to his servants and was healed. The people in Jesus’ hometown got angry too, but they didn’t really listen to what Jesus was saying because of their own selfishness in wanting to see a miracle.
Maybe we could try to learn from how Naaman handled his anger today. The next time our anger gets out of hand, we should put it aside and really try to listen to what the other person is trying to say.
