Pentecost 22 (NL1) John B. Valentine
2 Kings 5:1-15a November 8, 2026

IF IT AIN’T BROKE .....

So ... it was a couple of weeks ago now ... the last time I got to preach even! ... and I started out my sermon with a whole number of “old saws” ... familiar adages ... ‘over-used expressions’.

• “Birds of a feather” ... FLOCK TOGETHER ...
• “Out of sight” ... OUT OF MIND ...
• “Opposites” ... ATTRACT ...

It was fun ... fun for me at least ... to see the expressions on your faces as you reconnected with those old bits of popular wisdom ... and I think that it was fun for some of you too!

But that exercise has kind of come back to bite me on the backside ... because everywhere I’ve looked in the past couple of weeks ... echoes of “old saws” have been bouncing about in my head.

So ... for instance ...

In the run-up to Election Day earlier this week ... I kept thinking about the familiar saying “You can lead a horse to water” ... BUT YOU CAN’T MAKE IT DRINK ...

Turns out maybe in this case ... unlike in years past ... the Democrats could!

And ... while out shopping for a suit for one of our upcoming family weddings ... this one ... “A penny saved” ... IS A PENNY EARNED ...

After doing a big gulp at some of the price tags on some of those bits of apparel!

But I guess it’s only fair that when I cracked open the text for this week’s scripture lesson ... that bit about a man in search of healing ...

The words that kept running through my head were .... “If it ain’t broke” ... DON’T FIX IT!

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What exactly is the bit of popular wisdom embodied in that phrase?

“If it ain’t broke ... don’t fix it” ......

I suspect ... in part ... it’s a reminder to just “Leave well enough .... ALONE” ....

And ... in part ... that ... at least sometimes ... “The cure is worse than the .... DISEASE” ...

But ... at least nowadays ... in this world wherein “disposability” and “planned obsolescence” are pretty well presumed ... repairing things ... fixing things ... can be hard ... if not downright impossible!

I mean ... it wasn’t too long ago that we had a dishwasher ... a really nice dishwasher ... in our house ... that started making a funny noise.

So I got down on my knees and tried to figure out what was going on ... but pretty quickly determined that it was a problem that was beyond my pay-grade ...

So I hopped on the Internet and checked out Yelp and Google and everything else I could think of to try and find a qualified appliance-repair-person ...

Who finally came out to the house about two weeks later ... and who pronounced ... after being paid a-hundred-and-twenty-five bucks just for the house-call ... that we needed to buy a new dishwasher ...

Because the price of repairing the old one was going to be about twice as much as just buying a new one!

Which leads me to believe that ... at least in the world of appliances and consumer electronics and smart-phones these days ... there are two bits of logic in play ....

• “If it ain’t broke ... DON’T FIX IT” .... and
• “If it is broke ... DON’T FIX IT”!!!

But whereas those two statements may apply to appliances and smart-phones .... I wonder .... do they apply to human beings???

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You see ... in this morning’s Bible story ... that bit from Second Kings ... chapter five ...

We heard about a fellow named Naaman who was clearly numbered among the broken ... for ... what did the text say??? ... Naaman “suffered from a skin disease” ... which was presumed to be leprosy.
“Leprosy” ... what nowadays physicians call “Hansen’s disease” ... was as feared and dreaded a diagnosis in the ancient world as cancer is today.

It was the one diagnosis which no patient wanted to hear.

Such that you can almost imagine Naaman going to see his doctor, and praying to himself ... “Don’t let it be leprosy! Don’t let it be leprosy.”

Naaman’s fears were certainly justified.

After all ... Hansen’s disease is caused by a slow-growing bacteria ... and it begins as small, red spots on the skin.

But slowly ... over the course of time ... those spots begin to grow ... and the skin gets scaly ... and eventually the bacteria work their way into eyes and mouths and upper-respiratory tracts.

Thankfully ... we now have anti-bacterial drugs that can counteract Hansen’s Disease ... but Naaman had no such option back in the days before anti-bacterials.

He’d contracted the disease which nobody wanted ... and he was left to deal with it.

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Now I LOVE the way that the writer of 2nd Kings tells this story ... in part because of the details.

So ... for instance ... what does the text say about this fellow Naaman?

• He’s famous.
• He has a name.
• He has a reputation.
• He’s a big man .... a powerful man ... a wealthy man.
• “He was a great man and in high favor with his master the king.”

Naaman had everything that money and power and prestige could get him .... but he didn’t have his health.

On the other hand ... who knew the solution ... the cure ... to what ailed him?

Again ... what does the text say???

“Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman's wife.”

Pay attention to the contrasts here ...

• He’s got a name ... Naaman. This Hebrew slave girl has no name.
• He’s is a mighty conqueror. She’s numbered among the conquered.
• He’s a man in a male-dominated society. She’s a woman ... and just barely one at that!
• He’s a master. She’s a slave.
• He’s power-FULL. She’s power-LESS.

The way that the story is told she has nothing ... NOTHING ... going for her except for two things:

• One .... she has a knowledge of the healing grace of God ... and
• Two ... she has a spirit of generosity about her.

If you think about it ....

She could have not said anything.

She could have kept her mouth shut ... and just smugly consoled herself in the knowledge that she knew something that he didn’t know .... and chalked it up to “payback” and called it ‘schadenfreude’ ... but she didn’t.

No ...

• She cared enough to speak up ...
• She dared to speak up ...
• She “loved her neighbor as herself” ... even the ‘neighbor’ who’d claimed her as a prize and enslaved her against her will.

And it could well be said that SHE is the first hero / heroine in this story.

And Naaman ... surprisingly ... listens! He’s desperate for a cure! Desperate enough to take medical advice from a no-name foreign girl!

Because Naaman knew that ... “If you don’t have your health” .... YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING.

So he packs his bags .... confirms his travel plans with his boss ... and ... after a curious string of conversations that are nothing short of a political nightmare for the ruling-class in Israel ... this all-powerful Naaman finds himself at the front door of Elisha the prophet.

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You know the saying “Pride goeth” .... BEFORE THE FALL???

That’s the next old saw that seems to come to light in this story!

Naaman is at the house of Elisha .... the great prophet in Israel ... and immediately things go south.

I mean .... here’s Naaman ... who’s traveled all this way with his ten talents of silver ... his six thousand shekels of gold ... and his ten sets of garments ... standing at Elisha’s front door ... and Elisha won’t even get up off the couch!

Instead ... Elisha just sends Naaman a text message that reads: “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.”

Now ... needless to say ... this is TOTALLY unacceptable to the great and powerful Naaman ....

Who says what??

‘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! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?’ He turned and went away in a rage.”

No concierge medicine here! Elisha treats Naaman like a nobody who has to take a number at the clinic .... just like everybody else.

But here’s the thing.

Naaman.... in his pride ... had forgotten .... like we so often do .... that he was in fact no different than others in their hour of need.

He was the beggar ... the sinner ... the leper ... the human ... the needy.

And now he is forced to bow in humility .... and in that humiliation .... he realizes a truth that is so hard to accept ... that .... like all of us ... he too was in need of help. He couldn’t go it alone.

Naaman had two choices ... and they weren’t “My way” ... OR THE HIGHWAY!

He could either accept Elisha’s help ... or he could go home a leper.

He could either be humbled and healed ... or he could be proud and leprous.

It was Naaman’s call. Could he “let his pride goeth before his fall”???

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I suspect that there are at least a couple of us in this room who know something about Naaman’s dilemma here.

We want what it is that God has to offer ... but we want it on our terms ... and not God’s

• We want a god who supports our preferred political party ...
• We want a god who affirms our pet social projects ...
• We want a god who likes to be worshipped in ways that we find entertaining ...
• We want a god who justifies our economic status and our financial choices.

We want a god who roots for our team ... cherishes our causes ... aligns with our values ... who operates on our timing and speaks to us as we'd prefer to be spoken to.

Then again ... how many arguments have we had with a spouse or coworker that escalated out of control because we just couldn't let it go??

Times when we would rather be right and lose a friend than pick our battles and save a relationship ....

Times when we’d rather be right than be happy.

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The good news ... at the end of the story ... is that there IS “a balm in Gilead.”

That help comes ... and comes from an unlikely source.

There are these unnamed servants ... the other real ‘heroes’ in this story ... who call an emergency intervention, and have a “come to Jesus” meeting with their master:

“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 the mighty Naaman .... reduced to humbling himself before the God of Israel .... and enduring the snub of a prophet of the Most High God ....

• walks down to the muddy Jordan ...
• bares his broken body to his servants ...
• lowers himself into the water seven times ...
• and comes up clean!

Which all leaves me wondering if maybe the old saw that really fits with this story isn’t “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” ....

But rather “A little humility” .... GOES A LONG WAY. (Do you know that one??)

• In our relationships with ourselves ....
• In our relationships with our spouses and parents and kids ....
• In our relationships with our co-workers and our bosses ....
• In our relationships with our neighbors and friends ....
• Dare I add “In our relationships with God”???

“A little humility” .... GOES A LONG WAY.

Think on these things!