St. Leonard’s Road in Northampton once led to St. Leonards Hospital, a refuge for lepers.  It was founded by a Norman knight and continued until the 17th century – though by then it only housed one leper. Nowadays, what most of us will know about leprosy is what we read in the bible.  And when we read of leprosy in the Gospels it’s a dreaded disease, and lepers are shunned.

This reading says that Namaan suffered from leprosy.  So how come he was commander of the army of the king of Aram?   We believe that Namaan suffered from a skin disease, often translated as leprosy, but not true leprosy. Apparently, leprosy as known today did not come to Israel until 327 to 325 BC, after the return of troops, after the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great –
that’s your bit of history for today!

So, not leprosy, but still not very pleasant.  There had been no cure, so when a Hebrew slave-girl tells of a Jewish prophet in Samaria who can cure her master, he obtains a letter from his King to King Jehoram of Israel, asking Jehoram to arrange for the healing of his subject Naaman. The king of Israel suspects in this impossible request a pretext for starting a war against him and tears his clothes.

Then Elisha heard about it and says send him to me!  But Namaan bridles at his treatment.  Elisha speaks to him through a messenger, and Naman did not think very much about the river Jordan!   And the American writer, Mark Twain, after a visit in 1869, wrote “When I was a boy, I somehow got the impression that the river Jordan was four thousand miles long and thirty-five miles wide. It is only ninety miles long, and so crooked that a man does not know which side of it he is on half the time. It is not any wider than Broadway in New York!”

But another servant persuades Namaan to do as Elisha said.  And when he does so he is healed.

What attracts me in this story is the role of the servants.  First of all, his wife’s servant girl bravely talks about the prophet in Samaria, Elisha. She is only a slave but she finds courage to speak up.  And then there are the servants of Namaan.  They more or less say “What have you got to lose?”

The Gospel reading today (Luke 10.1-11,16-20) tells of Jesus sending 70 followers to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.”

The servants in this story could have felt like that! And it still seems like that today when we want to speak of our Christian Faith.  Can we copy the confidence of the servant girl?  To recognise opportunities to speak of Him – because it could transform someone’s life!