06/17/2020 GETTING THROUGH IT
(Lessons from The Lepers)
2 Kings 7:8-9 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold, and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. Then they said to each other. “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves….”
THE FOUR LEPERS
Who Are We?
Do our names matter? Of course not! At least not to anyone else. No one ever asks our names. No one ever walks up and introduces themselves to us. No one ever extends a hand. No one greets us with a hug. No one ever invites us into their homes. We are not allowed in The Temple or any places of worship. No one ever wants to risk touching us---the unclean! Most people look at us and then look away. We stand more than 6 feet apart. In fact, we are made to live far away from any community. We are outsiders. We are supposed to wear ragged clothing, look unkempt by letting our hair hang loose, wear a covering upon our upper lip (to prevent the spread of our disease) and advertise our presence by crying out to others around us, “Unclean, unclean.” Leviticus 13:45 We are the lepers. To everyone, our disease is who we are.
Leprosy defines our existence. It limits our existence. We live isolative lives. Most consider us a walking plague, a curse. It is a disease that gets in our clothing. Leviticus 13:47 It is a disease that can spread in a house. Leviticus 14:33. It is a progressive disease, known for its scabs, swelling of the skin, bright and bald spots, and skin malignancy. Leviticus 14:54.1
There are four of us. We are trying to survive.
OUR TRIALS
Right now, we are barely surviving. For us, every day is a trial. Every day we try to find food to eat and try to stay away from those who would just kill us to get rid of us. We have come together to stay alive. We are trying to survive a disease within and without. We are trying to survive society’s indifference and hostility to our very existence, just because we look the way we look. So, we look out for each other.
But now things are even worse. There is a war going on around us. The Syrians are at war with our king and our people, the Samarians. King Ben-hadad of Syria has gathered his entire army and besieged Samaria. Because all commerce has been cut off and the city’s gates are closed, there is a great famine in the city! Everyone inside the city is starving. The enemy is camped nearby. We four lepers are camped outside the city’s gate. We have no food and the people inside the city have no food to give us. So, we are starving too. But, now is a moment of truth.
We look at each other. We decide to assess our situation. This is what we say to one another:
“Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll hide. normally live outside the city, ---the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So, let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans [the Syrians] and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
2 Kings7:4 We get up and get ready to move. GOD help us.
HOW WE GOT THROUGH IT
We stay together. We reason together. We made a decision together. We speak with one voice. And, then we started walking, we walked together, in faith placing “our” fate with GOD. And GOD heard us! GOD took over and decided our fate and the fate of our people! Although we didn’t know any of this at the time we started walking.
When we arrived at the Syrian camp to surrender, we are astonished! No one is here! There is no guarded standing watch. We see no one! [THE LORD had made the Syrian arm hear the sound of chariots, and horses so caused them to believe that the King of Israel had hired the Hittites and the king of Egypt to attack them. So, in a panic the Syrian army fled into the night leaving their tents, horses, donkeys and everything else behind.] When we walked together into the first tent, again no one was inside. No one was inside. We see leftover food everywhere! We are hungry---famished! We begin eating and drinking. What a feast! We had never seen anything like these tables full of food! We also see a lot of gold and silver in the tent. And we see some of the finest clothes we had ever seen! So, we make a quick decision to take the silver, gold, and clothing and hide them. Then we returned to the camp, and enter another tent. We do the same thing we did in the first tent. After gathering more silver, gold, and clothes, we leave the second tent to go out hid those valuables too. What a blessing!!!
It was when we were returning to the camp, that suddenly we looked at each other, again assessing our situation. And then, as if reading each other’s minds, we say to one another:
“We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment [GOD’s punishment] will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.” 2 Kings 9
In other words, although we were liberally being blessed by GOD right now, walking around with full stomachs, counting our wealth, and our blessings, we knew there were thousands of poor people who were still starving in the city of Samaria. We knew people in the city were probably at the brink of death from starvation, just as we had been at the city’s gate. Although we were still outcasts before, right now we were “the one’s on top” and we needed to do the right thing to help those less fortunate than ourselves! Even though our community did not see us as a part of their community, we knew that all humanity is part of the community of GOD. We knew that GOD wouldn’t continue to bless us so we can just live in comfort and greed, but that GOD was blessing us four lepers so that we could be a blessing to the others in the city! We knew that to do otherwise and to not share GOD’s blessing would be a punishable sin!