When Pride Blocks Grace
A sermon about 2 Kings 5, August 24, 2025
Don’t let your pride block the blessings God has for you. That’s one of the many lessons from the epic tale of Naaman.
The big picture—why is this story in the Bible?
Before we dig into the story details, let’s look at the big picture. It’s remarkable that the story of a general of an invading country who conquered Hebrew villages and took slaves is given divine healing. Why would that story make its way into the sacred history of the Hebrew people? The short answer is that it’s an object lesson about the foolishness of nationalism. God is bigger than any one nation or faith. Not only is that the interpretation of modern scholars, but it’s also the interpretation of Jesus when he talks about the story in Luke 4.
The story is told so that people would see that the path toward healing individuals, nations, and religion involves washing away our pride and being humble before God, recognizing that God loves the very people we wish to push away—even pretentious jerks like Naaman.
With that said, let’s dig into the story to see how it can help us be better people.
The slave girl is the hero of the story.
Naaman is the OG “Big Man on Campus.” He’s the king’s right-hand man because he’s got a list of military conquests a mile long. He’s got a palace, a supportive spouse, servants, and power, not to mention a sweet ride—a big chariot. He’s got everything one can want. But he develops one thing nobody wants—a skin condition that might be leprosy.
It would ruin him. He’d be banished to a leper colony. He’d lose it all.
One of his slaves, an Israelite girl he captured, hears about it and intervenes, and tells Naaman’s wife that the prophet Elisha could help. She could have done otherwise. She could have said, “Good. Let his flesh rot until he dies! The SOB wiped out my village, killed my father, and made me his slave.” But her humanity overrode her hostility. Just because he was terrible didn’t mean she had to become like him and do something terrible in return. Although she was a slave, she was still free to choose how to respond. No matter what anybody does to you, no one can take away your freedom to do the most humane thing.
She’s the hero of the story. And a model for us all.
Notice our heroine isn’t that important in the world’s eyes. We don’t even know her name. A major lesson of scripture is that the real power, the authentic influencers of history, aren’t the elites, but the overlooked who do simple acts of kindness—the people who say I will do what I can to help someone in need. The world changes whenever you let humanity overrule hostility.
Mail-order diplomacy.
Soon, Naaman is off to get permission from his king to set off for Israel. The king, not wanting to lose his right-hand man, loads him up with gold, garments, and a letter to the Israeli king asking for help.
When the king of Israel reads the letter, he sees the legendary general before him, sword sheathed on his hip. The king smells a trap. “This is ridiculous! No one can heal this! Your king is using this as a pretext for war.” A war Israel cannot win.
The king is so distraught that he tears his clothes. Weird, right? It’s an ancient symbol of grief. Tearing your clothes is what you do when a loved one dies.
The prophet Elisha, miles away, catches wind of it and he, too, sends a letter to the king. “Why do you tear your clothes, you faithless wuss? Send Naaman to me. I’ve got this.”
The king is glad to do so. If Elisha heals him, we don’t get conquered. If Elisha fails, Naaman will kill Elisha first. Elisha has already been a pain in his rear, having called him corrupt and faithless. For the king, it’s a win-win scenario.
Naaman feels dissed by the healer.
So, the king sends Naaman to Elisha. After a long journey, he gets to Elisha’s house, but Elisha doesn’t roll out the red carpet for a brute. He doesn’t even go out to greet him. Instead, he sends a messenger. “Boss says, wash in the Jordan seven times.”
And this really ticks Naaman off. Maybe you can relate. Have you ever felt dismissed or disrespected by a medical professional?
A warning against entitlement mindsets.
Naaman lets his privilege show. “I thought surely, for me, he would have the gosh darned common courtesy to talk to me personally.”
And here we get to the root of Naaman’s real problem. The skin disease is superficial; the more profound healing he needs is about his attitude, his malignant sense of entitlement. Entitled thinking, demanding special privilege and deference. It can snare any of us. It’s no prettier on us than it was on Naaman.
I’m not just talking about “Karens” who berate baristas for messing up an order and brag about it on social media. It’s not just about the people who, when they travel, act so smug and superior that the term “ugly Americans” became a thing. Nor is it only about the guy pulled over for DUI and shouting at the police officer, “Do you know who I am?”
It’s also about everyday stuff.
- Interrupting conversations constantly: Believing that one’s thoughts or feelings are more important and interrupting others without regard for their conversational flow.
- Demanding special treatment or exemptions from rules at work or in stores.
- Lack of gratitude for opportunities or support: Not acknowledging or appreciating the help or resources provided by colleagues or mentors.
- Expecting your partner to revolve around you, resenting them whenever they do something for themselves.
It happens. Be on guard. Don’t be a Naaman.
Fear of looking ridiculous.
Not only is Naaman mad about the perceived slight, but he thinks the solution is ridiculous. Strip and kneel in that muddy river? I think of that scene in The Godfather, when the studio exec says, “He made me look ridiculous. And a man in my position cannot afford to look ridiculous.” The irony is, he doesn’t see how ridiculous he sounds when he says it.
(My goodness, our pastor uses a lot of mob movie illustrations. How can we get him to stop? Make him an offer he can’t refuse. Bada bing!)
If all I needed was a bath, Naaman says, I’m going into a clean proper river at home. He has a point. Those rivers were more pristine. In many places, the Jordan is an ugly, muddy stream. If I had a skin condition, I wouldn’t want to wade in either.
I think the point here is that Naaman’s biggest objection wasn’t the river’s muddiness—it was its foreignness. He thought his homeland’s waters were better. Cleaner. Holier. Sound familiar? To God, nationalism looks ridiculous. All the earth is sacred. And in a world as dangerous as ours, we cannot afford to look ridiculous!
Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Naaman turns heel and walks. But again, a servant saves the day. “Dude. Why bounce? If he asked you to do a great thing, you would have done it. But he asks a simple thing. A bath. A bath. C’mon man. What do you have to lose?”
Seems to me that we’re always seeking more complex answers than we need. We buy courses and seminars, but then numb ourselves when we can’t figure it out. Use the KISS method: Keep it simple, smarty. As Micah 6:8 says, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?” It sounds simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy. These are deep-water commands. They require courage, clarity, and constant recalibration. But grace waits for us in their muddy, miraculous practice.
A simple act of humility.
For Naaman to get the healing he needed, he had to humble himself. His pride was blocking the healing God had for him.
Eventually, he said, “Fine. I’ll do it.”
He humbled himself to tear his clothes off and do the thing he said he’d never do. Step into the muddy river where John the Baptist washed away people’s sins, and the place where Jesus himself went under, the place where mud squishes between toes.
No half-measures.
I believe Naaman’s healing happened from the inside out when he humbled himself. He waded in and went under one, two, three times. And I imagine he looked at his skin. This isn’t working. It’s stupid. I look ridiculous. And then he must decide whether to go all the way or take a half measure. Too many folks give up too early. Naaman decided to go all in, no longer caring about looking ridiculous, and the healing happened.
Now I know that following the way of Jesus may make you look and feel ridiculous. You go to church? Really? Yup. You give your money and time to make a difference? Yup. You forgive others when you could strike back? Yup. You practice gratitude when the world is falling apart? Yup. You pray even though so many of your prayers have gone unanswered? Yup.
What do you think you are better than everyone else? Nope. I believe this is the path toward healing my soul and doing my part to heal the world.
After going all in, Naaman experiences healing. He is made whole.
The servant scoundrel.
He’s so grateful to God that he takes some of the soil of Israel with him to remind him. The man who came with gold left with grace. The general who sought a transaction found transformation.
Maybe, just maybe, when he packed that soil, he also packed a new way of seeing. Maybe he went home and said, ‘This soil taught me mercy. I want to live by it now.’ And maybe—maybe—he let the girl go free. I wish the text told us. But I choose to believe grace made him want to right what he’d wronged.
He offers to pay Elisha with gold and garments, but Elisha refuses. The prophet wasn’t in it for profit. Healing is a right for everyone, not just the well-heeled. Imagine that.
But one of Elisha’s servants tries a shake-down when Elisha isn’t looking and gets the goods from Naaman, who is glad to pay. But God’s condemnation falls on the servant who exploits the situation to turn a profit in the name of God. He gets leprosy. Maybe he humbled himself and found his healing. We don’t know.
We know the simple path to our healing.
But what we do know is that we have the opportunity right here and now to step toward spiritual healing for ourselves, our nation, and our faith. Not everyone will be healed the way Naaman was. But we all have rivers to wade into—places where the soul can be softened, the ego washed away, and the wounds named aloud. That’s where healing begins.
What if every step toward humility softens the world around us? What if your wholeness makes room for someone else to thrive? Let us step into the river for our spiritual healing, our wholeness, the blessings God has for us. It’s simple. Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.