The Small Thing You Keep Skipping
"So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage. Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy."
— 2 Kings 5:9-14
The man outside that gate commanded the army of Aram, a kingdom that raided across the border for plunder. One of those raids had carried off the captive girl who told her mistress where help could be found. He set out with ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. Two talents had once bought the whole hill that Samaria was built on. Just before this, Israel's king tore his robes over the letter Aram's king had sent, sure it was only a pretext for picking a fight. The skin condition named here covered a family of disorders under one Hebrew term. Under the law such a man lived outside the camp, yet this foreigner kept his rank. The cleansing rite ran through a priest, with sprinkling repeated seven times and offerings burned on an altar. Outside that gate there was no priest, no altar and no ceremony. The water he was sent to is muddy and lies far below sea level. The two he preferred keep his own capital green at the edge of the desert. Here the healing came through one small act of obedience rather than a performance.