I am a retired math teacher, and sometimes I could sense that the students in a class were not working as hard as they should. Instead of chewing them out, I would tell them about Euclid and King Ptolemy I. In itself, this wasn’t unusual for I often included historical mathematical anecdotes. I would say something like this. “The mathematician Euclid was active during the reign of King Ptolemy I (323-283 BC), and he is mostly known for his book The Elements. This work had a very long life, for it, or variants of it, served as the standard text for geometry courses (including my own high school course) for over two thousand years. King Ptolemy was very supportive of Euclid and his work; he personally wanted to learn geometry. He found reading The Elements to be very difficult, and he came to Euclid and asked him if Euclid couldn’t make it simpler and easier for him. Euclid replied, `There is no royal road to geometry.’ Indeed there is no royal road to mathematics.” Without further comment I would then start the day’s lesson.

I was reminded of all this by one of our scripture readings last Sunday; it was the story of Naaman. Naaman was the well-respected and successful commander of the Syrian army, but he had the misfortune of coming down with leprosy. One of his wife’s servant girls, a Jew, said that there was a prophet in Israel that could heal him. He went with a letter of introduction from the King of Syria to Joram, the king of Israel. Joram was perplexed about what to do, but finally told Naaman to go to the house of the prophet Elisha. When he got there, Elisha didn’t invite him in, or even go out to greet him; instead he sent a servant out with a message that Naaman should go wash himself seven times in the muddy, Jordan River. Naaman was angry at this treatment; he was expecting Elisha to at least come out, wave his hand over the leprous spots, and call on the God of Israel to heal him. Besides, he noted that there were better, cleaner rivers back in Damascus. Naaman set off in a rage towards home, but his servants convinced him to at least try what Elisha said. You know what happened. He was healed.

There is more to the story and other important conclusions to draw (please read 2 Kings 5:1-15), but for now let’s concentrate on the special treatment that Naaman expected. Even though we’re not kings, we sometimes expect the same. Maybe we expect it because we’ve never done anything “really bad”, maybe because our parents were good Christians, maybe because we always attend church, or maybe because we give generously of our time and money. Regardless of what we’ve done or who we are, God loves us all the same, unconditionally. Jesus died for us, and His grace is free. But nevertheless, we are all individually responsible for our own repentance and acceptance of God’s grace.

Jim