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The scriptures referred to are 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c, Psalm 111, and Luke 17:11-19.

In a discussion of vaping on NPR 2 separate callers said that what led them to stop was being “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” As any health professional will tell you, people who are unhealthy rarely change or seek help until the situation becomes unbearable. A man will ignore frequent incidents of chest or left arm or left jaw pain until the day it feels like an elephant is sitting on his chest. Only then will he call the doctor, usually to be told to call 911 because he is probably having a heart attack. This is especially a problem with men. Women will usually go to the doctor for earlier symptoms. Maybe that's why women generally live longer than men and why married men live longer on average than single men. The wives of the married men nag them until they see the doctor for health problems they would ordinarily ignore.

In today's Old Testament lesson it is a woman who gets a man to seek help on his health problem. What the Bible calls leprosy is probably not Hansen's disease, which we call leprosy today. From the descriptions in Leviticus 13-14, leprosy in the Bible seems to include a number of skin conditions, such as psoriasis or fungal infections. And just like today, there was a stigma attached to having a visible and disfiguring disease. Despite this, Naaman was able to rise to the position of commander of the army of the king of Aram, modern day Syria. And ironically it was a prisoner of war, an Israelite woman who became the slave of Naaman's wife, who tells her mistress of the prophet Elisha. And his wife probably nagged Naaman to go seek help.

What our reading skips is the part where Naaman gets permission from his king to go to Israel, a rival state, for a cure. The king of Aram sends a letter to the king of Israel saying, “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” That's the letter that is so distressing that the king of Israel tears his garments, a sign of mourning or, in this case, agitation. He apparently thinks that he is expected to cure Naaman, who can use his failure as a pretext for war.

Elisha, who is in town, hears of this and tells the king to simply send Naaman to him. But when the army commander arrives, the prophet will not come out to meet him, possibly to avoid ritual contamination. Instead he sends a messenger with instructions. Naaman is incensed by this discourtesy and goes off in a rage. But his servants talk some sense into him. He goes and washes seven times in the river Jordan and is cured.

There are some lessons to be learned here. First, when you need help, get help. This sounds obvious but we often neglect this essential saw initial step. We often wait until it is too late. We tell ourselves, “It's not that bad.” We don't heed the signs and when things get so dire that we have to get help, the situation is much worse and harder to deal with. I once had a woman ask me if it was normal for your nipple to turn black and collapse in on itself! And this from someone who had beat breast cancer before! But her husband had had a major stroke and she had devoted herself to his care rather than get her obviously recurring breast cancer attended to. She knew that the treatments would render her too weak to care for him. But I was his home health nurse and would have made sure they both were taken care of. As it was, first she died and then in 6 months, he did. As they say on every plane flight, when the masks drop down from the overhead compartment, put on yours first, then help the child or elderly person next to you. Otherwise you will both be in trouble.

So when you have a problem, get help. Even if you did nothing to cause it. Because once you realize you have a problem, if you don't seek help, then everything that follows does become your fault. And today there are support groups for just about every problem that exists. Many meet in churches. The church ideally should act as a larger support group. In a world that is spiritually and morally sick, the fact that people are leaving churches rather than seeking them out saddens me. Yes, some churches and some clergy have acted badly but the same goes for some doctors. When they encounter a bad doctor most people don't stop going to doctors; they just look for a good one. If you had a bad experience with a church, find a better one, one that nourishes you spiritually, one that embodies God's love.

The second lesson we learn from our story is be humble and do what the doctor says. In the age of the internet some people want their MD to do what Web MD says to do. While it's vital to be well-informed on your health, Dr. Google doesn't know you as well as your doctor hopefully does. Your doctor's experience may have taught him things that a general article on the subject written for the average person might not have. And he may know that the medicine or treatment you see hyped on the web is not the magic cure-all it says it is. Right now medical marijuana is being heralded as a panacea. But so far the science says it is beneficial in just 4 specific medical conditions. Like any drug, it has side effects and it doesn't work on all people. And until we have standard strengths and dosages, you should be cautious in using it for anything based merely on anecdotal evidence. And, yes, it can be addictive. Anything that makes you feel good can be addictive. Or are we on our smartphones all the time because we are fervently researching ways to make the world better?

In our reading from 2 Kings, instead of the method of cure Naaman expected, Elisha tells him to wash himself 7 times in the river Jordan. Naaman fumes because, after all, the rivers back home are much nicer than this foreign one. He, an impressive man, wanted an impressive ceremony for his healing. Perhaps Elisha knew that Naaman had to be taken down a peg or two. So he needed to be humble and do what the healer told him to do, not what he'd rather do. Humility was not considered a virtue in the pagan world. It still isn't very popular. Yet it says in Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

God can't help you if you think you know better than he does or if you act as his rival rather than his subject. When we come to God, we should not presume to tell him how to handle a situation. We may want grand miracles, whereas he may prescribe something less showy. Jesus refused to do spectacular miracles just to please the crowds and his critics. Jesus spat in mud and rubbed it on a blind man's eyes to cure him. Often he healed with just a word. In today's gospel Jesus just tells the lepers to go see a priest. On the way they are healed without Jesus saying anything more. Jesus didn't want people to think he was doing magic, relying on special rituals or incantations to heal. The power came from God, who couldn't be compelled to do things by certain words or rituals. God did them out of his gracious will.

And similarly Elisha didn't want Naaman to think the power was in the words or the gestures or even in the prophet himself. By doing something as mundane as washing in an ordinary river—in other words, by simply obeying God's word—Naaman would discover that his healing could only be attributed to God.

Our Old Testament passage cuts off before Naaman can show his gratitude by offering the prophet a gift. Elisha refuses. Again it was God who healed Naaman. Elisha will not take credit. In the gospel, one leper, upon realizing he has been healed, returns to Jesus to thank him. Jesus sees this as the man giving "praise to God." Jesus often tried to dissuade people from making a fuss over him but to tell people what God has done for them. So our third lesson is to give credit where it is due and give thanks to God.

These are really simple lessons but the world needs to learn them. Everywhere we see people with obvious problems who don't seek help. We see arrogant people who don't listen to those who know better. We see people who hog the credit and don't thank God. We all need to recognize that we are not perfect. We have problems and we need help. We need to be humble, not proud. We need to seek wisdom, not pretend we have all the answers. As it says in Isaiah 5:21, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.” Our psalm says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And by fear we mean a healthy respect for our Creator, and an acknowledgment that not we but he is in control. As the psalm says, we need to read and study and obey his words. And we need to be grateful to him for what we have. There are people who have power and riches, as Naaman had, but not wellbeing. They may seem to have everything but they don't have peace. Only God can give that.

One last lesson: listen to those who love you. If Naaman hadn't listened to his wife, and later to his servants, he wouldn't have been healed and he wouldn't have found God. Your loved ones on on your side and if they say you have a problem and need help, believe them. And don't dismiss the advice of someone just because they aren't powerful. This whole process gets started because a woman, a slave, a prisoner of war, tells her mistress where her husband can find help. God was working through that humble slave. Don't despise sound wisdom from surprising sources. God can use anyone. Even you.

Get Help. Follow expert advice. Be humble. Give thanks. And tell everyone what God has done for you.