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God is Generous Even To Greedy Sinners
10.17.21 [2 Kings 5] River of Life (22nd Sunday after Pentecost)
I have five coins: a penny, a nickel, a dime, a quarter, and a fifty-cent piece.
They are all different weights and sizes.
Most of us can tell just by feel which coin is which.
But just because these objects are familiar, doesn’t mean there aren’t details you’ve missed.
For example, the edges of the three more valuable coins: the dime, quarter, and fifty-cent piece are all ridged or reeded.
Why? Greediness.
Before the 20th century, most coins were made of a precious metal like silver or gold.
Clever thieves devised all kinds of ways of harvesting a bit of silver or gold and still passing the coins.
Some thieves would clip coins—carefully shaving off the edges so that the coins were almost unnoticeably smaller.
Others would punch a hole in the center and fill it with some cheaper metal, or heat it and then pound the coins slightly to fill in that gap.
Coin minters tried to stop this.
They printed text as close to the edge of the coin as possible.
They gave coins raised or ridged edges.
Yet, with all their advances, they couldn’t stay ahead of the criminals.
So in 1415, England declared coin-clipping “high treason”—punishable by death.
The message was clear.
Crime doesn’t pay.
In 2 Kings 5, we meet a man who was quite eager to get his cut.
Much like a coin-clipper, Gehazi thought no one would notice.
Elisha’s servant convinced himself it was a victimless crime.
And it was—almost.
Yet his greediness forever changed his life.
The story begins and ends with leprosy.
Naaman is the powerful commander of the Aramean army, the king’s right hand man.
(2 Kg. 5:1) But he had leprosy.
So he secured a letter from his king and went to go see the prophet Elisha.
He took with him ten talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, and 10 sets of clothing.
(A talent was the largest measurement in those days—somewhere around 50-75 pounds.
To give us some modern perspective on this, the silver was worth somewhere around $300k; the gold around $3 million; and the clothes must have been quite valuable too.)
Naaman brought a fortune with him, because he was desperate.
Leprosy was a slow, painful and scary death.
Your limbs rot and fall off.
You die alone because everyone is too afraid of the disease to be near you.
So Naaman was desperate and ready to reward Elisha with a king’s ransom if he could cure him.
But, when Naaman arrived at Elisha’s house, he was not greeted the way he expected.
Elisha didn’t make a big production.
He didn’t even come out and meet him face to face.
(2 Kg. 5:10) Instead he sent a messenger to tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan River.
Eventually, Naaman did as the man of God told him and his flesh was restored.
Not just back to normal, but as clean as a young boy.
Even the battle scars were healed.
Physical healing also came with spiritual renewal & regeneration.
Naaman’s confession of faith is stirring.
(2 Kg. 5:15) Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.
And Naaman wanted to put his money where his mouth was.
Please accept a gift from your servant.
But Elisha refused.
(2 Kg. 5:16) As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing.
And even though Naaman continued to urge him, Elisha refused.
To us this seems strange.
Naaman had a sincere love for the Lord.
Why would Elisha refuse?
Elisha made a faith-fueled commitment to not profit from healing Naaman.
If that confuses you, then you get where Gehazi was coming from.
Gehazi was likely the messenger who greeted Naaman and told him to wash in the Jordan River.
He had seen the wealth at Naaman’s disposal.
To him, Elisha (2 Kg. 5:20) was too easy on Naaman, that Aramean.
Perhaps it seemed wrong to Gehazi for the Arameans to be so well off and God’s people struggling to make ends meet.
Perhaps he thought the way a man of war made his fortune should not be rewarded.
Perhaps he told himself that that money would be better used by the servant of an Israelite prophet than an Aramean army commander.
Greediness cloaks itself in noble intentions and fine-sounding goals.
You can put lipstick on a pig, but no matter how you dress it up, greediness is still a gluttonous sow.
Gehazi reveals three things about greediness.
First, do you notice how Gehazi (2 Kg. 5:21) hurries after Naaman?
He runs.
One way that greediness disguises itself is in hard-work.
We like to think greediness and laziness run in the same circles.
But they don’t.
Greediness can be the driving motive for hard-work & ingenuity.
But look at how greediness works.
Almost immediately, Gehazi starts lying.
Greed begets all kinds of other sins.
Gehazi’s lie is bald-faced, but it’s believable.
It’s manipulative, yet effective.
Gehazi knows Naaman is an easy mark.
He’s loaded and he’s motivated.
In fact—and it’s a small thing—Gehazi only asks for a single talent of silver.
Naaman urges Gehazi to take two talents, which was more than one man could carry.
When Gehazi gets back, he quickly hides the loot and sends Naaman’s servants away.
Then when Elisha confronts him, he lies again and gets more than he bargained for from Naaman.
He did just get some silver from that Aramean, he also got leprosy.
We see in Gehazi some of the most brazen greediness—but this is for our good.
Greediness can prompt hard-work, but hard-work doesn’t justify greediness.
Greediness often produces other sins—like lying.
And greediness always generates guilt.
That’s why Gehazi hides the silver and the clothes.
We can so easily recognize the corruption in coin-clipping and the greed in Gehazi, but it’s harder to see in our own hearts and lives.
Because like Gehazi we often cloak our greed in hard-work.
Like Gehazi, we are adept at the mental gymnastics necessary to try to justify what we know to be wrong.
Like Gehazi, when we’ve secured what our greedy hearts covet, we may even try to hide what we have so that we don’t feel so guilty.
So how do we know if we struggle with greed?
We might think that greediness is only a rich person’s problem.
But you can’t suss out greed by examining someone’s finances.
You can’t detect greed just by walking through someone’s house.
Because greed afflicts poor people just as much as rich people.
That’s why Jesus says: (Lk.
12:15) Watch out!
Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.
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