SS1 Is this the time?

This blog first appeared here last February

My favourite chapter in the Old Testament is 2 Kings 5. It is a brilliant story for all sorts of reasons, both literary and theological.

The chapter ends, you will recall, not on a triumphant note but on a note of warning. We do not close with the healed and renewed Naaman heading off into the sunset in his chariot but with the story of greedy Gehazi, Elisha’s servant. He is told in the final verse that Naaman’s leprosy would cling to him and his descendants forever. Then we read Gehazi went from Elisha’s presence and he was leprous, as white as snow.

There are many interesting and sobering aspects to this sequel but to just focus on one for a moment, consider Elisha’s two questions in verse 26.

First, he says Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? It is a reminder of the fact that God is the all seeing God. You cannot hide anything from him. That is perhaps a fairly obvious lesson here.

But what about the second question? Is this the time to take money, or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, flocks, herds, or menservants and maidservants? Elisha doesn’t say “Is this the time to be greedy, to take advantage of others or to tell lies and deceive people?” What most concerns him about Gehazi, a man who up to this point has given no obvious hint that he is anything less than fully committed to the same high ideals as his master, is this matter of priorities.

These were dark days in Israel, days when idolatry was everywhere and only small remnant remained faithful. If ever there was a time to be giving oneself unreservedly to the cause of Yahweh, this was it. But what do we find in Gehazi? He is all set on money and smart clothes, on commercial ventures in olives or grapes or livestock, on having servants or whatever else it was that he planned to spend his ill gotten silver on. And Elisha is horrified. The issue is not so much how he procured the silver and clothes but the fact that this is what was filling his mind.

The verse raises questions for us too. Is this the time to be thinking chiefly about what money we can make or how good we can look? Are spacious homes, long vacations and expensive entertainments the things that should be filling our heads? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness says Jesus. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, he says where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. He warns us very clearly No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.