Without Clothes There Is No Emperor

Naaman was a powerful general. Like all generals, in every army, he wore the accoutrements of his position whenever there were eyes about, whenever there was an opportunity for rivals to evaluate his current strength.

Naaman was a leper. Underneath the clothes of a general was an outcast, an untouchable, someone less than a person ... a dead man walking.
Naaman was lucky. He had an emperor who looked beyond the clothes. He had an emperor who looked beyond the leprosy. That is a long, long journey for any eyes to travel.

Naaman had a slave girl who looked even further. She looked beyond death and saw life. Maybe only a child still has the vision to look that far. Deaths’ shadows have not yet clouded the heart with cataracts of hopelessness. She, being a slave, was well acquainted with death but, somehow, life still shone.

Naaman was sent by the slave girl who could see life and the emperor who could see beyond leprosy to find healing. Being a general, he, of course, wore a general’s clothes. He went with a general’s escort. He went with a general’s status.

Naaman met a king. Generals always go to the top. They are the top. The king was afraid. Generals he could deal with. Emperors he could deal with. Death he could not. He did not see any life in the situation at all. Consequently, and rather expectedly, he was afraid.

Naaman was sent to a prophet. This prophet was not very professional. He didn’t live in the temple grounds. He didn’t have incense burning about. He didn’t seem to have much of anything. Certainly all that Naaman could see was a small house, seemingly rather removed from the power centres of palace or priestly halls.

Naaman never met the prophet. In fact, he only met a servant. The servant seemed rather confusing. Impressed but not impressed, polite but impolite ... or was that the prophet? No rushing about. No special seat or carpet. No pitcher of warmed water to wash a general’s dusty feet. No cooking fires lit to barbecue a fatted calf. No activity whatsoever.

Naaman got a message. That is all. Just a message. And the message was not very helpful ... at least it didn’t seem so to Naaman. Go bathe in the River Jordan.

Naaman got the message. He wasn’t happy about it at all. In fact, he was afraid. And, as is usually the case, because he was afraid, he got angry.

Naaman was afraid because he was told to take off his clothes. In daylight. In front of others. In a foreign country. He wouldn’t be a general. He wouldn’t be a man. He would be a leper. You may respect the general as long as you can’t see underneath the clothes. But ... if you can ... and he is a leper ... well ... that changes everything doesn’t it?

Naaman had a servant who could also see beyond death. He saw beyond the strangeness of foreign scenery, foreign gods and foreign environments, fraught as they surely must be with dirt, dishonesty and disease. He looked at the options available to a leper and asked Naaman to be honest for a moment. Honest for a moment, as far as
Naaman was concerned, was for a lifetime and a rather momentary one at that.

Naaman faced death. No cell phone cameras to upload to a waiting Facebook audience at home but, nevertheless, just as deadly. The general’s escort was watching. The general’s escort would remember. The general’s escort would talk.

Naaman got out of his clothes. He stopped being a general. He stopped being a man among men. He stopped being a person at all. He became a leper and waded into the water.

Naaman was no longer a leper. But, in a way, he was no longer a man either. He became, it says, like a small child. He still didn’t look like a man’s man or a general. He looked like someone starting over. And, really, he was.

Naaman became a general again. Did his decisions, previously so besotted with death, begin to have greening tinges of life creep in unexpectedly? Did he look beyond the suits that surrounded him and see people? Was he afraid anymore? Did hope begin to whisper and drown the shouts of anger?

Naaman discovered that without clothes there is no emperor. But ... equally ... without clothes there is life. He also discovered, hopefully, that nothing is more threatening to an emperor than losing his clothes. But ... equally ... only by losing the clothes is there hope for life.