Poems, Sermons and Writings

The Bible once again is seen to be eternally relevant. There is an infectious disease, there are protocols about social distancing, treatment and cure. There are differences in how the rich and poor are treated (or expect to be treated). And there is compassion. Any of this sound familiar? Naaman was a celebrity - the entire credit  for winning the war was attributed to him. Actually if an army marches on its stomach probably some of the credit should have gone to the cooks  - but as usual it went to one person. I suspect Naaman had quite a sense of his own importance, quite a swelled head. Naaman’s life should have been sweet - famous, in the good books with the country’s leader, a wife, servants … But Naaman had a problem. He had a skin disease. This may or may not have been what we call leprosy or Hansen’s disease today - back then the term “leprosy” was used for a whole range of skin diseases. They all got tarred with the same brush. “Unclean” - in Israel - lepers had to be isolate