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Imagine, if you will, two children walking down a hallway at school. Neither one of them is paying close attention to what he is doing. Consequently, they bump into each other. One child pushes the other down and makes a fist. "He bumped me. He bumped me," the child screams. He is ready to fight.

The other child is headed toward class, realizes there is a class to attend and that the hallway is plenty big enough for both of them to pass. So he wants to go around and continue on his way. The first child is still screaming, "He hit me," and wanting to fight.

Now, we commonly think of the first child as ill-tempered, hyperactive, and incorrigible. Consequently, we are tempted to believe that the difference between the two children is that one is a bad child and the other a good child. Actually, the problem or the difference, most likely, is that the first child has an attention deficiency and the second child does not. His attention can only focus on the moment and it stays there: "He hurt me. He bumped me." The attention is deficient. It cannot see beyond the moment. In a way, it's egotistical. But it is certainly a deficiency in attention. Adults even have attention deficiencies. The person who is angry most of the time doesn't have to be a child. "He hit me. She bumped me. I suffered." You perhaps know a person who reacts instead of responds to an event or a situation. You react to a sudden discomfort but you respond to life as you focus your attention on something beyond the discomfort of the present. You realize you've got places to go and that the world is large enough for you to walk around that discomfort.

Amazingly enough, Jesus Christ used as an illustration in his very first sermon a man who possessed an attention deficiency disorder and was healed of an incurable disease because he overcame it. Jesus stood in his home synagogue and said, "Many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, except Naaman the Syrian" (Luke 4:27). Today's lectionary text from 2 Kings provided the background for Jesus' sermon.

Apparently there was something in Naaman's life that had universal appeal. Perhaps he was similar to many of us. Naaman was a person who wanted healing on his own terms. He could not focus his attention on matters greater than his own life. He was a man of the highest social position. Everyone held him in greatest esteem. Naaman was a victorious general. Life seemed to have poured all its treasures into his arms. Naaman only had two faults: he was afflicted by leprosy, an incurable disease, and he had a bad temper, always wanting life to be on his own terms. Naaman's home was not a very happy place despite his good showing in public. Those two faults, being a leper and an egotist, are not small faults. Naaman's wife must have cried a lot and his children probably did, too. If wealth and luxury lived in that place, so did suffering and fear.

One day a little slave girl told Naaman of a prophet in Samaria named Elisha who perhaps could cure leprosy. "Oh, he's never cured anybody," she asserted. "But nobody has asked him, either. I think he could do it for you."

At that point, the king got involved. Naaman was too valuable a soldier to lose if there was even a thousand-in-one chance someone could save him. "Go, Naaman, go," said the king.

So Naaman did what any of us would do. He made travel plans and set off with as much money as he could cram into his travel bags, about $125,000 in today's currency, to pay for the exotic treatment. He knew that physicians, treatment, and religious healers cost a lot of money. But they are worth it, he thought.

Naaman finally arrived at the prophet's house. What happened then threw him into a complete rage. He was mad because the prophet did not visit with him. Naaman was an important man. But Elisha sent some nameless servant out of the house to tell him to dip in the Jordan seven times. Even today fund-raisers and most preachers know that the wealthy like to be visited personally. Elisha didn't do that. And Naaman grew madder than a wet hen. He was insulted. His attention deficiency rose to the surface. "He didn't visit me. He sent a nobody out to see me." Then, to add insult to injury, the prophet did not heal Naaman the way he imagined a prophet ought to heal people. Naaman had an attention deficiency relative to the manner in which he could be healed. Surely the prophet would call on God, touch the disease, and it would be quickly over. That is what preachers do, don't they? Well, Naaman really got hot then. This dipping seven times in a river was humiliating. He had to do all the work. Finally, the crowning insult was to be commanded to dip in the river Jordan. "If it's only a matter of dipping in a river, why did I have to get up and travel way over here?" I can dip in beautiful rivers in my own land. Why do I have to dip in this muddy little Jordan?" In today's idiom, he would say, "Man, I can stay home and watch better stuff than this on television!"

In a rage, Naaman turned to leave. He decided that he would not surrender his heart. If he could not have healing on his own terms then he would not have it at all. Better to go home and rot and still have your pride than to be humiliated and get well. Now that's a real deficiency in one's attention, isn't it? Naaman's bad temperament almost killed him. "The guy is a fake!" he replied. "He made me angry. I'm mad at the prophet. I'm mad at the church. I'm mad at God. I'd rather go home and rot! He bruised my ego. And insulted me. Better to be a non-insulted leper than a humiliated well person."

Fortunately for Naaman, his servants saw his attention deficiency. They came near to the ranting, raving general and said, "Sir, if the prophet had demanded something great and exciting, you would have done it in order to be healed. Suppose the prophet had demanded $125,000? You were prepared to give it. If he had asked you to crawl back home on your hands and knees you would have done it."

The good sense of Naaman reasserted itself and he began to focus his attention on the big picture. He went down to the Jordan. Can't you just see and hear him dipping himself a few times: "Embarrassing. Boring. This is humiliating. Crummy, little, muddy river. I'm just as leprous as I ever was."

"Keep going. Keep dipping," yelled the servants. Finally he came up the seventh time after he had taken the final plunge. He looked and his flesh was as smooth as the flesh of a little child. It's a great story of healing, isn't it?

We can resonate with that story. Many times in life, we prefer to be a non-insulted leper, in our own way, than a humiliated well person. Sometimes our own attention deficiencies get in the way of our love for life. We want to stay and fight, put up the defense, instead of moving on to the rest of life and walking around the bumps and bruises that have come our way in a world that has plenty of room in which to do just that.

Look at the biblical narrative that way. Consider the little slave girl who first told Naaman about Elisha. She was a war casualty. The Syrians had swooped down on her helpless nation. She had been carried away into a strange land. In one fell swoop she had lost her mother and father, her home, and all of her possessions. She had even lost her freedom. You can't lose much more than that. Then she discovered that the man who was to blame for all that was deathly ill. In all honesty, place us in that situation and most would say, "Let him suffer. I'm glad for every pain his body feels. I'm glad he is getting paid back. He hurt me; now let him get hurt. It's God way of paying him back. He bruised me."

Fortunately, her attention was not limited to finding pain for pain, evil for evil. She had been robbed of everything in the way of outward possessions. But there were some values, thank God, that force and violence could not touch. She still possessed a vision of God and love for neighbor that made life worth living. She had something even Naaman did not have. She tried to help a person that she had every right to hate.

Lord, that is so rare to find -- so hard to do. But she knew that a bad temperament can kill you worse than leprosy. Each day of life we can see women who have been wronged by men, lying in wait for some suffering to beset those who have wronged them. We see men who have been wronged by women, hoping that they suffer, hoping that they get paid back. We can see children who have been wronged by their parents actually glad of every pain of body that the parent experiences. Meet hate with hate. Let evil be returned for evil. What a way to live. They've hurt us, and one day we're going to be there when the house comes falling down. Let's hope our attention, like hers, can be focused on something beyond "he hit me," or "she bumped me," or "I suffered." It is a tough decision, deciding whether to be a non-humiliated and proud sick person or a humiliated, surrendered well person. Maybe we could take the plunge once but not seven times.

Finally, consider old Naaman. Ever been in his shoes? So many have. Life never ceases to amaze us. Suppose the doctor pointed his finger at you and said: "You are terminally ill with cancer. We can see it in your body. You are going to die very soon. But if you will crawl out of here to your car and come back Tuesday with $125,000 for us, we'll cure you." Well, most of us would crawl out of there and somehow beg, borrow, or steal the money. We'd even do that for our spouse or children. You know we would.

Well, Jesus is right on one score. We are all terminally ill. We are all dying. Not a single person here is going to get out of life alive. Not one. But there is a cure. Jesus said, "I am God's son. I know where you can be cured. I can't visit all of you, all the time, but you know where my house is. Come down there as often as you can, on the one day a week set aside for that. It is where the treasure is. There may even be some people there that you don't like. But dip yourself into my word and into my values. You have to dip yourself more than four or five times to even notice a change. I don't want all your money. You give what you want to. It's that simple. It is not spectacular. But you will find the cure there to your terminal illness. You can be saved."

Sometimes our attention deficiency gets in the way of seeing a greater vision of life. We are important people. We've got important things to do. If all we have to do is dip into a Sunday School lesson, some prayers and hymns, listen to a choir, be with other people in a small building, and listen to a preacher preach from the Bible for eighteen minutes, we can stay home and do better stuff than that. Why do we have to come over here? Better to be a proud, well-slept, enjoyable leper than a surrendered, faithful, and humbled well-person. You know, a bad temperament can be fatal.1

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1. This sermon, for the most part, was previously published in Harold C. Warlick, Jr., From Cynicism To Optimism, Old Testament Messages For Today's Christian (Lima, Ohio: Fairway Press, 1990).