Core Values
Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” 2 Kings 5:1-3
Core Values
The YMCA has four core values: caring, honesty, respect and responsibility. The opening lines of the story of the healing of Naaman strikingly demonstrates caring and responsibility. They stand in stark contrast to what this young girl could have done.
Consider the more natural possibility of her action. She was someone’s daughter. When the army of Aram raided a town in Israel, she was swept up and taken away from everything that was familiar. Everything that she had taken for granted when she opened her eyes the morning of the raid was taken away from her by nightfall. Her parents, her brothers and sisters, her friends – all were left behind in the aftermath of the raid. She was alone.
I’ve known people, including myself, who have had far less happen to them yet who reacted with spite and malice. Grudges are nursed for years because of small, inconsequential slights. Some folks become unbending in their resentment when they think, as one of my friends puts it, that they have been “unfaired upon.”
All of these responses focus on the injury rather than on what good God can accomplish as a result of the injury. The nameless servant girl, a young captive, had the maturity and freedom to respond to the people responsible for her predicament with caring. She wanted the husband of the woman she served to be healed. So she spoke up.
When she did, she demonstrated responsibility as well as caring. She knew that there was a source of healing back in Israel, a prophet named Elisha. This young captive wrapped herself in the mantle of responsibility. She owned what she knew. She didn’t keep silent.
Again, she might have lost belief in the prophets of her homeland since it appeared that God had not protected her or her people. She might have decided that, although she cared about Naaman, she wasn’t willing to be responsible for sending him back to the country he had just raided with all of the potential consequences that could befall him.
But, she spoke up. Not only did she demonstrate caring for the army officer who had done her wrong, she accepted responsibility for setting things in motion that did, in fact, lead to his healing. Though nameless, this young servant girl is one of my scriptural heroes. It is hard to find others who are as caring or responsible as she was.
Bruce Yoder is Vice President for Philanthropy at the YMCA of Greater Richmond. He can be reached at yoderb@ymcarichmond.org and on his profile page here.
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