2 Kings 5:1-15c
18th Sunday after the Pentecost
October 12, 2025
Williamstown, MA
Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1-15c
When we peel away this story’s basic narrative, we expose Naaman’s personality. His success as a warrior received plaudits from the Aramean king. Presumably, the Aramean people similarly praised him.
Though probably well deserved, it also led to his self-inflated ego. He was arrogant, filled with hubris. He dismissed people and their suggestions, which he deemed beneath him. Seeking a cure for his skin disease, he did not follow the explicit instructions of his wife’s Israelite serving girl and instead went directly to the king of Israel. Elisha, the Samaritan prophet, offended him by sending a messenger to convey the cure. He rejected that cure believing Elisha should have magically waved his hand to make the disease disappear and that he was too good to bathe in Isreal’s river. He finally relented when his aide bluntly ordered, using today’s language, “Really? You won’t do this simple thing because it’s too easy? Just do it.”
If we graded his hubris on a scale of one to ten with one being almost self-effacing and ten being so hubristic that no one could stand him, I’d give him a strong 8.75. At least he had a wife and a serving girl who had enough compassion for him to recommend that he see Elisha. Those factors spare him a ten in my book. Nevertheless, his expectations that people should fall all over themselves to honor him made his hubris abundantly evident.
Hubris has its downsides. Hubristic people can lose sight of reality because they don’t see their limitations and shortcomings, reject criticism and unfavorable outcomes, stand above accountability, and act impulsively. Their decision-making can be compromised because they are less apt to accept outside counsel. They also damage trust between them and other people, which damages working relationships.
Yet, hubris is not all bad. Hubris can lead people to innovate because they underestimate their probability of failure. The drive and motivation from hubris can increase ambition and morale. Naaman might have been a success because his hubris led to his overconfidence, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In our present political climate, it’s easy to identify the Naamans. It’s also easy to state that to be a leader in government, whether as an executive or a legislator, takes a degree of hubris. We can probably rate the leaders we know on that one to ten scale.
Today, though, I’m stepping away from our present political climate to think about hubris and the church.
The universal church’s history with hubris warrants a self-examination of our mistakes. The three papal bulls issued in the late 15th and early 16th centuries became the basis for the Doctrine of Discovery. This doctrine proclaimed Christianity’s superiority as well as Western European culture. This worldview led to colonialism, which impacted people in Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, and North America. Western European nations claimed territories irrespective of the local indigenous people and then, by extracting natural resources from those territories impoverished them. Even after this nation won its liberty from England, it perpetuated this doctrine most notably in the Trail of Tears, the forced migration of indigenous people who lived in the southeastern United States to territories west of the Mississippi River. It was the basis for Manifest Destiny, the vision to claim the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans as the United States. It was also the perspective of early missionary movements, its birthplace only hundreds of yards from here.
Though the world is still recovering from this doctrine’s damage, we have become more attuned to its negative impact, and in the last half of the 20th century reforms have taken place from which a different Jesus emerged. Reforms shifted Jesus from being a king to being a servant.
This might be good wisdom for local churches to acknowledge, too.
I came across an article entitled, Humility in Leadership: Kenotic Ecclesiology for a Post-pandemic Age[1]. The article was written in 2020 during the pandemic. Some definitions, though. Ecclesiology is the theology of church. It is the theology which guides the way the church works. In our case, as a congregational church, our ecclesiology comes from the congregation whose theology comes from its understanding of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Kenotic is self-emptying. Christ being the example (Philippians 2:6-8):
who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Its author, Martyn Perry, stated that the pre-pandemic church will be no more. His words were prophetic because the pandemic changed everything, including the church.
Self-emptying is to accept humility and to reject hubris. Kenotic churches don’t cling to their status, to their traditions, to the belief that they must grow. The pandemic called into question all of that. Rather, kenotic churches empty themselves to become servants, serving people in their communities through food pantries, congregant meal sites, affordable housing, or community economic incubators.
Perry addressed leadership within churches:
“Spiritual leadership requires a combination of care, attentiveness, wisdom, discernment, will, direction and faithfulness. What makes and forms leaders in ecclesial contexts will be their reservoirs of compassion and empathy; a capacity to operate paternally and maternally; suppleness and firmness; forgiveness and discipline. Leaders see God at work through their own weaknesses and deficiencies, and not just the apparent strengths and attributes that they and others may cherish.”[2]
I summarize this in a bumper sticker type phrase, “Be the best church you can be.”
We are all probably aware to some degree that the church we knew from two generations ago is largely fading, if not gone. This is not to say that all churches are on a short horizon until the end of their worship lives. As local churches reach the end of their worship lives, other local churches arise because the universal church is God’s church, not our church. God is ever creating.
Though we are part of God’s church, we are also a human manifestation of that church. As the local church we connect people’s lives with God. We are the linkage which enables us to feel God’s presence, to be God’s instruments of peace, and to proclaim God’s message of love. We’re here as the connectors to people beyond these walls. People for whom God’s grace seems remote, who do not have an inkling that the power to transform the world is a self-emptying love, which we know from Jesus’ crucifixion.
Our power, our potential, our future rests upon being a kenotic, self-emptying, church, working as a congregation to serve this community. Our glory is not what we hold. It is what we have left when we empty ourselves.
[1] Martyn Percy. Humility in Leadership: Kenotic Ecclesiology for a Post-pandemic Age. Modern Believing. 2020 Vol. 61, No. 4. Pages 344-354.
[2] Page 353
