Last month, Jesse Rosten produced a commercial for the next revolution in beauty technology. The commercial shows how this wonder product can erase skin blemishes, smooth wrinkles, change eye color, hair color, and skin color, and best of all, it can “reshape your body without the expense or mess of surgery” or the hassle of diet and exercise.

And just like any legitimate beauty commercial, there are before and after photos to prove how well this product works. It’s the beauty industry’s best-kept secret—the commercial claims—but not in the way you would think. It’s Fotoshop by Adobé.

It’s Rosten’s cheeky rebranding of Photoshop by Adobe—a computer program for editing photos. The before and after pictures in the commercial are from magazine covers showing how actresses and models look before and after the liberal application of Photoshop.

It’s a clever spoof that makes a statement about the unrealistic standards we’re trying to live up to. Jesse’s tagline for this commercial— “This commercial isn’t real, neither are society’s standard of beauty.” Well played, Rosten.

Dove produced a similar video several years ago called “Evolution.” Through the magic of time-lapsed film, we watch as make-up artists and hair stylists get a woman ready for a modeling photoshoot, but strangely, the video doesn’t end there. She’s beautiful, but that’s apparently not good enough. 

Once the photo is taken, it’s the photoshop artists’ turn to go to work. We don’t see him. All we see are the alterations he makes on the picture. He makes her neck longer, enlarges her eyes and adjusts their spacing. He slims down her shoulders, sucks in her cheeks and plumps up her lips, all with the touch of a button. It’s a startling transformation, to say the least.

And yet these are the pictures we see on magazine covers and in advertisements. These are the images we’re trying to achieve. Unrealistic and unattainable—yet that doesn’t keep us from trying.

Don’t worry—this isn’t about the evils of the beauty industry. After all, I wouldn’t be the stunning creature I am today without the help of CoverGirl and Maybelline—hard to believe, I know, but it’s true.

No, this is about something deeper. Our obsession with cosmetic perfection, as unrealistic as it is, is just one manifestation of a deeper issue. Whether it’s pursuing beauty or power or wealth, the problem is that we’re concerned with building ourselves up on the surface—we strive to look great on the surface when underneath we’re wasting away. We build ourselves up at the expense of others and the community. We’re a people in need of restoration.

In our reading from 2 Kings, we find a man in a similar situation. Meet Naaman—a man, who on the surface has it all. He would’ve graced the cover of the ancient world’s equivalent of GQ. Time magazine would’ve voted him Man of the Year. He was the commander of the powerful Aremean army. The Bible calls him a “gadol”—That’s good. GADOL. It’s the Hebrew word for a great man. A mighty warrior. A man of stature. A Gadol.

We all have Gadols. It’s the part of us that chases those surface signs of success and always craves more. It’s the selfish part of us that never seems to be satisfied. Gadols have agendas and expectations. They know the way things should be done and go to great lengths to make them happen.

Naaman starts off as a Gadol. On the surface, everything was going great for him and his family. He had it all. Money, power, a good name—oh, yeah, and leprosy. A debilitating disease that made everything else worthless. Despite all his success, he was a leper—cut off from community.

This story is often called “the Healing of Naaman,” and on the surface that’s what happens. But the healing is only one small part of the story. A small part that doesn’t come until the very end and might not have come at all if it weren’t for what happened in the rest of the story.

You see, the healing comes only through Naaman’s undoing—the letting go of his GADOL. He starts out as a “mighty warrior,” but by the end we’re told he has the appearance and, I would argue, even the faith of a young boy. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

He starts as a Gadol, and like any good Gadol, I’m sure Naaman is not one to take something like leprosy lying down. With all his power and prestige, Naaman had probably tried everything to cure his leprosy. I’m sure he consulted every faith healer. Made every kind of sacrifice. Talked to every specialist. Tried every kind of salve and balm. Every experimental treatment.

But nothing did the trick. For all his money and power and “gadol”ness, it wasn’t enough. He exhausted every avenue and angle until finally he’s desperate enough to hear the voice of a nameless servant girl from Israel. She’s the lowest of the low—a spoil of war. A female slave.

He’s tried everything else, so why not this? What could be the harm? Though he was used to giving orders, desperation has led him to lay aside his pride, but not for long. This is the first time he hears God’s voice from an unlikely source, but he only half-listens.

The servant girl suggests he go see the prophet in Samaria, but that’s not good enough for Naaman. Oh, no. He’s a Gadol. He has to go on his own terms, so he loads up his chariots with silver and gold and garments and sets off with a whole entourage—but NOT to see the prophet. He goes to the king with a letter that commands the king to provide a cure. 

He commands a cure? Gadols don’t realize that restoration doesn’t come through commands or demands. It’s not the result of threats or coercion. Restoration doesn’t come that easily. It doesn’t happen just because we want it to. There are no simple solutions, because restoration requires letting go of our Gadol.

Thankfully, Elisha knows this and intervenes. He asks that Naaman be sent to him. So Naaman goes, but when he arrives, his expectations are again overturned. Instead of coming out himself, Elisha sends a messenger to tell Naaman what to do in order to be healed.

This is too much! Another servant telling me what to do? Don’t you know who I am? I’m Naaman, the mighty warrior and commander from Aram who’s come all this way to command a cure from your king and buy a miracle with my riches.

And you’re telling me the prophet can’t even be bothered to come out and see me? He sends a messenger instead?

Naaman can’t take it. He came with very specific expectations. He knew how it was going to happen. So when reality doesn’t measure up to his expectation, he explodes. Look at verse 11: “I thought that for ME he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!”

I am important. I’m a Gadol. I want my miracle, and I want it now, and I want it this way. He wanted the Photoshop cure. Instantaneous and easy. And, boy, wouldn’t that be nice?

But there are no such things as simple fixes and surface solutions.

Restoration takes work. God speaks from unlikely sources—from nameless servants in lowly places—and often says things we don’t want to hear.

Like Naaman, we want the, prophet or the pastor or the president to wave their hands over the problem spot and make everything all better. We want simple solutions with a great show. But restoration takes work. It requires us to listen to God speak from unseemly sources, to let go of how we think things should happen, and to go to places we think are beneath us.

Restoration requires us to become less GADOL-like in order that we can become more CHRIST-like.

Healing and wholeness don’t come simply by waving a hand. There are no surface fixes. Restoration requires us to leave our positions of power and go down to the lands that have suffered by our hands, even if we were unconscious of our participation in that suffering.

After conquering Israel, I’m sure Naaman wasn’t very welcome there, but peace and reconciliation can happen only if we’re willing to humbly go the places where we are afraid. It takes courage and humility to let go of our Gadols.

In 1905 a promising theologian and accomplished musician answered the call of a mission society that was looking for a medical doctor to go to Africa, but there was only one problem—he wasn’t a doctor and had no medical training. With his theological and pastoral experience, he could easily have gone as a missionary, but he wanted to do more.

So in 1905, at the age of 30, Albert Schweitzer resigned his pastorate and went to medical school. It took him seven years to earn a doctorate of medicine. But he stuck with it and went on to establish a hospital in Africa that treated over 2,000 patients in its first nine months. Schweitzer was compelled to do more than just talk about Christ—he extended a healing hand as a way of making what amends he could for the injustice and exploitation of European colonization in Africa.

For Schweitzer, the leprosy undermining his world was the evils of colonization. But we can name our own. Think for a second. Who are the lepers today? Who makes us draw in our breath and draw back our hands instead of reaching out? Someone with a disability or HIV/AIDS? Someone of a different race, ethnicity, or class? Where do we need restoration today?

All too often we’re like Naaman, We want the Photoshop fix that doesn’t require us to DO anything, let alone go to places where we don’t want to go. Places that make us wrinkle our noses or cause us to walk a little faster or lock our car doors.

When the messenger told him to wash in the Jordan River, Naaman probably had the same look on his face a friend did when I asked if anyone ever swam in White Rock Lake. Are you crazy?

After not getting the easy fix he wanted, he grumbled about the instructions he got. Aren’t the rivers in his home country better than the dinky, dirty Jordan? Could I not wash in them and be clean? Can I not serve God somewhere where I’m more comfortable?

A Gadol doesn’t go down without a fight. It’s hard to let go of our “gadol”ness because we have plans and agendas. We know how things should be done. We know how to look out for ourselves.

But self-preservation and personal gain are not the way to restoration. If we’re really serious about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, we need to get our Gadols out of the way.

Thankfully, another nameless servant checks Naaman’s stubbornness and pride, saying, “If he had told you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?”

It’s not about the kind of task we’re asked to do—it’s about our attitude. Surface faith is about looking good. True faith is about doing good. Doing a difficult task would’ve made Naaman look good, but it wouldn’t have restored him. Instead, he probably looked a little foolish—washing in the river seven times. But what is the message of the cross after all if it’s not foolishness, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

One of the biggest Gadols of any kind of mission work is coming in with a set agenda and expectations about what a trip will look like. Just ask Mindy, our missions minister. That’s why she always begins the trip planning process by asking our local partners what they need. How can we serve them? Because it’s impossible to serve Christ if we’re serving ourselves first.

Naaman was instructed to wash in the Jordan River not once or twice or even three times. His instructions were to wash seven times. Seven, the Hebrew number of perfection and completion.

It’s not enough to go once or twice or even three times; we are called to go until the work is completed—until all of God’s people are restored and made whole.

True faith is the letting go of our Gadols.

After all, it’s what the Gospel message is all about. God leaving heaven to come and be with us. To walk in the dirt and wash in the Jordan. To stay until he could say “It is finished.”

We sang about it earlier—the wondrous story—how he left his home in glory for the cross of Calvary.

We spend so much time trying to live up to the wrong standards. We chase after images in magazines and worry about how we measure up to a broken world.

All the while God is there continually calling us to let go of our Gadols, to go beyond surface faith so that we all might be restored and reconciled as children of God.    Amen.