I
read a story recently about a devout Christian woman who was sitting by her
living room window reading her mail. When she opened one of the envelopes, she was
surprised to find a crisp, new, ten-dollar bill.
She
turned the bill over several times, not exactly sure what to do with it. That was when she noticed a raggedly dressed
stranger, leaning on a post just outside. Figuring that he was in far greater
need than she, the woman did what any devout Christian would do. She slipped the bill into a plain envelope,
sealed it, and wrote: “Don't despair.”
Then she opened the window and handed the man the envelope. He read the
note, smiled, tipped his hat, and walked away.
The
next day she heard a knock at her front door.
When she opened it, the same man to whom she had given the ten dollars just
the day before was standing there. He
spoke not a word but handed her a roll of bills. When she asked what they were
for, he replied: “That's your sixty bucks, lady! ‘Don't Despair’ paid five to
one!”
Not
a bad payout for the woman! But we are
not about playing the horses here. We
want to know just what are the odds that the hotshot general Namaan could ever
be cured of leprosy? After all, it was
an excruciatingly painful terminal disease.
Surely he knew, his wife knew, and even his
wife’s Israelite slave girl knew that, given the present circumstances, no
matter how decorated, how successful, how famous Namaan might be, he was not in
control here. In the end, leprosy would
do him in – and it would not be pretty.
Perhaps
it was that overriding sense of futility, or perhaps it was the relative
kindness that Namaan’s wife had shown to her young war prize, or perhaps it was
because the slave girl herself knew that with Yahweh/God all things are
possible, but for whatever reason one day the young woman dared to voice her
opinion of Namaan’s health issue – “Oh, if only my master could meet the
prophet of Samaria, he would be healed of his skin disease.”
And
this whispered pronouncement of hope from the nameless slave girl set off a
chain of events that led Namaan first to his own king, then to the king of
Israel, then to the prophet Elisha, and finally to the polluted waters of the
Jordan River.
Now
Namaan was a powerful military commander in Aram, a country itching to conquer
the struggling nation of Israel. Imagine then the dismay of the king of
Israel when Namaan showed up on his doorstep with what was meant to be a letter
of introduction but unfortunately came across as quite aggressive to the point
of sounding downright pugnacious, like rattling a saber. “When you get this letter, you’ll know that
I’ve personally sent my servant Naaman to you; heal him of his skin disease.”
Even
the 750 pounds of silver and150 pounds of gold Namaan brought along with him
did not assuage the fear of the Israelite king. “Am I a god with the power to
bring death or life that I get orders to heal this man from his disease? What’s
going on here? That king’s trying to pick a fight, that’s what!”
Conjuring
up in his mind images of yet another hopeless war, the Jewish king did what all
Biblical characters seem to do under distressing circumstances. He tore his clothes, ripped his robe to
pieces. Maybe it was a lucky thing that
Namaan had also brought ten sets of clothing along with his offerings of silver
and gold.
It
is at this point in our story that Elisha, the foremost prophet of the day, steps
in. Perhaps Elisha had heard about the
robe ripping on the evening news and decided that now was an opportune time to
appear with his proverbial words of wisdom.
At any rate, he calmed down the distraught
king. “Why are you so upset, ripping
your robe like this? Send him to me so he’ll learn that there’s a prophet in
Israel.”
And
so Namaan, his servants having packed the expensive and downright heavy offerings
of silver and gold back into the chariots, paraded in magnificent style from
the king’s palace to Elisha’s home. In
spite of the setback with the king characterized by the robe ripping and all,
Namaan figured he was making progress since it was the prophet that was supposed
to be doing the healing anyway.
How
shocked and frankly miffed he must have been when Elisha was not waiting at the
front door for him. I mean, who could be
so impolite and frankly so impolitic as to ignore a celebrated military
commander like Namaan who hailed from a nation itching to conquer you – not to
mention who could be so crass as to turn up one’s nose at 750 pounds of silver,
150 pounds of gold, and ten new sets of clothing?
The
thought of it rankled Namaan, to be sure, but this slow boil anger turned
quickly to white hot fury when Elisha did not come out at all to greet the generalissimo,
but sent a servant to deal with him instead.
The
mouthpiece of the mouthpiece of God recited a simple message to Namaan: “Go to the River Jordan and immerse yourself
seven times. Your skin will be healed and you’ll be as good as new.”
That
was when Naaman lost it. As the Biblical translation, The Message, puts
it: “He turned on his heel saying, ‘I
thought he’d personally come out and meet me, call on the name of God, wave his
hand over the diseased spot, and get rid of the disease.’’ (And wash in the Jordan? You have got to be kidding! That is about the
most polluted water around. If I wanted
to wash in a river – and believe me, I have tried to wash these leprosy scabs
off, and it does not work – but if I wanted to wash in yet
another river, it certainly would not be the muddy Jordan.) He stomped off, mad
as a hornet.”
Now,
this whole healing business could have gone south at this point. Things were at an impasse. Elisha would not deign to come out of his
house, and Namaan was furious, fit to be tied because he had not been treated
like the military celebrity that he was and because he had his own ideas about
how a proper healing should take place.
However, his servants – once again the nameless ones – maintained that
whispering sense of hopefulness and, in doing so, saved the day and moved the
story on to its happy conclusion.
“If
the prophet had asked you to do something hard and heroic, wouldn’t you have
done it? (They queried). So why not this simple ‘wash and be clean’?”
And
they led Namaan back to the chariot. He
was still grumbling, but eventually came to the conclusion - what the hay,
maybe the servants are right. Besides, what
could he lose?
And
as The Message translation tells us, “He went down and immersed himself in the
Jordan seven times, following the orders of the Holy Man. His skin was healed;
it was like the skin of a little baby. He was as good as new.
This
is a marvelous tale about how the great and powerful do not always get what
they want when and how they want it. It
is a wonderful narrative about how sometimes it is the nameless ones, the
insignificant individuals, who move the action along.
It
is a story about how hope has a certain power of its own – even when the little
guys wield it. And so it is a story for
all of us who are not leaders of mighty nations, who are not wealthy enough to
lobby with our money to change what we do not like, who are just plain ordinary
folk.
This
story about the healing of Namaan would have been a non-starter without the so
called very minor characters.
Remember? It had been servants all
along the way who kept Namaan’s hope alive when the situation ground to a
standstill. As Lutheran pastor Barbara
Lundblad wrote, “There would be no story without the servants, without the
slave girl who spoke of God's prophet, without the servants who turned Naaman's
pride around. The mighty warrior was made whole by the power of God and by the
intervention of the servants.”
That which moved the story forward was not the gold and
silver and ten sets of clothing. Neither
was it the letter of introduction from one king to another. Nor was it Namaan’s white-hot anger. Not wealth, not politics, not uncontrolled
emotionalism – none of them was the driving force.
What
drove the story forward, what made the circumstances for Namaan’s healing possible,
was the voices of the servants, the slaves, the nameless ones, the little guys. It was the whispered hope of the Israelite
servant girl voiced to her mistress that led to Namaan’s journey in the first
place. It was the daring of Elisha’s servant to
confront the great general and voice what surely he knew would be the terribly
unpopular protocol for Namaan’s healing.
It was Namaan’s own servants once again who raised that lingering sense
of hope, urging the old soldier to put aside his wounded pride, actually
leading the mighty commander to the murky Jordan River to bathe in its muddy
waters – not one time, not two times, but seven times.
It
is not the rich and powerful – the major characters – that make this story what
it is, but rather it is the lowly ones.
The little guys, with only the power of hope, drive this narrative to
its conclusion.
At
each pivotal point, it is the powerless, not the powerful, who make a
difference. Put another way, the most powerful
voices come from the most unexpected people.
Should
that notion raise a couple of questions for us – sitting here today on this
long Independence Day weekend? You bet – and the questions are these: Who are
we most apt to listen to? A polarized congress?
The one percent? And might we –
even we who call ourselves Christian – might we be looking for God in all the
wrong places?
As one blogger I read this week put it,
“There is wisdom in low places, and we who are high must listen to what they
have to say.”
In June of 1966, then Senator Robert Kennedy visited South
Africa at a time when that nation was experiencing major unrest over its system
of racial segregation known as apartheid.
Many in the anti-Apartheid movement had dedicated their lives to
challenging the system of racial segregation and discrimination at the heart of
the South African political and social system. As the result of these
activities, Nelson Mandela and other anti-Apartheid leaders were
imprisoned.
During his five-day visit to South Africa, Senator Kennedy
made a total of five speeches, but his best remembered speech was delivered at
the University of Cape Town. He
encouraged South Africans to keep struggling to create a more equitable society
and to serve as a beacon of hope for all people. Known as the “Ripple of Hope”
speech, this address is thought be some people to be one of the most
significant speeches of the 20th century. (Visions of Change: Robert F. Kennedy and the
“Ripple of Hope”)
Embedded in his words is a lesson also
told in our story of the healing of Namaan: We should never underestimate the power of the
little guys when it is coupled with the power of God. After all, when one’s cause is just, one’s
strength is as the strength of ten. In
closing then, listen to Kennedy’s words:
"Few will have the greatness to
bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of
events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this
generation. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are making a difference in
isolated villages and city slums in dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown
men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but
all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from
numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.
Each time a man stands up for an ideal,
or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he
sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different
centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep
down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
May it ever be so – and may we be part
of the ripples and part of the current and part of the hope. Amen.
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