The Small Things
But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?”
– 2 Kings 5:11-12
I think I like 2 Kings 5 so much because it’s like someone straight out of Silicon Valley dropped into the storyline. Naaman is affluent, influential, indisputably successful and well-connected, and when faced with how to handle a significant personal problem (leprosy, and its attendant stigmas), he does what any modern person would consider reasonable: he uses the resources at his disposal to solve it. He cashes in on his connections (the Syrian king), his status (horse-and-chariot entourage), and wealth (millions in gift cash, not to mention a few couture outfits, a more personal touch) to obtain an outcome. And he does so at considerable risk and inconvenience to himself, taking the suggestion of a little Israelite girl, traveling to a foreign country, all on the lark that some foreign God’s prophet will be able to heal him.
It seems reasonable to expect some results. And what is so interesting about this account is that it becomes clear that Naaman not just hopes for an outcome, but expects it to occur in a certain way. Don’t we all? Naaman is merely saying out loud what most of us think but won’t admit: I expect to be accorded some level of respect, comfort, or convenience. I deserve some recognition for the trouble I’ve gone to. I expect God to work in the way that I want, in the way things in the world work. And it should all happen in the most efficient way possible.
The contrast between Naaman and Elisha (who doesn’t even bother to answer the door himself, much less accord Naaman the kind of pomp and audience that would be expected for someone pulling up with cash and chariots) is almost comical. But what becomes obvious is that they are speaking two different languages, living in two different worldviews. A successful military commander with direct access to the king, Naaman lives in the world of power, influence, and wealth. He doesn’t have any interest in this Yahweh-God for his own sake; he just wants a result.
But Elisha lives in a world where the true source of power and meaning is God. His instructions make rich references to that power, from the Jordan which God had parted to lead his people into the promised land, to washing the same number of times that a leper would be sprinkled with blood in the Levitical law. As a non-Israelite, Naaman would have missed all that, of course, but all he really had to do was follow simple instructions: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times.”
This was something both far less flashy, and far more laborious, than Naaman had expected. He envisioned something magical and instantaneous. Instead, he had apparently come all this way just to go to a river much less impressive than the rivers in his hometown, where he would do something as banal as giving himself a bath, and not just once, but seven times.
Sometimes it feels like my life is subsumed by small, repetitive labors. Prepping and cooking meals, doing paperwork for patients, driving the same loop to drop off and pick up the kids. Washing things—clothes, towels, dog, kids, counters, dishes, floors—that, like Naaman, are only going to be washed again. Sometimes we put ourselves out there in other kinds of small, persistent ways: checking in on someone, praying faithfully, reading the Bible regularly, forgiving continually. These are things we do without glamour or even any certain outcome—we just know God is asking us to keep doing them within the life he has called us to live. We do them because the point is not a product, but the Person who has asked us to do it. Because the center of power and meaning is God, not a result that puts us in good standing with the world or gives us the comfort we may crave.
Somewhere along the line, Naaman sees this. I think he sees it somewhere along his way to the Jordan, because even though Elisha asks him to “wash” in the river, we’re told he “dipped himself” in it—a different word is used there, one that indicates not just half-hearted compliance, but wholehearted obedience. And when Naaman is restored, something more than physical transformation happens. He returns to Elisha saying, “I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” He encounters God.
Perhaps it’s not an accident that the “mighty” Naaman, pointed to salvation by a “little girl,” becomes after he washes “like… a little child” (2 Kings 5:14). As Wiseman writes, the “aim was to teach Naaman humility and faith—God often tests us with small things.” It is through obedience in a small thing, it is through faith demonstrated through persistent repetition, that the answer comes in the end. And that answer is not only a circumstance—it is a person.
What does it mean to believe in the value of the small, repetitive labors of my day? In what small ways, in what small moments or decisions, does God test my faith and humility? How does God challenge the convenient or calculated ways I expect him to work? What does it mean to do small things with great faith, to continue despite no evidence of change? Which worldview do I live in, Naaman’s or Elisha’s? How is God inviting me to let go of circumstantial stipulations so that I may more fully encounter Him?
When Naaman asks for something to bring back with him, to remember this encounter, he doesn’t ask for anything like the pounds of silver and gold he brought. He asks for nothing more than some earth. I wonder how he felt after, seeing dirt from the place that made him clean. A reminder that salvation comes in the smallest, humblest places and ways.
