The Power of Little People: 2 Kings 5:1-14

This story is about Naaman the leper. As I read this story, the points that come out for me include:

• its the little people who speak to the powerful people that brings wholeness;
• Naaman’s wife’s maid told him about the prophet;
• the prophet told the King of Israel what to do;
• the prophet’s servant told Naaman to wash in the Jordan;
• Naaman’s servants spoke wise counsel to him.

In the story, the powerful people were really the weak ones:

• Naaman, a powerful man, couldn’t heal himself;
• the King of Israel didn’t know what to do;
• Naaman expected Elisha to treat him according to his status (as a powerful man).

I kept thinking about the Garden Cafe in Custom House and how its run by little people who are weak in the eyes of the world’s powerful people. When I visited there last night for a dinner they put on to welcome the New Year, I sat next to a local young woman who has worked her way into becoming one of the most effective community development workers in that area. Recently, she gave a talk in the Cafe about what makes effective community work, and in doing so, shamed the so-called regeneration ‘professionals’ who had arranged the meeting and had themselves failed to get local people to attend after spurning the advice of local community workers. Her straightforward prophetic critique of the ‘professionals’ and their lack of local understanding got under their skin so that they went away feeling the same kind of chastening frustration elicited by Naaman.

Its the power of the little people in Custom House, not the suited professionals, who are changing the culture from the inside out through creating a powerful sense of community in little places like the Garden Cafe. Its a place of cleansing waters and healing.