Surprising Messengers

First, go to your Bible and read the entire fifth chapter in Second Kings for this most enjoyable story of the prophet and the Gentile general with leprosy,  highlighting the power of God’s word to heal. With today’s familiar Gospel story of Jesus and the ten lepers, the focus is on God’s salvation coming to “outsiders”  like Naaman and the Samaritan as both healing and conversion. We see God’s compassionate outreach for those whose leprosy placed them outside the community, for leprosy was a social stigma as well as a physical condition. What I love in the story of Naaman is the role of the servants, the “little ones.”  A servant girl captured in a raid first tells Naaman’s wife about “the prophet in  Samaria.” After Naaman arrives at Elisha’s door, a servant brings the prophet’s message to wash seven times in the Jordan. And finally, it is the general’s own servants who convince him to follow this command when he gets all huffy about washing in the Jordan instead of the beautiful rivers back home. But down he goes and cured he is. 

Leprosy is a stand-in for the condition of sin that alienates us from God and each other. God’s greatest desire is that we know divine, saving grace, a desire often brought home to us by the surprising messengers God sends us—including the prophet from Nazareth who continues to surprise us after two thousand years. So be on the lookout for how God is working to draw you closer and deepen your faith. 

Consider/Discuss

• How has God’s word brought healing into your life? How has it deepened your ongoing conversion? 
• Can you think of any surprising messengers God has used to “get through” to you? 

Responding to the Word

Open our ears, Lord, to hear your word. Open our eyes to see the many ways you reach out to us through those you bring into our lives who help us to know you. Help us to see that all people are your beloved children, and that all earth is holy and bears your presence.