Pentecost 3, Proper 6, Year C, 6/13/10
1 Kings 21:1-21a; Ps. 51:1-8; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke
7:36-8:3
This week’s Old Testament
lesson is a perfect example of OT craziness.
Let me list the many reasons.
It’s full of names of people
and places that are really hard to pronounce.
It’s long and full of details
and yet unsatisfying.
People that seem pretty
innocent get whacked.
The only woman in the story,
Jezebel, is painted very negatively…cunning, evil, manipulative.
There’s gross, gory
images…dogs licking up blood…eewwhh.
And to top it off, God
promises to punish and bring disaster down on the oh-so-badly behaving King
Ahab.
Why do have to hear these
stories?
What are we supposed to take
away that’s affirming or uplifting or even edifying.
Where is the “Jesus loves me
this I know for the Bible tells me so” feeling?
Because worst case scenario
the easiest conclusion to draw is that God makes and/or allows evil things to
happen to innocent people.
Yes, in that last verse God
promises to bring disaster down to punish the evil guy.
But true to lectionary form,
that verse isn’t really the end of the story.
Go home and read all of
chapter 21 in 1 Kings.
Because there is more to the
story.
The main players here are
Ahab, king of
Jezebel, his foreign born
wife…which translates evil…who worshipped the false god Baal and led her hubby
astray in a variety of ways.
Naboth, the poor guy who
inherited the vineyard next door to the palace and didn’t want to trade or sell
it to Ahab.
And Elijah, the prophet of
God who kept turning up in Ahab’s life and pointing out the error of his ways.
So Naboth rejects Ahab’s
offer to take his vineyard which makes Ahab go off in a huff and fling himself
down on his bed pouting.
He lay down on his bed, turned his face away and would
not eat.
Jezebel decides to take over
and comes up with a scheme to have a fake religious gathering where Naboth will
be accused and shamed and then stoned to death.
It’s no wonder people
complain about organized religion.
Once Naboth is out of the
way, Ahab goes to go take over that vineyard.
And then Elijah the prophet makes
the observation that God intends for dogs to lick up Ahab’s blood in the very
spot that Naboth was bludgeoned to death by the church vestry members.
The last thing we hear is that God is going to
bring disaster on Ahab for the evil done.
Oh, but it gets worse.
The rest of chapter 21 goes
on to describe how Jezebel is going to eaten by dogs
And anyone who is even
remotely linked to Ahab is going to be eaten by dogs.
Lovely.
And there’s more.
Ahab realizes the extent of
his evil as a person and as a king leading the whole nation of
And he repents.
He puts on the sackcloth and
fasts and generally feels terrible about how he’s acted.
Ahab humbles himself before
God.
And God tells Elijah the
prophet that instead of punishing Ahab by bringing disaster on him…
God is going to bring
disaster on Ahab’s kids instead.
OK, is anyone else not
feeling good about that outcome?
And yet, I’m drawn to this
story like a moth to a flame.
What on earth are we supposed
to make of it?
The part about Ahab and
Jezebel being evil I get.
Ahab was constantly falling
short of what God wanted from the king of
And Jezebel was flagrant in
her worship of false gods and in manipulating people, including her husband the
king.
We don’t use that word
“Jezebel” to describe someone as a cunning hussy because she was such a
sweetheart of a gal.
But what is up with God paying the punishment
forward on to the kids of the Mom and Dad who did the evil?
This is not how we want to
God to be acting.
And this is a perfect example
of why we so often just put the Bible down and say “I don’t get it”.
Now I realize that the only
thing we can do with the Bible sometimes is to say that we don’t understand
something.
How do we tackle the idea of
God punishing the innocent or the idea of God changing his mind?
Obviously people have been
asking and answering those questions for thousands and thousands of years.
What would the Jewish people
have been hearing in this story of Ahab and Jezebel and the vineyard?
How should we as Christians
use this story to help us understand who God is and how God acts in light of
Jesus and the cross?
This story is just one in a
collection of stories in first and second Kings.
The point of the whole
collection of stories is to make clear that the God of Israel is the only true
God and is the only god that should be worshipped.
The stories also make clear
the failure of human beings to live up to the moral and ethical path that God
intends and hopes for us.
They also show us that the
relationship between human sin and Godly judgment is not tidy and easy to
understand.
This story and others in the
OT show us that God responds both to our sin and to our repentance.
We like it that God responds
to our repentance.
On the other hand God’s
compassion and justice can seem hard for us to predict.
Especially in some of the OT
stories.
In this story God shows
compassion for Ahab when he humbles himself and repents of his evil.
But justice seems to require
that punishment enter into the equation somehow.
If not for Ahab then
punishment for Ahab’s children.
We don’t like that.
That seems wrong to us.
And yet that is part of the
covenant God makes with the people of
This is part of what can be so
confusing to us.
Did God make a deal with the
people of
Jesus being plan B.
Because if that’s the case it
makes God seem shortsighted.
If God is all-knowing then
God should have been clear that we humans were not going to be able to follow
all the rules of that first covenant.
Why would God knowingly put
us through all of that stuff if the better, Jesus plan was in the chute.
I cannot explain God’s sense
of time to you…a day is like a thousand years, right?
Jesus is not plan B, though.
God’s plan for a Messiah has
been part of the deal all along.
Jesus enters the picture not
because God’s first plan for us failed but because God’s plan was always to
enter into our world.
Shining His light on us a
broken world.
What did God’s compassion
cause God to do for Ahab when he repented?
God deferred punishment onto
someone else.
Now while we might not like
the sound of that, think of it this way.
What does God’s compassion
cause God to do for us when we repent?
God confers punishment onto
Jesus.
And maybe we don’t like the
sound of that either…God killing his child.
But, you see, God isn’t
killing his child.
God is not the bearded guy up
on a cloud sending the baby Jesus down to get killed.
In truth God chooses to come
to us in human form out of compassion for all of the broken people who have
ever lived.
God, the God of compassion
and mercy, chooses and offers to look at us with eyes of love.
God is not safely tucked away
on his throne casting down lightning bolts on us.
God instead plans all along
to unfold human history with this twist along the way.
That God would be like us and
yet still God.
God did not have to do that.
But God did.
God’s compassion makes it
possible for us to avoid getting what we deserve for the ways in which we
choose to act towards God and our neighbor.
Are we evil?
Maybe, maybe not.
I’m not saying every one of
us is a horrible, evil Ahab or Jezebel like person.
Are we all broken?
Yes, we are.
But the whole of creation is
broken and God suffers and God is with us in our suffering.
Does God hurt the innocent
and protect the evil?
I don’t think so, but I can’t
explain to you the exact relationship between sin and punishment and justice.
But I keep trying to
understand it.
All through the stories of
the Bible we see the compassion and mercy of God for people.
People like us who keep
falling short of God’s ideal for us.
Paul wrote this to the church
in
…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who
lives in me.
And the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in
the Son of God,
Who loved me and gave himself for me.
Jesus changes everything
about compassion and justice.
We don’t have to understand
it completely to experience the fullness of Christ living in us.
Don’t get bogged down in the
trap of trying to sort out all the nuances of justice and judgment and
punishment.
Think about it, yes.
Struggle with it, read the
Bible, talk to other people about it.
Yes.
Just don’t let the things
that you don’t understand about God get in the way of experiencing the love of
God in Jesus.
Each day be on the look out
for the Jesus moments, the God moments when that light bursts into your day.
Maybe just for a moment, but
you don’t want to miss it.
Keep picking up the Bible and
let the living Word work in you.
And remind yourself:
The life I live in the flesh
I live by faith in the Son of God…
Who loved me and gave himself
for me.
No matter what.
Humble yourself before God
and feel the compassion that you long for.
Jesus loves me this I know…for
the Bible tells me so.