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Thought
for the Week Sunday 9 August – 9th Sunday after Trinity
Sometimes,
the Lectionary poses the preacher a bit of a problem. This is one such time, because we have four
weeks in a row where the theme of the Gospel is Jesus, the Bread of
Life. We have managed to break it up a
bit by transferring the Feast of the Transfiguration to next Sunday (16 Aug),
which the rules of the Lectionary do allow us to do, and it does make sense,
as we only have worship on Sundays in this parish, but even so, three out of
four consecutive sets of readings are on the same theme. Incidentally, this does also make life
particularly difficult for the person chosing the hymns – you wouldn’t want
to sing the same four hymns on three out of four Sundays this month, so if
some of those chosen are a little less well-known than usual, please bear
with us! Last
Sunday Judy Wilson did an excellent job, and the Cahors and Toulouse
congregations will have heard her work either preached or read, while the
Brens congregation heard my own version, and Limoux had an excellent sermon
on the same theme from Fr. Trevor.
This week therefore, I am going to depart a bit from the Gospel, and
think more about today’s Old Testament reading. You
may remember that in the Old Testament reading last Sunday, the Children of
Israel were grumbling against Moses, and against God. They were in the early stages of their
formative wandering about in the dsesert, seeking the Promised Land. Things were not going well. “OK, it is true that we were in slavery in
Egypt, but at least we had enough to eat.
The promised land is not even in sight yet, and we are hungry. Couldn’t you and God have chosen another
people?” Today,
in the first book of Kings, things had got much, much worse. We
are used to thinking of the Children of Israel entering the Promised Land by
divine force, and it is often referred to as the Conquest of Canaan, as
though it was some sort of Holy War, or Jihad. I have always had a bit of a problem with
this idea. Could it really be God’s
will to exterminate, or if not actually exterminate at least drive out, or if
not really drive out at least enslave, or if not actually enslave at least
subjugate the people already living in Canaan? There’s quite enough genocide in the world,
both past and present, and, probably, still to come, without us claiming that
God actually wants us to do that sort of thing. The Conquest of Canaan has often been used
as a model for murdering those who think differently. The Cathars were wiped out in this area. How on earth does that square with Jesus
telling us that God is love? However,
the archeologists tell us that the settlement of Canaan wasn’t a military
campaign at all. There may have been,
and probably were, skirmishes, but it was more of a settlement than a
conquest, and more of a process, lasting over two hundred years, than an
organised military campaign. Apart
from anything else, the Children of Israel were closely related to the people
of Canaan. They shared common
ancestors, and the same language - different dialects, but they could mostly
understand one another. They also shared the same way of life, customs and
culture. Succeeding
waves of immigrants gradually assimilated into the land of Canaan as it
developed into the Promised Land. At
the same time as it was growing, the population was changing its way of life,
from nomadic to settled. Gradually,
wandering sheperds, hunters and gatherers, living in tents, always moving on
to find new pasture for their flocks, were settling, living in villages and
towns and becoming farmers, craftsmen and traders. Farming can support a much higher density
of population, so the immigrants probably found it fairly easy to be accepted
and assimilated. And
this is where the problem lay. The
people who wrote the Old Testament were very different from one another, and
had widely differing understandings of God and his Ways, but they all were
united in this one thing – they believed in just one God, Jahweh, and Moses
was his faithful prophet. They may
have come to the Promised Land at different times, and by different routes,
but they regarded Moses and the Children of Israel as the authentic guardians
of the faith of Jahweh, and themselves as the true heirs of that tradition. The
people of Canaan, on the other hand, believed in many gods. Each tribe had its own god, and there were
gods for specific things like fertility, rain, or the harvest. Mostly they believed in a high God, “El”,
who was sometimes understood as the god of the sky or of the storm, but under
him was a great multitude of lesser gods.
The
writers of the Old Testament saw themselves as battling to keep the faith of
Moses pure. For the two hundred and fifty
years or so which the settlement of the Promised Land took, and indeed for
centuries afterwards, there was a serious risk that the belief in just the
one God, Jahweh, would be watered down by contact with the people of Canaan,
and their many gods. In
our first reading today, things had come to a head. The Kingdom of Israel had split at the
death of Solomon, the third King, in 931.
The Southern Kingdom, Judea, kept direct descendants of King David
(Solomon’s father) on the throne, throughout the four-and-a-quarter centuries
of its history, that is from 1010 – 587.
The Northern Kingdom, which confusingly continued to be called Israel,
did not – it had eight dynasties in the 210 years of its history, from 931 -
721. Ahab,
the 7th King of Israel, and second member of the Omri (4th)
dynasty, reigned from 874 – 853 BC, and he was generally reckoned by the Jews
to be the worst King of all. However,
the writers of the Old Testament did not judge a King by his political or
military performance, but by his faithfulness to the One God, Jahweh. By worldly standards, Ahab didn’t do too
badly. He built up trade, and
constructed a fine capital at Samaria, and more or less kept his Kingdom safe
from the attacks of Syria. But in
terms of theology it was a different story.
He married Jezebel, daughter of the King of Tyre and Sidon, and she
brought Baal worship, which had always gone on to some extent in the country
districts, to the centre of the life of the court, and of the nation. Ahab tried to keep the peace, and allowed
her to build a great temple to Baal in Samaria; perhaps he hoped that his
people could worship both Baal and Jahweh.
This outraged devout followers of Jahweh, who saw it as a direct
attack on the whole raison d’être of their nation, the Chosen People of God. Their
leader was the prophet Elijah, who was working about 860 BC. His very name means “Jahweh is God”, and,
despite the attacks of Queen Jezebel, he took on the pro-Baal party head-on,
and won fair and square in a sacrifice competion on Mount Carmel. By winning the competition, Elijah
convinced the common people of Israel to serve Jahweh, not Baal, and they got
a bit carried away, slaughtering all the prophets of Baal that they could
find. Elijah had to flee for his life,
and hide in the wilderness, fearing that even there, Jezebel would find him
and murder him. Jezebel took her
revenge, slaughtering all the prophets of Jahweh, and Elijah thought he was
the only one left. However, Obadiah,
Ahab’s prime-minister had hidden a hundred holy prophets in his own house. So
we find Elijah hiding under the broom tree in the desert at the beginning of
our Old Testament reading today, verging on depression, suicidal even. After
eating the bread, and drinking the water, Elijah was given strength to make
the journey to Mount Horeb. We don’t
know where Mount Horeb is, but the closest of the four generally accepted
possibilities is about 200 miles South of Mount Carmel, and all of them can
only be reached over very difficult terrain.
At Mount Horeb, Elijah was first given a vision of God, and then a
mission – to anoint Hazael king of Aram, Jehu king of Israel, and Elisha
prophet in his place. So
what has all that got to do with the church, and specifically, with us
today? In
the first place, no matter how bad things seem, it is God’s world, and He
will bring extraordinary results out of situations that seem hopeless to us. In
the second place, there can be no excuse whatever for oppressing people who
believe in different ways from us, still less executing them. Any actions like that only get in the way of
what God is trying to do. Of course,
he will still achieve his purposes, but do you want to oppose God? In
the third place, however much it feels like it, you are not alone. There are always other believers, though
they may be very different from you.
Sometimes, like Obadiah, Ahab’s prime minister, they are the last
people you would have thought of as God’s followers! But God has chosen them, just as He has
chosen you. In
the fourth place, we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that procedes
from the mouth of God. Like Elijah, we
need to be sustained by God. Amen. Revd June Hutchinson: Assistant Curate,
Anglican Chaplaincy of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude To return to main Thought for the Week page, click X at top right to close this window. |