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Sermon for 2 Pentecost Yr C, 13/06/2004 Based on I Kings 21:1-21a By Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson Pastor of Grace Lutheran
Church, & Chaplain of the Good
Samaritan Society’s South Ridge Village,
Medicine Hat, Alberta Today’s
first lesson is basically a story about coveting, bearing false witness,
killing and stealing. It appears to begin in a rather painless way with
Israel’s King Ahab seeing Naboth’s vineyard adjacent to his palace and
making, what seems, at first sight, a fair and just offer to purchase it to
use for his vegetable garden.
But wait a minute right there! Ahab, being king, knew
very well that such an offer was not fair or just. Why? Because for Naboth to
sell off the land that his ancestors passed on to him would be the same as
Esau selling his birthright to brother Jacob for a bowel of lentil soup. You
see, by keeping the land of one’s ancestors meant not only that one honoured
one’s own family history—it also meant that one was keeping covenant with the
LORD God, who, we remember, included the land in the covenant with Israel. If
one sold one’s land that one inherited from one’s ancestors and, originally,
from the LORD himself, was not that an act of abandoning the LORD and the
covenant? As long as one occupied one’s land, one was affirming and living
under the LORD’s covenant.
So, what else could Ahab expect
Naboth to say to him than a firm “NO, the LORD forbids me to sell my
ancestral inheritance!” However, Ahab doesn’t stop there. He responds to
Naboth’s refusal to sell by going back to his palace, fasting, and going to
bed to nurse his resentment towards Naboth and to pout like an
immature child who fails to get what they want.
Jezebel
enters the narrative at this point. When Ahab tells her about Naboth’s
refusal she asks him pointedly, “Do you now govern Israel?” Jezebel had an
entirely different understanding about who has a right to what. Jezebel came
from Tyre. She worshipped a Baal god whose name was Melkart. Baal means
“owner” and Baalism is a religion of ownership. Originally the word came to
be synonymous with the aristocracy, the land owners in the big houses.
Baalism came to be a religion. When the owners needed supernatural sanction
to support their system they came up with a god to fit that need. Baalism was
more than a cult. It was an ideology about who had the right to own what. Jezebel had come to Israel
to wed Ahab when he was crown prince. Now she was Queen and she would become
Queen Mother. She was a powerful force in Israel. She was a pusher of a new
mentality for she brought with her a retinue of priests of her god. A (North)
American axiom reads, “It doesn’t matter what you believe just so long as you
are sincere.” But it does matter! This idea that some are born to rule and
own others to be owned backed by power of Jezebel was making a difference to
the poor in Israel. (See Micah 2:1-2.) Beliefs do matter and theology is
important! Jezebel did not share the
religious traditions of Israel, but she knew how to get what she wanted
through dirty tricks. She sent letters in Ahab’s name and signed with his
seal to all the elders and free people of Naboth’s city. They were instructed
to proclaim a fast, perhaps because of the famine mentioned in chapter 17.
That was diabolically clever for a fast would suggest that someone’s sin is
responsible. Naboth was being set up even as he was ushered to the seat of
honor at the assembly. Jezebel also knew that cursing the king was a capital
offense (Exodus 22:8) and that the property of convicted people reverted to
the crown. That no one questioned indicates the clout of Ahab’s family. This is the story that is
history in microcosm. The names and places change but the plot remains the
same, the more powerful coveting the inheritance of some poor Naboth and
getting it one way or another. Ahab wanted vegetables out of Naboth’s garden.
His successors have wanted other things out of the inheritances of other
Naboths: land, gold, diamonds, tea, coffee, bananas, copper, tin, coal, iron,
uranium, rubber, cotton, oil. Enter Elijah, the prophet
with the memory of a God who spoke through a burning bush on behalf of an
oppressed people, a God of justice who knows and sees and cares, a God who
will not tolerate the ways of predatory avarice, lying, and exploitation, a
God whose judgement may seem to tarry yet is certain sure. The prophetic
mission of the church suggests itself here. 1
The
prophetic mission to be like Elijah in our contemporary context by speaking
truth to power. By ensuring that the rights of the Naboths today are
respected and protected. By calling the King Ahabs and Queen Jezebels of
today to accountability when they have plotted and schemed to covet, bear
false witness against, kill and steal from innocent and poor people. In our
society, it may mean that we persist in holding governments accountable to us
regarding things like the guarantee of healthcare and education and the
proper stewardship of our natural resources not only for ourselves but also
for future generations. It may also mean that we in the free, democratic
world continue to be Elijahs for those who live under oppressive and evil
regimes by insisting that the rights and dignity of the poorest of the poor
are respected and protected. This may translate into exposing publicly the
abuses of power of governments and corporate elites around the world who
selfishly exist only to preserve their own wealth and interests by denying
the majority of citizens freedom and democracy. In short, the role of
prophet, the role of Elijah today is going to be as dangerous and unpopular
now as it was back then in ancient Israel. May the LORD God preserve and
defend the cause of today’s Elijahs just as he did in ancient Israel!
Shifting
back now to our story’s conclusion, what do we learn? Well, I believe there
are at least two “punch lines” to this story. First, we learn that we can
all be so easily tempted to covet what does not belong to us—and, before we
can say “Jack Frost,” such temptations can spread like a deadly cancer and
escalate into further, more serious temptations and sins, until we, like Ahab
and Jezebel can fall into plots and schemes and conspiracies which wrongfully
ruin or destroy others and ultimately ourselves. Notice how this happens,
first there is Ahab coveting Naboth’s vineyard. Then he fails to accept
Naboth’s “NO” by allowing his inner resentments to grow. On the heels of his
resentments come an evil conspiracy to bear false witness. Then, bearing
false witness quickly escalates into the sins of murder and stealing. The
danger for us is to read this story as immune observers. God forbid that we
saying to ourselves: “This was way back then, and can never happen to us!”
NOT TRUE! IT CAN HAPPEN TO US TOO, BECAUSE WE TOO ARE SINNERS TEMPTED BY
THESE SAME SINS AS AHAB AND JEZEBEL.
THEREFORE, WE NEED TO BE EVER VIGILANT, EVER ALERT TO BRING ALL OF
THESE SINS INSIDE OF US TO OUR LORD TO CONFESS THEM, SEEK HIS FORGIVENESS AND
LEAVE THE SINS WITH HIM—NOT ALLOW THEM TO GROW LIKE CANCER INSIDE OF US.
The
second “punch line” of this story is that crime does not pay! In the end,
right and truth and justice do prevail. Notice in
the story how Jezebel and Ahab believe they can get away with their secret
evil conspiracy. They believe that they can hide their evil plot from
everyone and use evil means to gain what they want, what rightfully does not
belong to them. Yet, this does not happen. They fail to pull it off. Elijah
the prophet has been given a message from the LORD revealing what they’ve
done to Naboth and he confronts Ahab with this truth; proclaiming his
prophetic oracle of the ultimate destruction of Ahab. In the end, we learn
that the oracle is true—Ahab was killed at Ramoth Gilead by the Aramites and
Jezebel is pushed out of a window, falling down to her death.
May the LORD preserve us from committing the sins of Ahab and Jezebel. May the LORD help us to be like Elijah and do what is right in all circumstances. Amen. ____________ 1 Cited from: Emphasis Vol. 25, No. 1, May-June 1995 (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing Co., Inc.), pp. 46-47. |
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