Royal Possession

1 Kings 21:1-21a

Last week we talked a bit about Ahab and Jezebel. Ahab was king of Israel, the most evil king ever, who had married a Sidonian woman and worshipped her tribal god instead of the God of Israel. Because of his worship of Baal, God caused a three year drought and God’s prophet Elijah got to deliver the bad news. Today, we find Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah again, but we get a clearer picture of the evil of this royal duo.

Ahab’s queen is not just a normal trophy wife who helped him forge valuable alliances with other kingdoms. Jezebel’s name is synonymous with a troublesome, seductive woman, a hussy, a harlot. And while she certainly welds her power for greed and destruction, she’s not the sole downfall of her husband. Ahab is no saint on his own. He has some major character flaws and is generally unfit to be a king, especially a king of Israel. He is greedy, he has poor coping mechanisms, he seems to have missed the whole point of leading the people of Israel.

When Naboth, the vineyard owner, wouldn’t agree to sell or trade, Ahab took to his bed, refused to eat dinner and just rolled over. As if he had no other responsibilities for the kingdom but to sulk over not getting the perfect garden for his vegetables (which, given his childish nature, he probably would not have eaten anyway). This immature behavior let’s us know to just what extreme Ahab was unfit for the monarchy. He wasn’t just evil, he was foolish and petty too, and unable to think for himself. Jezebel had probably figured out this personality trait of her husband’s and takes it upon herself to do what the king will not: take possession. No less greedy, Jezebel at least has the ambition and cunning to get the job done. Of course, she is merciless and cruel and no doubt deserves at least part of the reputation she’s gotten over the centuries. She’s misguided, but decisive. She makes a plan and goes for it. She sets up an elaborate plot to sentence Naboth wrongly to death row. And while Ahab doesn’t come up with this plan, he is not surprised, nor does he question his wife when she promises the desired vineyard and then delivers good on her promise.

King Ahab is certainly not the first king of Israel to look out his window and covet the property of his neighbor. As David looked out and desired Bathsheba, Ahab looks next door and sees the vineyard of Naboth and dreams of his own, royal vegetable garden in its place. He starts off with the honorable thing and offers Naboth a trade of either cash or a similar property, but this vineyard is Naboth’s ancestral inheritance—something God is very clear about in the Hebrew Bible—land and families are important, not to be handed over or sold, but past down to the generations.

Ahab and Naboth were both Israelites, but Naboth worshipped the God of Israel, while Ahab had strayed with a foreign god. Their desire for the same land is a government issue, but also a religious one since Naboth firmly believes that God has given his family this land and that it would be a sin to hand it over. Ahab realizes he’s been out done, he’s been trumped by the God-card and resigns to do nothing but pout. But his wife, Jezebel, has no respect for this foreign God of Israel—she has, after all, already put to death hundred’s of God’s prophets, so that only a few remain—she has conducted her own genocide of sorts. So for her, taking the land, is not a big deal, it’s what a king should do, if he wants something he should just go and get it, because what else is the use of being king?

This was one of the arguments God used against having a monarchy for Israel in the first place because Kings would take up the best resources and the best people for themselves, and the society would be less egalitarian and fair, but the people insisted, they wanted to be like other nations and have a king, so that they could be respected too, since simply having God Almighty wasn’t good enough clout.

The nation of Israel today is back in the headlines, where it never strays far, with the recent flotilla incident. And Obama and Netanyahu will meet again soon to try to find some common ground and work toward peace—but even then peace is so illusive and difficult for that region. Too many groups of people—with different nationalities and religions have a serious stake in the land, and tend to want all or nothing, making compromise basically impossible.

Compromise, had it even been attempted, would not have been possible for Naboth and the King and Queen. When Elijah reenters the scene, God’s judgment is swift. And because Ahab is not on good terms with God, he does not view Elijah’s arrival at the vineyard during his moment of taking it into possession as a good thing.

Ahab and Elijah in a cultural and religious war, not like King David and the prophet Nathan who convicted David of his sin with Bathsheba. Ahab does not see Elijah as a helpful advisor, but refers to him as his “enemy” and ironically as the “troubler of Israel.”

It’s not until after Elijah tells Ahab the consequences for his actions, the terrible fate for all of his family, that Ahab humbles himself and mourns his actions. He doesn’t feel bad for Naboth’s wrongful death, for the loss of such an upstanding man to his family and community, but is only upset when he learns that his own family and household will be eaten by dogs and birds.

His repentance is cheap and while Ahab is spared, Jezebel and Ahab’s sons are not. Punishment still comes to their household and to the generations following Ahab.

This is a grizzly, cautionary tale of not keeping some of the basic Commandments: of worshipping other gods, of coveting your neighbors’ property, of committing murder.

It’s a tale of greed and desire getting in the way of true relationship with God. It’s about loosing sight of God and relying on our plans a schemes.

Unlike Ahab and Jezebel, may we not be cause of oppression, of theft, of murder. May we look for ways to do justice and act kindly and walk humbly with God. Amen.

Wild Miracles

1 Kings 17:8-24

Don’t you just love how our scripture tends to start right in the middle of things? As though we all remember exactly who Elijah is and what he was up to?

By way of a little background on this story, Elijah was a great prophet, in the time of the kings of Israel, when Israel was an establish monarchy—no longer a roaming, nomadic tribe. Elijah had the uncomfortable job of telling the kings the truth. They would seek out his advice and he would have to tell them what God had to say, and when it wasn’t favorable, he might find himself hiding for his life.

The historian who compiled the book of 1^st Kings tells us that King Ahab “did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal” worshiped and built a sacred altar and did more to provoke the anger of the Lord than had all the kings of Israel before him.[1]

God is particularly displeased to see a king of Israel worshipping another god. Baal, it turns out is the god of storms and rain, and, by extension, life, death, and fertility. As punishment, Elijah informs King Ahab that there will be a severe drought for three years, to show exactly which god is in charge of the storms and rain, life and death.

And so Elijah, heads on out of town, to get out of Ahab’s jurisdiction, and goes to the Wadi Cherith, a marsh where he will still have some water to drink. God sends ravens to feed him bread and meat, twice a day. But soon, because there is no rain, the Wadi dries up and Elijah must move on.

Which catches us up to today’s scripture lesson, God sends Elijah to the land of Sidon, which also happens to be the birthplace of the Queen Jezebel and the heartland for Baal worship. No ravens this time, God tells Elijah that a widow there will provide for him.

In the Bible, widows are always of God’s special concern. Without husbands to provide for them or give them security and status in Israelite society, these women are vulnerable, with few resources and no power, not exactly the ideal caretakers for Israel’s great prophet. But Elijah has just relied on ravens, so the widow may seem like an upgrade. He finds her, by the city gate, gathering sticks for kindling, which cannot be a good sign that she’ll be able to provide a feast all on her own. Fortunately, God is with her, and after obediently fetching a drink of water for Elijah, she continues to listen to the word of God. She protests, but she does go and make bread and feed Elijah first, even though she only has enough oil and grain for one last meal for herself and her son. She tells Elijah that they are preparing to eat this last meal and then starve to death. It is a drought after all, so there will be no more grain until after it rains again. But she does it: maybe out of an act of faith, or out of a desperate hope that this man is right. In anticipation of the story of Jesus and the loaves and fishes, Elijah assures her that her jars of oil and meal will not go empty. And sure enough, God provides for the three of them, and the supplies hold and they are all able to eat for many, many days.

During the drought, God cares for those who are faithful. Elijah, the widow, and her child, are fed, even while the rest of the land starves. God does not give Elijah good news for the King and Queen, but does give good news to this widow and child who were on the verge of death, showing even more that God truly is in charge of the harvest, life and death.

In his book, Testimony to Otherwise, theologian Walter Brueggemann notes that the story of Elijah makes a break in the historical account of the kings of Israel. Among these stories of war, infidelity, punishment, and disgrace, we find the stories of the prophets that "open to the listeners in daring imagination the claim that the world does not need to be perceived or engaged according to dominant shapings of power, to privileged notions of authority, to conventional distributions of goods, or to standard definitions of what is possible."

These days, we find more and more stories that are told from unlikely points of view. Just think of Wicked, the story of the Wizard of Oz, told from the wicked witch’s point of view or of Wide Sargasso Sea, the story of Jane Eyre told through the eyes of the crazy wife in the attic. In our Postmodern awareness, we are more sensitive to other sides of the story: not just the winners of history, of the rich and elite, but the stories of the ordinary, of the underdog, of the slave, of the victim.

And so, in the middle of this litany of the kings of Israel, of their comings and goings, we find the story of a great prophet and a poor widow and her son.

Brueggemann says that Elijah "enacts otherwise, showing that the world could be and would be different, concretely, decisively different."

This whole business of good news for the impoverished and marginalized and bad news for the rich and royal will continue with Jesus, which is why so many people will call on stories of Elijah to help them process the reality of Jesus. It’d be nice sometimes, or easier at least, if so many stories of the Bible were not so uncomfortable, if they didn’t call on us to help feed the hungry and heal the hurts of the world—but the message of Elijah, of Jesus, is not self-fulfillment and satisfaction, it’s not prosperity and simple happiness,

Elijah spends a lot of time on the run, finding unlikely sources for meals and shelter. He interprets God for the people, he obeys God’s commands, and he challenges God. He and God have a full and rich relationship, sometimes harmonious, sometimes tense. When the widow’s son dies anyway, even with the abundance of food, Elijah cries out to God, asking what God has against him now that the son of his hostess would die anyway. And God hears these cries as Elijah stretches his own body across the child’s, and God answers Elijah by giving the child life again. This is not the sort of miracle we expect anymore. Who among us would expect to be able to stretch out over the lifeless body of a loved one and bring them back? Elijah raises people from the dead, Jesus will later raise people from the dead.

These are the sorts of wild miracles that God is capable of doing. God gives sustenance to those who have nothing, hope and healing to those who have none.

Thanks be to God.

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[1] 1 Kings 16:30-33