Contrasting scenes -- Jezebel to Joanna
Commentary
One of the great stories of the Old Testament greets us in the first reading for this Sunday. This story of the family in the great house and the family in the little house mirrors the ongoing drama of the exploitation of the less powerful by the more powerful. You can chart the history of that exploitation in terms of the big houses of history like the great house of Ahab, the palatial estates of the Roman nobility, the feudal castles, the Spanish haciendas of the plantation owners, the country manor houses of the English gentry, the grand chateaux of the French nobility, the ante-bellum mansions of the slave owners, the ostentatious houses of the old and new rich. It is interesting how the drive to amass and possess expresses itself in the architecture and patterns of housing. What wonderful ways biblical writers have of giving us glimpses of history in microcosm and pointing us to the prophetic vocation of the community of faith in every day and age.
In the epistle lesson we encounter those magnificent words of Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." This particular passage is a gem.
The readings conclude with Luke's story of the woman who created quite a scene when she crashed the gate at a dinner party hosted by Simon the Pharisee. Simon, incidentally, is a real stuffed shirt and quite rude to Jesus who was a guest at the table. At the close of this story with its enclosed parable of the two debtors Luke mentions the women who join Jesus and the 12 and help fund the movement. He mentions some names. Joanna is of special interest. The readings for the Sunday abound with suggestions for the preacher.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a
In the very first verse there is a significant word that clues us to a changing situation in Israel. It is the Hebrew word hekel which literally means great house and is rightly translated as palace in our text. This is the first time this particular word is used in the narrative of Kings and its use tells us that there are some new ideas abroad about land rights and ownership. Ahab, for example, knew and understood land rights and that is why he had to accept Naboth's refusal to sell part of his inheritance. All Ahab could do was go into a royal sulk.
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 worshiped 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. An 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 and others to be owned backed by the 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 freemen 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 22:28) 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 judgment may seem to tarry yet is certain sure. The prophetic mission of the church suggests itself here.
This story told to me in 1948 in the small town of Manville, Wyoming, by a lady who was then quite elderly is an illustration of an Ahab/Jezebel-like conspiracy. She showed me an old and small book that had been written and published by her father and three other men. They had been part of the contingent of troops who brought Crazy Horse into an army fort under promise of amnesty. Leaving 250 warriors milling around the parade ground Crazy Horse was ushered into a building to a cell. Her father was one of the four in that contingent. When Crazy Horse saw the cell he was frightened and bolted. A young soldier reacted with a bayonet thrust that proved fatal. This news was kept from the Indians at the fort until they had been disarmed and removed. The four in the contingent learned that the commandant of the fort had received secret orders from the Indian ring in Washington to have Crazy Horse transported to the federal penitentiary at Dry Tortugas in Florida. Repelled by this deception the four had written the book to exonerate themselves in the murder of Crazy Horse. Remember the Sioux Nation was at war with the United States because the sanctity of the Black Hills, protected by a treaty, had been violated by gold seekers.
Galatians 2:15-21
Neither ethnic heritage nor ceremonial rites are valid criteria for the family of God is an important thrust of Paul's argument in this epistle. God's aim is to break down the barriers that disrupt community. Those who were acting divisively in the Galatian churches wanted to impose the old kind of bookkeeping that would fragment the newly created unity of Jew and Gentile within the church. Judgmental legalism does just this; it erects bogus and divisive claims.
Our worth does not come through what we build into our lives, but from God's free gift of himself, a gift of love and grace that in its very giving evokes an obedient response. Paul speaks in terms of the cross to describe the liberated quality of the new life in Christ. He has died to the imperatives and definitions of worth that abound about us. He is thinking of the crucifixion in existential terms. Back in the seventeenth century Angelus Silesius gave us these words that go to the heart of what Paul is talking about.
Though Christ a thousand times
In Bethlehem be born,
If He's not born in thee,
Thy soul is still forlorn.
The cross on Golgotha
Will never save thy soul
The cross in thine own heart
Alone can make thee whole.
Luke 7:36--8:3
I would recommend to any pastor's library the combined edition of two books by Kenneth Bailey on the parables in Luke (Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983). The author's knowledge of Middle Eastern peasant cultures sheds light on some facets of the parables that we might miss. In reference to this gospel reading he points out the custom in such ancient banquets to leave the door and gate open so people could come and go, some perhaps just to listen in. He underlines the seriousness of the insult Simon rendered Jesus by not washing his feet and not giving him the kiss of hospitality. He points out the way the male diners would be shocked by the woman's action, especially the letting down of her hair and the equal shock of a guest dressing down the host as Jesus did.
I suggest following the scenes of the unfolding narrative and using verse 47b as the pivotal text. "But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." Simon was much filled with a sense of his own virtue. When we are blind to our own sins it is difficult for us to think of any need to repent and next to impossible for us to be anything but judgmental toward others. Does Simon stand as a representative of us religious folk who can be quite critical of others? The woman sinner is an outsider and Simon is an insider.
The story ends abruptly with the benediction of Jesus as he sends the woman away in peace. We are left with a question. How do we react? Has Jesus been rude to Simon or is this indeed what the forgiveness of God is all about? Within the narrative is Luke's assertion that Jesus is the agent of God's redeeming action.
The story also presents us with a woman who exceeds a man in faith and devotion. Here is one of the heroines of Luke's gospel. Jesus is no partisan of gender. Verses 8:1-3 indicate that word about Jesus was getting around and women were becoming not only significant partners but financial backers of the movement.
Of special interest is Joanna, the wife of Herod's chief steward. She reminds me of Nora in Henry Ibsen's play, A Doll's House. Ibsen anticipated the revolt against definitions of women handed down in a sexist society. Joanna's departure from the court of Herod had to have set tongues wagging. In fact the growing number of women in the Jesus movement must have created quite a stir. So, starting the readings with a woman named Jezebel, we conclude with the forgiven woman, Joanna, Mary Magdalene, and their anonymous companions in center stage.
In the epistle lesson we encounter those magnificent words of Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." This particular passage is a gem.
The readings conclude with Luke's story of the woman who created quite a scene when she crashed the gate at a dinner party hosted by Simon the Pharisee. Simon, incidentally, is a real stuffed shirt and quite rude to Jesus who was a guest at the table. At the close of this story with its enclosed parable of the two debtors Luke mentions the women who join Jesus and the 12 and help fund the movement. He mentions some names. Joanna is of special interest. The readings for the Sunday abound with suggestions for the preacher.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a
In the very first verse there is a significant word that clues us to a changing situation in Israel. It is the Hebrew word hekel which literally means great house and is rightly translated as palace in our text. This is the first time this particular word is used in the narrative of Kings and its use tells us that there are some new ideas abroad about land rights and ownership. Ahab, for example, knew and understood land rights and that is why he had to accept Naboth's refusal to sell part of his inheritance. All Ahab could do was go into a royal sulk.
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 worshiped 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. An 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 and others to be owned backed by the 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 freemen 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 22:28) 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 judgment may seem to tarry yet is certain sure. The prophetic mission of the church suggests itself here.
This story told to me in 1948 in the small town of Manville, Wyoming, by a lady who was then quite elderly is an illustration of an Ahab/Jezebel-like conspiracy. She showed me an old and small book that had been written and published by her father and three other men. They had been part of the contingent of troops who brought Crazy Horse into an army fort under promise of amnesty. Leaving 250 warriors milling around the parade ground Crazy Horse was ushered into a building to a cell. Her father was one of the four in that contingent. When Crazy Horse saw the cell he was frightened and bolted. A young soldier reacted with a bayonet thrust that proved fatal. This news was kept from the Indians at the fort until they had been disarmed and removed. The four in the contingent learned that the commandant of the fort had received secret orders from the Indian ring in Washington to have Crazy Horse transported to the federal penitentiary at Dry Tortugas in Florida. Repelled by this deception the four had written the book to exonerate themselves in the murder of Crazy Horse. Remember the Sioux Nation was at war with the United States because the sanctity of the Black Hills, protected by a treaty, had been violated by gold seekers.
Galatians 2:15-21
Neither ethnic heritage nor ceremonial rites are valid criteria for the family of God is an important thrust of Paul's argument in this epistle. God's aim is to break down the barriers that disrupt community. Those who were acting divisively in the Galatian churches wanted to impose the old kind of bookkeeping that would fragment the newly created unity of Jew and Gentile within the church. Judgmental legalism does just this; it erects bogus and divisive claims.
Our worth does not come through what we build into our lives, but from God's free gift of himself, a gift of love and grace that in its very giving evokes an obedient response. Paul speaks in terms of the cross to describe the liberated quality of the new life in Christ. He has died to the imperatives and definitions of worth that abound about us. He is thinking of the crucifixion in existential terms. Back in the seventeenth century Angelus Silesius gave us these words that go to the heart of what Paul is talking about.
Though Christ a thousand times
In Bethlehem be born,
If He's not born in thee,
Thy soul is still forlorn.
The cross on Golgotha
Will never save thy soul
The cross in thine own heart
Alone can make thee whole.
Luke 7:36--8:3
I would recommend to any pastor's library the combined edition of two books by Kenneth Bailey on the parables in Luke (Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983). The author's knowledge of Middle Eastern peasant cultures sheds light on some facets of the parables that we might miss. In reference to this gospel reading he points out the custom in such ancient banquets to leave the door and gate open so people could come and go, some perhaps just to listen in. He underlines the seriousness of the insult Simon rendered Jesus by not washing his feet and not giving him the kiss of hospitality. He points out the way the male diners would be shocked by the woman's action, especially the letting down of her hair and the equal shock of a guest dressing down the host as Jesus did.
I suggest following the scenes of the unfolding narrative and using verse 47b as the pivotal text. "But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." Simon was much filled with a sense of his own virtue. When we are blind to our own sins it is difficult for us to think of any need to repent and next to impossible for us to be anything but judgmental toward others. Does Simon stand as a representative of us religious folk who can be quite critical of others? The woman sinner is an outsider and Simon is an insider.
The story ends abruptly with the benediction of Jesus as he sends the woman away in peace. We are left with a question. How do we react? Has Jesus been rude to Simon or is this indeed what the forgiveness of God is all about? Within the narrative is Luke's assertion that Jesus is the agent of God's redeeming action.
The story also presents us with a woman who exceeds a man in faith and devotion. Here is one of the heroines of Luke's gospel. Jesus is no partisan of gender. Verses 8:1-3 indicate that word about Jesus was getting around and women were becoming not only significant partners but financial backers of the movement.
Of special interest is Joanna, the wife of Herod's chief steward. She reminds me of Nora in Henry Ibsen's play, A Doll's House. Ibsen anticipated the revolt against definitions of women handed down in a sexist society. Joanna's departure from the court of Herod had to have set tongues wagging. In fact the growing number of women in the Jesus movement must have created quite a stir. So, starting the readings with a woman named Jezebel, we conclude with the forgiven woman, Joanna, Mary Magdalene, and their anonymous companions in center stage.
