A refrain you’ve been hearing from me for weeks as we’ve looked at the kings of the ancient Israelites is that God stays true to promises made even when people are perpetually unfaithful. We could take that approach again today. Last week we took a glimpse of the kings of the northern kingdom, which had the name Israel. And we realized that after the nation split into two the north pretty much had a series of kings that the Bible describes as “evil.” The kingdom of Israel was ultimately destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in 722 B.C. That left the southern kingdom of Judah; one lone tribe that stayed faithful to the Davidic dynasty of kings. Our passage from 2 Kings today shows us a few things:
We see the reality that the two nations – Israel and Judah – were not always at war with one another. Sometimes they cooperated. Sometimes they made alliances. Sometimes the leaders intermarried.
We also see that the southern kingdom of Judah started off small and then slowly lost power over time. Bit by bit surrounding territories either rebelled and left or were conquered by other nations. To live in Judah during those centuries was to be living in a country that was dwindling a bit more away each and every day.
The third thing we see is that, at least from the author’s perspective, the northern kingdom of Israel did not have a monopoly on bad kings. The south had it’s share as well. In fact, of the twenty kings Judah had after Solomon twelve of them are said to have “done what was evil in the sight of the Lord” and only eight of them are said to have “done what was right.” We’re going to spend the next three Sundays looking at two of these good kings. Today, however, we note the bad ones. We are going to look at what a king had to do in order to be classified as “evil”.
Certainly things like greed, exploitation, and injustice were things that would get a king on the evil list. But it appears that chief among the reasons was if that king also worshipped foreign deities.
Early on Judaism was hardly an organized religious belief system. Much of ancient Judaism can be traced to things coming from ancient Canaanite religious beliefs active in the same area. Many of these Canaanite religious had rituals on the “high places” which were usually altars, or rock piles, set up on a hilltop or mountain. These ancient Canaanite religious can be classified as fertility religions. Practices often included ritual prostitution, child sacrifices, animal and grain sacrifices, the burning of incense, and the worship of the Canaanite god Baal. Baal was a weather god associated with thunderstorms.
While the Bible’s main storyline is that God called the people from slavery in Egypt and returned them to the promised land, a close reading shows that’s not the only story. There is a significant branch of ancient Israel that always was in the promised land. Their religious rituals and worship sites weren’t all that different from the Canaanites. In fact the worship may have been mixed together. Certainly before the temple was built in Jerusalem and became the religious center for Judaism Jewish worship also generally took place on the high places.
Inevitably there was a great deal of confusion and mixing of religions between the Canaanites and the Israelites. How a king handled the high places and Canaanite religion became a key measure in whether a king was considered good or evil.
Today’s reading doesn’t specifically mention high places or Canaanite religion, but it does raise the fact that King Jehoram of Judah has married the daughter of King Ahab of Israel. That would make her the daughter of Ahab’s wife Jezebel. Jezebel was a strong supporter of Baal worship and one of the Bible’s greatest female villains.
It appears as if the kings of Judah who were considered evil tended to worship, or at least allow the worship, of Baal in addition to their worship of the Jewish God Yahweh.
In this age of pluralism and tolerance we may find this forbiddance of another religion to be close minded and antiquated, especially since both Judaism and the Canaanite religions had similar roots. But let’s realize something more carefully. These actions of these evil kings have things for us to learn.
When we define a “god” as something supernatural that is “out there” beyond time and space we are missing something. A god is anything to which you turn for trust, hope and guidance. The ancient kings were consulting other gods for guidance and for help. Perhaps we do not have high places where we burn incense and offer sacrifices, but the temptation to have multiple gods is still there.
Where do we put our trust? With the current pandemic I hear a lot about the economy. Based on the conversations I hear I’d say that if America has any god it is the economy.
Now, I don’t want to speak against the prudent use of economic policy to make sure the goods and services people depend upon are available and robust. However, consider this. Perhaps we don’t have “high places” but what are you doing when you go to consult with a financial planner? Are you not going to a place, and is the financial planner not in some ways like a priest who is an expert at the religion of finance, and are you not working with that person to develop strategies to put you in a financial place that will take you to a place that is stable and secure?
I don’t mean to trash financial planners and professional investors, but I hope you get the point. How many times do you think people consult financial planners with this scenario: a person just inherited $800,000 and wants guidance about how to invest it in ways that promote racial justice and environmental sustainability. Not too often, is my guess!
Similarly, if you go for career advice are you not also going to a place, consulting with an expert of sorts, and using that experience to set your life’s direction. How often do you think career consultants are approached by someone who says, “Help me connect with ways to serve God.” Not too often is my guess!
Or one more from the world of insurance. Is not insurance protection from the unknown and uncontrollable. Again, I don’t mean to trash the insurance industry, but it can have religious, or god-like qualities. You go to the “high place” of the insurance agent, or perhaps the agent comes to your home – a mobile priest; and the agent (an expert in the profession or “religion”) helps you to critically determine how you want to protect your life and your assets.
There are other examples I could create too. My point is, perhaps the evil of these ancient kings isn’t so distant after all. And perhaps their “evil” wasn’t as offensive as we might be tempted to think at first. I hope you are sensing there are parallels to our lives too.
Yes, we need to be responsible people. We need to work hard. We need to contribute to the economy and have career plans and have insurance on things and invest wisely. But let us also realize all of these things can be gods. They all have their high places. They all have their “priests”. And we can very easily put our trust in them rather than in our own God.
If someone were to put a summary of our lives in the Bible may they say, “And she/he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.” Rather than, “she/he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.” For our God is the one and only true God. God is the only secure place to trust and have faith.
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