August 8, 2021 Prophets – Nahum

(In worship this was an introduction given before the reading of Nahum 3) 

    Nahum is a troubling book.  It is the sort of book that should have a content warning on it.  No part of Nahum shows up in the Revised Common Lectionary the series of Bible readings many churches use for Bible readings for worship.

Nahum comes from late in the 7^th century B.C.E.  It is a pronouncement against the city of Nineveh, which was the capital of the Assyrian Empire.  You may remember from previous weeks that it was the Assyrians who conquered and destroyed the northing kingdom of Israel in the 8^th century B.C.E.  Only tiny Judah to the south was left.

Late in the 7^th century Assyria was waning.  The growing Babylonian Empire was threatening it.  Indeed in 612 B.C.E. Babylon conquered Nineveh and effectively ended the Assyrian Empire.  This is the event Nahum’s prophesy is about.

We often think of the middle east as an unstable place.  These days there seems to be endless terrorism and war.  When I speak about it in sermons I fear I give the sense that empires regularly rose and fell.  But I shouldn’t do that.  That is a mistake.  A nation or empire often lasted hundreds of years.  Some of the nations were stable and even existed for many centuries.  Egypt was one of them.  And so was Assyria.

The origins of the Assyrian empire are unknown.  It appears to have emerged around 2500 B.C.E. as one of the earliest stable agrarian societies that ever formed.  Its territory was along the Tigris river in modern day Iraq.  Babylon formed downstream to the southeast. 

Over the centuries it had its ups and downs, but it was a relatively stable nation that lasted for almost 2000 years!  For its last few centuries of existence Assyria began to expand solidly.  Their military was powerful.  Apparently it could also be brutal and merciless.  The harsh words we will hear from Nahum have that brutality as a context, although that does not necessarily make what Nahum says a right reflection of God’s nature. 

Commentator Francisco Garcia-Treto says this in the New Interpreter’s Bible:

“How can we celebrate, as Nahum seems to suggest, the wholesale destruction of human life as an act of God?

“In like manner, Nahum’s reflection of patriarchal attitudes toward women, current in his society, particularly in the abhorrent picture of God’s humiliating and abusing Nineveh as a prostitute, present serious problems to our religious sensitivity…” 

[Remember, in Nahum’s day a woman’s sexuality was totally controlled by her father or husband.  Therefore, as we will read Nahum’s prostitution imagery that’s the context.  The image is of a woman whose sexuality is not controlled by an established authority.  She is a dangerous uncontrolled temptress who is the opposite of good.]

Garcia-Treto continues, “To read the book of Nahum, then, we must prepare to listen to, but at the same time argue with, this ancient poet.”  (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 7, Pg. 619.)

(Read Nahum 3)

We ask ourselves how can God desire the destruction and humiliation of a nation?  If we somehow dehumanize its residents into caricatures of evil then maybe it works.  But if we understand the Assyrians to be full flesh-and-blood people; people with complex lives, families, feelings, obligations, joys and sorrows, then we have a problem.

I’m not going to try to preach on Nahum in a way that tries to find laudable elements within it.  Nor am I going to apologize for Nahum’s message and minimize the writing.  Nahum is scripture.  It is in the Bible.  And that is that.

I do think Nahum is one of those parts of the Bible that helps us more fully understand what the Bible is.  Reading and interpreting the Bible is complicated!  I think that is a good thing, even though it may undermine our thoughts of the Bible as a divine instruction book that fell from the sky perfect in every way.

We say that the Bible is the word of God.  That is an easy thing to say but a hard thing to embrace.  It is easy enough to take the actions and sermons of Jesus, or the letters of St. Paul, and find in them straightforward teachings to apply to our lives.  But as Nahum shows us, that is not the whole of the Bible.  The Bible is a huge book.  It is complex.  It is diverse.  It was written by many people over many centuries and cultures.  Parts of it show editing and re-editing.  And it is self-contradictory in many ways.  I chose our gospel reading today (Matthew 5:38-47) largely because it is a contrast to Nahum. 

Some say the Old Testament is old.  The New Testament is new, and therefore more important, more relevant, and in some way, more right.  But I’ve said it before, I think that is a flawed approach.  The New Testament has plenty to offend you, and it has plenty of things that seem absolutely irrelevant to today.  For example, St. Paul talks a lot about whether or not you should eat food that has been offered to idols.  A lot of the meat available for sale in Paul’s day had been used for some pagan temple ritual.  While we can learn some principles for our faith by learning about the way Paul thinks, food offered to idols is completely irrelevant today.  If it were relevant, I’m sure Wegmans would have one case specifically dedicated as being certified idol-free meat!

Nahum is a deeply important book.  While we may not get anything directly from it for our faith, the Bible would be all the weaker for it.  We should not, and cannot, chose only those parts of the Bible we like and then ignore the rest.  Nahum usually gets conveniently ignored.  We always have to take the whole thing.  We may not like Nahum, but something of the fullness of scripture is lost – something of the fullness of faith is lost – if we think it should be cut out or ignored.

I have never read sociologist Emile Durkheim’s book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, but I understand it makes a very convincing case that in all cultures “God” is nothing more than a symbolic representation of the dominant values of that society, or perhaps the dominant virtues of that society.  Remember the teaching from Genesis that we are made in the image of God?  Durkheim would suggest that religions tend to reverse that.  They make God into the image of the worshippers.

Whatever a culture considers to be goodness gets personified in their deity.  And goodness varies from culture to culture.  A look around the world proves that Durkheim’s thoughts have their merit.  This goes for the western world - the monotheistic religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity - and also the Eastern religions, and primitive tribal religions.   My own critique of many American churches is that they have overlaid Americanism onto Christianity rather than Christianity onto being American.

We find an interesting antidote, or perhaps a warning, fundamental to our faith in the Ten Commandments say?  Remember, “Do not make a graven image.”  While on the surface that may sound like ‘don’t make a statue,’ at a deeper level it God’s warning against our tendency to make God into our own image.

From that perspective, biblical books like Nahum are essential.  I hope you do not like Nahum.  I hope you do not take life lessons from his writings.  I hope you do not use him to create an image of God in your mind. 

And yet, read Nahum to make yourself uncomfortable.  Use Nahum to keep from developing an overly simplistic view of the Bible.  Let it make you feel uneasy.  Let it bring the thought into your mind, “I don’t think God is that way.”  In other words, let Nahum be one of those places in the Bible where you find yourself engaging scripture with critical doubt.

It would be nice if the Bible were a simple instruction book.  It would be nice if the Bible were a simple collection of eternal truths, or principles to live by.

But if it were, it would open wide the door to making God in our image, rather than letting God make us in God’s own image. 

I believe true faith, deep faith, -faith that makes you into God’s own image- comes through the struggle.  It is not having absolute answers and convenient truths.  In other words, it comes through a relationship of trust with God.  Life is a journey with God.  Life is not about “getting it right” by learning “truths” from the Bible.  Just as life is complicated, so is faith with God.  The Bible more fully engages life with its complexities than if it were simple.

And so when people like Durkheim say that God is nothing more than you projecting what you consider to be virtues on some mythical divine being, know that that is not true.  Durkheim is wrong.  The antidote lies in our scripture.  The Holy Spirit deed indeed really know what it was doing when it inspired our faith ancestors to make the Bible – the WHOLE THING!  You are being made in God’s own image.  That’s not simple.  But when the entire Bible gets to speak, it will keep you turning back to God with questions and troubles; uncertainties, constantly reopening you to new things.  For that is how we come to know God.  Life is a journey.  Not a destination.