If you know the movie The Princess Bride you probably remember the character Inigo Montoya. He is the swordsmen who has devoted his life to seeking revenge on the six fingered man who killed his father. You may know his most famous line, which is what he says when he finally meets the six fingered man and attempts to kill him, “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
And without giving away too much, near the end of the movie he says that he has spent so much of his life seeking revenge that now that he has achieved it he doesn’t know what to live for.
I think we all know that harboring anger and seeking revenge can eat away at us and consume us. I believe forgiveness can be every bit as much for the forgiver as the forgiven. Holding anger can be life destroying.
The prophet Obadiah and Psalm 137 seem to go hand in hand. They are both showing us an age-old anger that existed between the Israelites and the neighboring nation of Edom. The front cover of the bulletin shows the way the kingdom of Edom lay just to the south of Judah, the southern kingdom of the ancient Hebrews.
According to the Bible’s stories in Genesis the Israelites and the Edomites had common parents – Isaac and Rebecca. You may remember that Rebecca gave birth to twins: Jacob (father of Israel) and Esau (father of Edom). Esau was the first born and is depicted as not all that bright. For example he sells his birthright to his brother for a bowl of bean. But Jacob isn’t portrayed well either. We Americans look at our founding fathers and want to glorify them. We talk about George Washington and his honesty for example. However the Israelites saw their founders, especially Jacob, in a very poor light. Genesis records Jacob as a liar, cheater, and scoundrel. Jacob eventually swindles his brother Esau so badly that he runs away from home fearing Esau’s retribution.
Years pass. Jacob gets in trouble with more people and decides to head back home. But there is the problem with his brother Esau. Can he even go home safely? The confrontation happens in Genesis 33. Esau comes out to meet his brother with four hundred men – a small army. Jacob sends gifts ahead in hopes of appeasing his brother and we wait anxiously to know what will happen. We know that if Esau kills Jacob it would be no more than he deserves.
Esau forgives Jacob completely and welcomes him with open arms. It is not what we would expect. Though Jacob is the father of the nation the histoy, Esau is the good guy. Maybe Esau wasn’t very smart, but throughout the story is he portrayed as an honest, decent hardworking guy. Again, it is fascinating that the ancient Jews often portrayed themselves as the bad guys in the story. Also, if you remember from a month ago, when we read Job, Job was considered the pinnacle of being a righteous man, and he would have been an Edomite. The ancient Jews described Esau as not being very bright, the way you’d expect an enemy to be depicted; and yet in other places they seem to have considered the people who lived in the Edomite region wise.
It is often said that the winners get to write history. But ultimately the Edomites lost. They were ultimately conquered and destroyed. They no longer exist. The Jews do. So, if the Jews are the winners, and the Old Testament is Jewish history, it is fascinating that the Jews included texts that at least in some places, put their enemies in a good light.
What is also fascinating is the way they recorded their hatred and desires for revenge. I don’t think anyone knows what was the root cause of the conflict between the Israelites and the Edomites. The best I can find is that it was disputes over territory, but who knows. Whatever the cause, it appears as if the Israelites and the Edomites rarely got along. It reached its peak in 587 B.C.E. when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. Accounts vary, but it appears as if the Edomites joined in the destruction and cheered it on. We see that in Psalm 137.
In all of this it is important to remember that we are not reading about the goings on of great nations. Judah and Edom, as well as Moab and Ammon were all tiny nation states. At their strongest they were still weaklings in the ancient world. Picture them like the army of Ontario County going to war with Wayne County or Yates County. When put on the global stage their petty grudges are almost laughable!
The first half of Obadiah is an oracle against Edom. It is a pronouncement of divine retribution for the evils of the Edomites. The second half is about God restoring the Israelites and giving them control over their neighbors. We’ll come back to that. First lest turn to Psalm 137.
Theologian and composer, Susan Briehl has invested a lot of time and study in Psalm 137. The hymn that we’re going to sing after the sermon, Once We Sang and Danced, is written by her based on Psalm 137. She isn’t exactly sure why the Jews included it in scripture – or even why they don’t just forget and ignore their hatred of the Edomites. After all, the Edomites were ultimately destroyed. So why hang on to this?
Briehl doesn’t know. But she does say it may be because they didn’t want to forget the pain and the sense of loss. Our Jewish faith ancestors are willing to remember deep pain. And unlike us Americans, who these days like to think we can rise to whatever occasion or crisis and then conquer it, the Jews of that day turned their past, their present, and their future over to God. They didn’t look to themselves for strength and salvation. They knew they couldn’t do it. They were too weak. They looked to God.
Perhaps that’s why the Jews were not afraid of their flawed past or their messed-up founders. They also felt there was importance in remembering times when they felt complete despair for their faith and the future. They felt there was importance in remembering when they were consumed with brutal hatred and desires for revenge; even for people who were their blood relatives.
Obadiah and Psalm 137 both record ugly dark feelings. If Susan Briehl is right, there may we a great deal of health in remembering times when you were so hate-filled, or filled with despair, that you were irrational, or were consumed by it.
Our own nation, like the ancient Jewish nation, has many things in its past to be proud of. Our nation, like the ancient Jewish nation, has many things to look forward to in the future. And our nation, like the ancient Jewish nation, has many things in its past it should be ashamed of: mistakes, failures, bad policies, cruel events.
No nation that has any history at all, and any power at all, functions without making blunders or without things it wished never happened.
Our nation is severely divided these days. I wish there was enough honesty and humility to see things the way the ancient Jews did. They could recognize truly good things in their enemies and opponents. And they were willing to look at the ugly times in their past, and hang on to them in a way that helped them in the present.
As people of faith we can take a big lesson from Obadiah and Psalm 137. The second half of Obadiah is an oracle against all the nations that have been against Judah. Our Christian faith will take issue with the way God will punish so many nations. And since it is a prophesy for the future, this will probably be innocent people. But notice that it is not the Israelites who will do it. God does not promise a future where they themselves will triumph. Nor does God promise a future where God will guide them to triumph. The future promise is that God will bring the triumph.
As we are people who are sinners in need of God’s grace, and that grace is our only hope, we do well to take this to heart. I’ve said it before, I’m saying it now, and I’ll probably say it in the future – this is very hard to believe – the future is God’s. It is secure in God’s hands. No matter how easy or hard life is, the future is God’s. No matter how fair or unfair things are now, the future is God’s. That does not mean that we sit back and do nothing. No, we work hard to make God’s kingdom a reality. But we do so knowing that the future does not rely on our efforts alone. If we fail it’s okay.
Since the future is God’s there’s no need for a lifetime seeking revenge, or for holding onto people’s sins against us. We let the hurts and injuries be God’s. We free ourselves from them and work onward. Amen
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