David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God; and Ahio went in front of the ark. David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.
When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.
David was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah; so that place is called Perez-uzzah, to this day. David was afraid of the Lord that day; he said, "How can the ark of the Lord come into my care?" So David was unwilling to take the ark of the Lord into his care in the city of David; instead David took it to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
2 Samuel 6:1-10 – NRSV
Years before David’s reign, before Saul became king, and even before Samuel assumed leadership of Israel, the ark of the Lord had been a mighty symbol for the people of God. After a devastating loss to the Philistines, the Israelites decided to take the ark with them into battle, assuming that, if they hauled the divine throne to the battlefield, God would ensure their victory to protect his throne and defend his name.
Their assumptions were incorrect. The ark was lost and began a unique little exodus of its own (1 Samuel 4-6). Taken to Philistine territory as an apparent captive of Dagon, Yahweh vindicates both his ark and his name by proving his power superior to Dagon or any other being. After God devastates the major cities of Philistia with plague, the Philistine kings chose to send the ark back to Israel on a brand new cart. The ark finds its way back to Israelite territory, and it is taken to the house of Abinadab for safe keeping.
After David captures the idols of the Philistines at Baal-perazim, he has the opportunity to think about this history. Just as the Israelites once hauled the ark into battle to tip the scales toward victory, so the Philistines brought and lost their idols as a result of the same logic. David believes in Yahweh, and has sought to honor him for the victories he has thus far experienced. What better way to honor God than to bring the symbol of God’s presence with his people to the center, to the capitol, of his people?
A new cart is built to carry the ark, just as the Philistines had done. Instead of two cows sent out on their own, though, this wagon is pulled by oxen, and carefully led by humans. Yet this time, instead of a successful trip, there is death. God breaks out against the Philistines at Baal-perazim, and God breaks out against Uzzah at Perez-Uzzah. Everyone is horrified and scared.
In his years of being with the ark in his father’s house, had Uzzah grown careless of respect toward the ark? Or was the problem the fact that the ark was moved on a cart instead of by the carefully prescribed and historically practiced method (Ex 25, 40; Num 3; Dt 10)? If the cart was the problem, then why wasn’t it a problem for the Philistines?
The Philistines didn’t have a way of knowing not to use a cart. God actually used the Philistine’s “cart test” to prove that he really was in control of their little universe. And, the Philistines didn’t have any Kohathites to carry the ark anyway.
David, though, should have known. As king, he had a responsibility to know the teachings of God. David either didn’t know his Torah here, or chose to ignore it.
The actions of God scare David, and then, as it so often does, anger follows fear. The anger of David rises. How could God have done this thing? Was death really necessary? Doesn’t God appreciate the honor that David chose to show him? The confident David, the King David who has had all of the answers so far now finds that he is uncertain of what to do and estranged from his God. He returns this dangerous ark of this dangerous God to storage. Obed-edom courageously extends hospitality to the ark within his home.
How do we handle God when God doesn’t appear to play by the rules, at least not the rules as we understand them? Perhaps the beginning of wisdom really is the fear of the Lord (Ps 111:10; Pr 9:10). He is not predictable; he has free will; he knows and understands that which we cannot. Neither can we “handle” God. God is beyond our manipulations, even if our well-intentioned designs are for his glory.
Perhaps gratitude, and not anger, should follow fear. Thankfulness that as many of us who have life, have it. Thankfulness that God has seen us through so many battles. Thankfulness that God has provided our every need and asked for so little in return.
Much of our grief comes when we focus on the tragedy that God appears to have let happen instead of the hundred that he has prevented. Many of our problems with God come when we focus on the prayer he doesn’t appear to hear instead of the thousand that he has answered.
May God forgive us when we are blind to his blessing.
May God forgive us when we tell God how he ought to be God.
May God forgive us when we think that we should be able to understand him or his actions.
May we praise God for who he is and what he has done.
May we praise God in spirit and truth.
Blessings,
Ron
Showing posts with label will. Show all posts
Showing posts with label will. Show all posts
Monday, May 4, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
A dish served up cold ...
David has carefully negotiated peace with Abner and the various tribes associated with Israel. In peace, he sends Abner back to finish the detail work that will bring an end to the civil war and unite Israel and Judah under David as king.
Just then the servants of David arrived with Joab from a raid, bringing much spoil with them. But Abner was not with David at Hebron, for David had dismissed him, and he had gone away in peace. When Joab and all the army that was with him came, it was told Joab, "Abner son of Ner came to the king, and he has dismissed him, and he has gone away in peace."
Then Joab went to the king and said, "What have you done? Abner came to you; why did you dismiss him, so that he got away? You know that Abner son of Ner came to deceive you, and to learn your comings and goings and to learn all that you are doing."
When Joab came out from David's presence, he sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern of Sirah; but David did not know about it. When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gateway to speak with him privately, and there he stabbed him in the stomach. So he died for shedding the blood of Asahel, Joab's brother.
Afterward, when David heard of it, he said, "I and my kingdom are forever guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner son of Ner. May the guilt fall on the head of Joab, and on all his father's house; and may the house of Joab never be without one who has a discharge, or who is leprous, or who holds a spindle, or who falls by the sword, or who lacks food!" So Joab and his brother Abishai murdered Abner because he had killed their brother Asahel in the battle at Gibeon.
2 Samuel 3:22-30 – NRSV
Did David send Joab out on a raid knowing that Joab would be opposed to negotiating a peace with Abner? Perhaps. It could be that David’s concerns were simpler: fear that Joab would kill Abner if they met face to face. If that is what David worried about, he turned out to be right. Yet in Joab’s absence, Abner and David negotiate a peace, negotiate power, and, some think, negotiate a position for Abner within David’s cabinet.
Joab just misses Abner. Joab rants at David as if he were some sort of political simpleton. David is not a fool, Abner is not a spy. The problem is that Joab desires what David does not.
But Abner can only get a couple of miles away from Hebron before Joab’s messengers catch up. The messengers claim to have been sent by David, not Joab. They lie. They claim to have peaceful purposes. They do not. So Abner comes to Joab believing that Joab delivers an important message of peace from David. He does not. Joab delivers a knife.
In the stomach. As Abner strikes Asahel, so Joab strikes Abner. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Yet Asahel had warning; Asahel was a casualty of battle. Abner had no warning; Abner was a victim of cold-blooded murder, of revenge served up cold.
Joab wins his revenge, but loses his king’s carefully-negotiated peace. Joab adds to his reputation, but gives his lord a bad name that some still believe to this day: he is a dangerous manipulator who assassinates his enemies. Joab keeps his job as general of the armies safe from Abner, but he nearly costs David his rightful title of king over all the children of Israel.
Is David angry? I believe so. David calls down upon the house of Joab every nasty consequence that he can contemplate for a warrior: venereal disease, leprosy, effeminacy, failure in battle, and poverty. David separates himself from Joab’s actions and calls for the blood of Abner to be “a storm” over the head of Joab.
We might be ready to applaud David’s justice until we consider one simple question. Have we ever chosen our own purposes over the purposes of our Lord? His purposes for unity, for inclusion, for peace. His purposes for our actions, our speech, our thought.
We can choose to ignore the purposes of our Lord, but if we do, we need to remember that it can bring about two consequences: (1) separation from him and from his ongoing mission in this world, and (2) abandonment to the natural consequences of our disobedience.
Instead, let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ (Php 2:5).
Dear Lord, and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives, thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust, like those who heard,
Beside the Syrian Sea,
The gracious calling of Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow thee.
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease,
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.
- John G. Whittier
Grace, and peace,
Ron
Just then the servants of David arrived with Joab from a raid, bringing much spoil with them. But Abner was not with David at Hebron, for David had dismissed him, and he had gone away in peace. When Joab and all the army that was with him came, it was told Joab, "Abner son of Ner came to the king, and he has dismissed him, and he has gone away in peace."
Then Joab went to the king and said, "What have you done? Abner came to you; why did you dismiss him, so that he got away? You know that Abner son of Ner came to deceive you, and to learn your comings and goings and to learn all that you are doing."
When Joab came out from David's presence, he sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern of Sirah; but David did not know about it. When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gateway to speak with him privately, and there he stabbed him in the stomach. So he died for shedding the blood of Asahel, Joab's brother.
Afterward, when David heard of it, he said, "I and my kingdom are forever guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner son of Ner. May the guilt fall on the head of Joab, and on all his father's house; and may the house of Joab never be without one who has a discharge, or who is leprous, or who holds a spindle, or who falls by the sword, or who lacks food!" So Joab and his brother Abishai murdered Abner because he had killed their brother Asahel in the battle at Gibeon.
2 Samuel 3:22-30 – NRSV
Did David send Joab out on a raid knowing that Joab would be opposed to negotiating a peace with Abner? Perhaps. It could be that David’s concerns were simpler: fear that Joab would kill Abner if they met face to face. If that is what David worried about, he turned out to be right. Yet in Joab’s absence, Abner and David negotiate a peace, negotiate power, and, some think, negotiate a position for Abner within David’s cabinet.
Joab just misses Abner. Joab rants at David as if he were some sort of political simpleton. David is not a fool, Abner is not a spy. The problem is that Joab desires what David does not.
But Abner can only get a couple of miles away from Hebron before Joab’s messengers catch up. The messengers claim to have been sent by David, not Joab. They lie. They claim to have peaceful purposes. They do not. So Abner comes to Joab believing that Joab delivers an important message of peace from David. He does not. Joab delivers a knife.
In the stomach. As Abner strikes Asahel, so Joab strikes Abner. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Yet Asahel had warning; Asahel was a casualty of battle. Abner had no warning; Abner was a victim of cold-blooded murder, of revenge served up cold.
Joab wins his revenge, but loses his king’s carefully-negotiated peace. Joab adds to his reputation, but gives his lord a bad name that some still believe to this day: he is a dangerous manipulator who assassinates his enemies. Joab keeps his job as general of the armies safe from Abner, but he nearly costs David his rightful title of king over all the children of Israel.
Is David angry? I believe so. David calls down upon the house of Joab every nasty consequence that he can contemplate for a warrior: venereal disease, leprosy, effeminacy, failure in battle, and poverty. David separates himself from Joab’s actions and calls for the blood of Abner to be “a storm” over the head of Joab.
We might be ready to applaud David’s justice until we consider one simple question. Have we ever chosen our own purposes over the purposes of our Lord? His purposes for unity, for inclusion, for peace. His purposes for our actions, our speech, our thought.
We can choose to ignore the purposes of our Lord, but if we do, we need to remember that it can bring about two consequences: (1) separation from him and from his ongoing mission in this world, and (2) abandonment to the natural consequences of our disobedience.
Instead, let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ (Php 2:5).
Dear Lord, and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives, thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust, like those who heard,
Beside the Syrian Sea,
The gracious calling of Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow thee.
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease,
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.
- John G. Whittier
Grace, and peace,
Ron
Friday, February 6, 2009
Hard as a brick ...
Hear the word of God:
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, the hand of the Lord will strike with a deadly pestilence your livestock in the field: the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing shall die of all that belongs to the Israelites.'"
The Lord set a time, saying, "Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land." And on the next day the Lord did so; all the livestock of the Egyptians died, but of the livestock of the Israelites not one died. Pharaoh inquired and found that not one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he would not let the people go.
Exodus 9:1-7 – NRSV
This is the fifth of the ten mighty plagues sent as warnings to the Pharaoh. It may be that Pharaoh had come to see this as a contest between the gods: his gods and the God of Israel. It seemed that he was confident that his gods, being more numerous and native to the land, would surely win such a battle. Yet even though it seems that the domain of each of the Egyptian gods is assaulted one by one, plague by plague, Pharaoh hardens his heart. Is this because he perceives himself to be a god also, and he still feels alive and powerful? Does he perceive himself as having a right to power? Does he fail to see that using power requires him to be right? Or is he just hard-headed?
Pharaoh hardens his own heart. Until the sixth plague, that is. Then on the sixth, the eighth, and the ninth plague, the narrator tells us that God participates in the hardening. Does that mean that God tinkered with the internal workings of Pharaoh’s mind? It might be, but I don’t think so. I think it means that God continued to pursue his course in freeing the Israelites even though he knew that this would deepen the resistance that was building in the mind of Pharaoh. If Pharaoh is going to fire his will like a brick in a kiln, then God is going to continue the pressure until that will is shattered. If necessary, God will shatter that hardened will with the awareness that it is the God, the Creator of the Universe, that Pharaoh resists.
Surely we are never so stubborn. Surely we never continue in a course just to prove that we are right. Surely we never keep doing something just to prove that we have the power to do it. Surely we never harden our own heart in opposition to the will or the purposes of our great God.
Yet we do, don’t we? Even though our intentions may have been good, we sometimes make this mistake. I think that, whenever we find ourselves strengthening our resolve, especially whenever it involves an exercise of power, we have to ask ourselves, “Am I acting within the current movement of God within the world, or, am I acting according to my own perceptions of how things ought to be?” "Am I resolved, or resistant?" If we find ourselves continuing to hit a brick wall, then perhaps we need to try to figure out who put the bricks there.
Blessings,
Ron
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, the hand of the Lord will strike with a deadly pestilence your livestock in the field: the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing shall die of all that belongs to the Israelites.'"
The Lord set a time, saying, "Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land." And on the next day the Lord did so; all the livestock of the Egyptians died, but of the livestock of the Israelites not one died. Pharaoh inquired and found that not one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he would not let the people go.
Exodus 9:1-7 – NRSV
This is the fifth of the ten mighty plagues sent as warnings to the Pharaoh. It may be that Pharaoh had come to see this as a contest between the gods: his gods and the God of Israel. It seemed that he was confident that his gods, being more numerous and native to the land, would surely win such a battle. Yet even though it seems that the domain of each of the Egyptian gods is assaulted one by one, plague by plague, Pharaoh hardens his heart. Is this because he perceives himself to be a god also, and he still feels alive and powerful? Does he perceive himself as having a right to power? Does he fail to see that using power requires him to be right? Or is he just hard-headed?
Pharaoh hardens his own heart. Until the sixth plague, that is. Then on the sixth, the eighth, and the ninth plague, the narrator tells us that God participates in the hardening. Does that mean that God tinkered with the internal workings of Pharaoh’s mind? It might be, but I don’t think so. I think it means that God continued to pursue his course in freeing the Israelites even though he knew that this would deepen the resistance that was building in the mind of Pharaoh. If Pharaoh is going to fire his will like a brick in a kiln, then God is going to continue the pressure until that will is shattered. If necessary, God will shatter that hardened will with the awareness that it is the God, the Creator of the Universe, that Pharaoh resists.
Surely we are never so stubborn. Surely we never continue in a course just to prove that we are right. Surely we never keep doing something just to prove that we have the power to do it. Surely we never harden our own heart in opposition to the will or the purposes of our great God.
Yet we do, don’t we? Even though our intentions may have been good, we sometimes make this mistake. I think that, whenever we find ourselves strengthening our resolve, especially whenever it involves an exercise of power, we have to ask ourselves, “Am I acting within the current movement of God within the world, or, am I acting according to my own perceptions of how things ought to be?” "Am I resolved, or resistant?" If we find ourselves continuing to hit a brick wall, then perhaps we need to try to figure out who put the bricks there.
Blessings,
Ron
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