3 Pentecost 2007

1 Kings 21;1-10, 15-21

Galatians 2:15-21

Luke 7:36-8:3

Conflict between Ahab and Elijah, between Paul and Peter, and between Jesus and the Pharisee Simon characterize the lessons today. Conflict is real in our culture as well. We experience conflict within ourselves every time we seek to serve Christ in every human being. We experience conflict about our understanding of what is acceptable to God, what we ought to do and what not to do. We experience conflict among members of our own family, our congregation, the larger church, and within our political world. I want to suggest that it is not the conflict per se but the lessons we learn from them that encourage our growth into the full stature of Christ.

Jezebel is blamed not only for her own failures but for her husbands’ as well. Jezebel is not a name any of us women would like to be called. Jezebel is the Phoenician wife of King Ahab of Israel. It is clear that she is the tempter of Ahab who himself seems weak and easily influenced. The power behind the throne is the wife. The polytheism she practices and which Ahab tolerates is the focus of Elijah’s message of judgment. How bad is Jezebel?

The Deuteronomist writer uses every possible argument to make the case against her. When Ahab dies, the Deuteronomist is determined to show that “there never was anyone like Ahab, who committed himself to doing what was displeasing to the Lord, at the instigation of his wife Jezebel (1 Kings 21:25).” It is interesting that Ahab is not held responsible for his own actions. Every biblical word condemns her: Jezebel is an outspoken woman in a time when females have little status and few rights; a foreigner in a xenophobic land; an idol worshiper in a place with a monotheistic state-sponsored religion; a murderer and meddler in political affairs in a nation of strong patriarchs; a traitor in a country where no ruler is above the law, and a person willing to break the Ten Commandments as the law of the land.

Exodus was a liberation story for the people of God. Moses gave them laws to help establish a just social order under the providence of God. Their faith would be monotheistic. Justice would characterize the social order. The foreigner and alien would be given bread and mercy because the children of Israel had been hungry in Egypt. The people were not content to live in the way Moses taught and wanted a king like the surrounding societies. They soon learned that no human ruler is perfect – a series of kings would impose harsh taxes, take royal land grants to robe poor peasants of their small portion of land. God had given them the land as an inheritance, but the kings misused their power and exploited the poor.

Nahobth is a peasant, but unfortunate in having a small plot of land next to the royal palace. The king, Ahab wants the plot of land and offered to buy it but the righteous but poor Naboth understood that the land is a gift of God and will not sell it. Being spoiled, Ahab pouts and Jezebel contributes to have Naboth killed so Ahab can have his land. Elijah is God’s prophet, speaks God’s judgment on Ahab and Ahab repented, putting on sackcloth and ashes in remorse for his sin of greed and murder.

It is ironic and interesting that when Elijah came face to face with the Jezebel prophets, he had the prophets of Baal seized and slaughtered (1 Kings 18:40). Even God’s prophets were imperfect. The conflict and contrast presented in the narrative is constructed to show us the superiority of monotheism over polytheism, the worship of the one living and true God over the worship of idols.

Nine hundred years later Jesus was born to a peasant family in Nazareth. When he began his adult ministry he did many mighty acts revealing his relationship with the true God. One who does the works of God is of God. Jesus as the Son of the Father did the works the Father gave him to do, with perfect fidelity, but every religious person in Israel did not recognize the truth of his ministry or teaching. Jesus went to dinner at the home of Simon the Pharisee, a very religious person. While there a woman who was from the city and who was a sinner entered and began to wash Jesus feet with her tears and to wipe them with her hair. It was a scandalous social breach of conduct and Simon was horrified that Jesus would allow such behavior. Indeed Simon used the event as a way of testing Jesus. Religious piety in the mind of Simon meant not allowing a sinner to touch you lest you also become unclean but that was not what Jesus was about.

Jesus refuted Simon’s position with a teaching parable. “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Jesus turned to the woman and told her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Both stories offer us the chance to see that sinners and righteous folks were not as sinful or as righteous as they would judge themselves to be. Only God has the wisdom and purity to judge. You and I ought to restrain from judgment, leaving that task to God. We need to be aware that all of us are sinners redeemed by God’s grace. The danger we face is being the ones who proclaim what God will and will not accept, the way the church ought to be, who fits, who is to be excluded. We want to take our religious and moral obligations seriously and we should. We are in some measure the guardians of the law of God in our time. And we are sinners. Conflict is real – but grace is the answer to it.

When Jesus takes the side of the sinner woman over the righteous religious leader, we ought to take comfort. Here is the mystery of God proclaimed in Christian creed and sacrament: God’s love and liberating forgiveness allows us to love God and one another. God’s forgiveness is unconditional and when we accept it we can be overwhelmed with the power of that love and infected by it. Knowing you are forgiven and loved by god is the greatest experience anyone can have; it transforms everything. Conflict can be abated to the extent to which we let God be God and allow ourselves to be the beneficiaries of his love and grace.