Medicine Hat Joe

Week 17 II Kings

A woman in Shunem had taken Elisha under-her-wing.
Culturally-speaking it’s hard to know how a woman would have approached a passer-by, a stranger. But she was poised enough that she told her husband: I perceive that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually. He believed her. She built a guestroom for Elisha. That put him in her debt. But she wasn’t after payback.
Then her son died.
She knew that technically this was the end. But she went far out on a limb. She lay her boy’s body in the guestroom and left on a desperate, futile trip to find Elisha. What was clear to everyone in Shunem was not clear to her.
On a map you can see she had to travel west and north for hours toward the Mediterranean and Mount Carmel. She told her servant: drive and…do not slow down the pace for me…
She was brusque with Gehazi, and when she saw Elisha she wasn’t brusque but was pretty unequivocal: as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. So Elisha went with her to perform one of the great miracles of the OT and bring the boy back from a near-death experience.
If I had to choose an OT woman to be my mom this woman with no name is in the top three.
She’s one of the towering and forceful people of the bible.

Note: quotes from II Kings 4:9, 24 & 30 (NASB version)

Week 17  II Kings

If someone asked you what I & II Kings were about you couldn’t go wrong by saying: it’s about kings. There’s not much to debate since there’s got to be about a dozen and a half kings in the northern kingdom and probably the same in the south. So if about forty kings are named in forty-seven chapters then, for sure, the books are about kings.
That said, you can’t escape the prophets. I Kings 17 begins the story of Elijah, and then his story runs right on into the story of Elisha. So that’s about fifteen chapters right there devoted to those two. And they’re not the only ones. I figure at least 32% of the two books is about prophets.
For a bible reader the prophets have the best stories (I checked The Action Bible and it devotes a dozen chapters to Elijah & Elisha.)
Prophets are outsiders, minority voices, aberrants, eccentrics.
They criticize powerful men and women. 
They make unpopular judgment calls, don’t conform, and end up standing alone inside the danger zone.
Reading about most of the kings is like going to a portrait gallery of tiny monochromes. I glance and hurry on.
When I read about the prophets I pace myself, trying to catch the vivid graphics of their unorthodox lives.
The books of the Kings might be about kings.
It’s the prophets who are the heroes.

Note: The Action Bible; editor Doug Mauss, illustrator Sergio Cariello (Colorado Springs: David Cook, 2010)

Week 17  II Kings

In my bible the seventeen books of the prophets go from page 1049 to page 1334.
285 pages of prophets, all grouped together at the end of the OT.
Because of that I slip into a kind of lazy assumption that the Samuels and Kings happened, and then sometime later the prophets began prophesying.
But it doesn’t work that way. I got that reminder while I was reading about king Jeroboam the son of Joash and I saw the name of Jonah the son of Amittai. This is the Jonah of the Jonah & the Big Fish story. Jonah’s story comes twenty books after II Kings. I check a cross-reference to Hosea. He prophesied: during the reign of Jeroboam the son of Joash. I check a cross-reference to Amos. He prophesied: in the reign of Jeroboam the son of Joash.
In my bible there are hundreds of pages between king Jeroboam and the books of Hosea Amos & Jonah. But what do you know? They were contemporaries.
If I had the time I’d be tempted to revise the OT into its chronological sequence. I won’t because I’m pretty sure it would be a nightmarish copy-and-paste job. Plus I don’t know it’d be worth the effort.
So I’ll stick with the normal bible-order, but try to keep these gaps in mind.

Note: quotes from Hosea 1:1, Amos 1:1 (NASB). Jeroboam is in II Kings 14:23-29

Week 17 II Kings

Whoever wrote Kings can tell a good story. But I’m surprised by the one in chapter one. A captain and fifty soldiers are destroyed by an act of God.
I figure I’m a pretty normal reader and my instinctive reaction is that 51 innocent guys were incinerated by a god who is harsh, unfair, ruthless and brutal. A terrible guy.
So I think a bit while my instinctive reaction settles…
There’s something I’m pretty sure about.
And there’s something I’m not so sure about, but think could be true.
I’m pretty sure the writer’s aim was not to say that 51 pristine guys were eliminated by a horror-show god. I’m pretty sure that when I’m reading the story and drawing my conclusion that god-is-the-worst then I’m getting something out that the writer didn’t put in.
The thing I’m not so sure about – but think might be true – is that the writer decided to take a bigger story and boil it down so completely that almost nothing was left. Just a crust of distillate. Condensed so totally that I’m jammed into a corner. Like the writer is saying: okay, now you figure this one out.
It seems like a kind of test-story to me.
I know this writer can tell an inspiring and understandable story.
But here it’s like he wants to know how I’ll manage something that’s uninspiring and hard to understand.

Note: the story is in II Kings 1:9-15

Week 16 Psalm 48

I stopped right away: great is the Lord.
The Lord is great. I figure that if the Lord is great then what he’s like, what he says and does all squeeze in under the big umbrella of God being great. All of it. 
What that means is that when I read something about God and it doesn’t sound too great then I can either decide that what I’m thinking about God being not-so-great is correct, and that in fact God isn’t great. Or I can decide that what I thought about God being not-so-great was a gaff.
I think my basic question is: does everything fit under the big umbrella or are some things left out in the rain?
If I got to decide personally and independently what’s going to stay dry and what gets wet then a big problem is solved because I could manipulate quirky or inexplicable God-doesn’t-look-so-great things in a satisfactory way.
On the other hand if I’m basically stuck with what the bible says and I don’t get to decide what things about God are great or not-so-great then it’s more of an uphill climb. If God is great but from my perspective it looks like the greatness is not-so-greatness then that’s a predicament.
I’ve got to admit it would be easier if I got to decide for myself.
It would be way easier.

Note: Psalm 48:1 great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised (NASB version)

Week 16 I Kings

In I Kings chapter eleven a pretty interesting thing is happening.
For starters, Solomon has turned renegade on the Lord, and because of that the Lord is going to take action, is going to take away the kingdom.
The rest of the chapter explains how the Lord will get that done.
First: the Lord raised up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite.
Then: God also raised up another adversary to (Solomon), Rezon the son of Eliada.
And finally Jeroboam was told by the Lord: I will take you…and you shall reign over Israel.
So the Lord took indirect action by prompting three of Solomon’s enemies.
What’s pretty interesting here is that Hadad, Rezon, and Jeroboam were already natural adversaries of Solomon, with long preexisting hatreds against the king.
So on the one hand there is the Lord operating in the affairs of Israel by stimulating and animating three angry men.
And at the same time Hadad and Rezon and Jeroboam are operating too, already personally stimulated and animated, making personal decisions and choices, taking action, doing what they want because of who they are and what has happened in their pasts, scores to settle, personally driven by their own personal drivers in a way that looks pretty exclusive. People, not coded automates.
In the end the Chief Operator has the final say. And in their own way the sub-operators have a say, too.

Note: quotes from I Kings 11:14, 23, 37 (NASB version)

Week 16 I Kings

First Kings chapter eleven describes Solomon’s crash. It comes abruptly, like a sudden darkening in a high blue Alberta sky.
In chapter after chapter Solomon’s incandescent career has been described. An astute ruler, a master-planner, a state organizer-manager-builder, he’s famous for his prodigious wisdom, staggering wealth and religious faith. For ten chapters his reputation builds as one of the great guys in the bible.
Then chapter eleven verse one begins with the words: now King Solomon loved many foreign women. It’s an innocent-enough sounding verse, an understandable verse. But as of that verse Solomon stops being one of the luminous guys.
The writer makes a very clear point that Solomon had romantic attachments to many, many foreign wives and lovers. The point is so clear that there’s a bit of a temptation to blame the women for his disintegration. But whatever part they were in the mix, Solomon was his own man…
Solomon: turned his heart away after other gods.
Solomon’s: heart was not complete with devotion to the Lord his God.
Solomon: worshiped Ashtoreth and Milcom.
Solomon built temples to other gods. 
Solomon: did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.
Solomon: refused to follow the Lord fully.
Solomon: did not listen to the Lord’s command.
So a long, long international procession of gorgeous and sensuous and alluring middle-eastern women turned Solomon’s head.
But when-push-came-to-shove Solomon turned his own heart.

Note: quotes from I Kings 11:1, 4-7, 10 (NASB & NLT versions)

Week 16 I Kings

Solomon’s great temple took seven years to build.
It was meant to be the geographical place of the Lord’s residence, the earthly address where people would come to worship God. And it was as lavish and beautiful a piece of architecture as Solomon could build.
But on the big day when it came time for the public dedication Solomon realized that his temple wasn’t really as phenomenal as he thought. It’s more like it was laughably inadequate.
You can see that when Solomon asks: but will God really live on earth? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built?
Will God really live on earth? It’s a good and legitimate and sensible and logical question, and pretty clearly the answer is no. God doesn’t live on the earth. He doesn’t live in the sky. He’s not geographically constrained. He has no spatial limitations.
I get the feeling that Solomon is weighted down thinking about the dimensions of a Big God, an authentically titanic God. And it’s not only his size, it’s his unqualified difference. God is different, alien and antithetic.
Fortunately Solomon doesn’t travel very far along the God-and-I-are-so-mismatched-that-I’m-basically-a-meaningless-zero tangent. Instead he admits that we’re impossibly qualitatively different but in spite of that incompatibility please, please, please watch over this temple and the people who come here to prayer and please: hear us from heaven…and when you hear, forgive.

Note: quotes from I Kings 8:27 & 30 (NLT version)

Week 16 I Kings

Solomon weathers a leadership crisis and becomes king.
Then in chapter four I see a bunch of names.
I scan down the list. Okay – new government, new officials.
Solomon appoints twelve deputies to his taxation districts. Twelve districts is no surprise – back in Joshua the land was divided among the twelve family units.
I look at the first name on the list: Ben-hur. Ben-hur leads Ephraim. Right away I figure I know how the pattern will play out – the name of some guy I don’t know will be connected with the name of a known guy/territory: Reuben, Simeon, Judah, etc.
My great idea breaks down with name #2. Ben-deker is deputy in Makaz.
I check the list for Jacob’s son’s names. I see Ephraim, Naphtali, Asher, Issachar, Benjamin, Judah. But that’s it.
Where are the rest? I need an accurate map of cities and tribal boundaries during Solomon’s reign. And I need time to match the cities to the traditional territories. For example, in my back-of-the-bible map the town of Bethshemesh looks like it could be in Judah.
But I don’t have a good atlas and I’m out of time. Maybe the cities line up with the original territories or maybe they don’t.
I guess it doesn’t make too much difference.
I need to keep in mind that things are changing all the time. And I need to keep in mind that the bible tells me things worth knowing but doesn’t tell me everything.

Week 16 Psalm 42

Easter Sunday morning and I landed on Psalm 42. It’s a things-are-really-not-going-very-well-for-me psalm, and the despondent writer is asking himself why-am-I-in-despair?
Even though he asked the question, it looks like he actually does know why he’s down. First there’s a bunch of negative things happening, and secondly the Lord isn’t offering him any back-up.
So his real question is more like ‘how-can-I-stop-feeling-this-bad?
Eventually Despondent Writer’s question leads to an answer: hope in God.
When you think about it this isn’t a bad answer. A bad answer would be something like: well-let’s-just-hope-for-the-best. Hoping for the best, apart from sounding pretty nice and pretty caring (which is its real strength) doesn’t have much living-my-life heft. It’s a disengaged virtue-word. Despondent Writer’s antidote isn’t: Just Hope. It’s: Hope in Something. Hope connected to something is better than hope disconnected from anything.
The God Despondency Writer has in mind is the God that the OT is portraying as being decisive, involved, insistent, engaged, a God who has definite opinions and values and preferences and standards.
Despondent Writer is saying that the answer to despair is to hope in the concrete God who’s described in scripture.

Note: quote is from Psalm 42:5 & 11 (NASB version). Pastor Steve talked about hope in his Resurrection Sunday sermon (from I Peter 1:3-5 (I won’t get there until December)). So it was a nice coincidence.