{"id":1387,"date":"2016-06-19T11:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2019-09-24T14:28:49","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T18:28:49","slug":"ahabs-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2016\/06\/19\/ahabs-shadow\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahab’s Shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke 8:230-29<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the\u00a0meditations\u00a0only<\/a><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On this Father\u2019s Day many of us think of our parents who rest now in greater light and on a farther shore. \u00a0You think today of your inheritance, your real, that is spiritual, that is familial, that is named inheritance. \u00a0What is yours? \u00a0What is that quintessential something, that no one else perhaps has to carry forward, that is yours, that you will not, cannot, should not, give away? \u00a0And what about our shared inheritance, as a globe, as a country, as a church?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With this terse refusal, Naboth lost his garden, his head, and, in fact, the very inheritance he hoped to protect. \u00a0For Ahab\u2014though he sulked, and though he fasted, and though he moaned, and though he allowed Jezebel to take charge\u2014King Ahab at last had his wish, his vineyard. \u00a0Just here, Ahab\u2019s shadow begins to fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel nine centuries before Jesus went sliding down a slippery slope, pushed and pulled by the influence of increasingly poor leadership. \u00a0Poor leadership. \u00a0After David and Solomon, the nation\u2019s fortuned declined steadily, under other, lesser kings. \u00a0Who remembers Jereboam? Or Nimri? \u00a0Or Omri? \u00a0Or, today, Omri\u2019s son, Ahab? \u00a0BUSTH has a long history of excellent teaching in Hebrew Scripture: \u00a0Elmer Leslie, Harrell Beck, Kathe Darr. \u00a0They have remembered, and helped us to do so, too. \u00a0Old Samuel had told them years before: \u00a0<\/span>You want a King? \u00a0You want a King. \u00a0Everybody else has one, so you want one, too. \u00a0All right, you will get your king, and with your king, a whole basket of lasting trouble.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Ahab is remembered in Scripture because, in hindsight, he symbolized the progressive disintegration of Israelite society. \u00a0\u00a0The failings of the leader, somehow, uncannily, were seen in retrospect to represent a deeper and far wider malaise, in a society that year by year increasingly placed the poor at the mercy of the rich. \u00a0Ahab\u2019s shadow, part of the lengthening shadow of predatory, mendacious leadership in ancient Israel, has had a long, long reach–right up to today\u2019s newspaper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahab shadow\u2014what was his capricious craving all about? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He desired, coveted, his poor neighbor\u2019s little plot. \u00a0And, in a way, why not? \u00a0After all, he was the King! \u00a0Hey. \u00a0Rank has its privileges. \u00a0To the victor go the spoils. \u00a0What do you give a 500 pound gorilla? (ANYTHING HE WANTS!) \u00a0I mean\u2014this was a personal matter. \u00a0It had nothing to do with public policy. \u00a0The nation was prosperous and safe, thanks to shrewd management and the alliance with Tyre and Sidon, sealed with Jezebel\u2019s kiss. \u00a0This was a small matter. \u00a0Kings have stolen a whole lot more.<\/span><\/p>\n

What did Ahab want with that little, secret, private pleasure?<\/span><\/p>\n

What would provoke a King, like Ahab, so to desire a tiny vineyard, like Naboth\u2019s?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahab\u2019s Shadow: \u00a0Looking back at David<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps\u2026the stresses of public life caused Ahab to desire a little personal pleasure. \u00a0After all, he might have reasoned, even in the Camelot days of David, there was the matter of the beautiful blonde, Bathsheba. \u00a0Even in the halcyon glory days of an earlier generation, still there was a dark side, and Urriah the Hittite and Psalm 51. \u00a0\u00a0If David could have Bathsheba, surely Ahab could desire a little vineyard, the inheritance of Naboth and his faith, and turn a little profit, plowing under the vines and planting a regular garden. \u00a0Like they do in Egypt, say. \u00a0\u00a0Did Ahab desire to be like David?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahab\u2019s Shadow: \u00a0Tired of the Trivia<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps\u2026the trappings of power and leadership changed Ahab. \u00a0As Roy Smyres used to say about episcopal leaders, \u201cThey hear every day what wonderful people they are and what a great job they are doing\u2014and, amazingly, some of them\u2014START TO BELIEVE IT!\u201d \u00a0Visibility, power, position: \u00a0they corrupt. \u00a0Maybe it takes one to know one. \u00a0You get distant. \u00a0You don\u2019t visit in the home as much, <\/span>pace<\/b><\/p>\n

J Wesley. \u00a0You become insulated. \u00a0You rise above. \u00a0You look down. \u00a0You forget what it takes. \u00a0Bishop Herbert Skeete, once a kindly and compassionate pastor in Harlem, came up here to lead in New England and then retired. \u00a0He referred in his 1996 valediction (July, U Mass, NEJurisdictional conference) to the vast majority of his little New England churches as \u00a0(I quote him exactly) \u201ceurocentric havens of mediocrity\u201d. \u00a0A little exhaustion, a little frustration? \u00a0\u00a0My, my. \u00a0I guess you get bitter, hardened. \u00a0The hurts and gifts of the Lilliputians under you fade. \u00a0\u201cL\u2019eglise\u2014C\u2019est moi\u201d. \u00a0Yes, General Superintendent. \u00a0Yes, King. \u00a0Those lay folks, clergy don\u2019t need the encouragement of my example. \u00a0Naboth can get along without a vineyard. \u00a0The heck with his inheritance, the cultivated vineyard. \u00a0The heck with their history, of live free or die. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter that much, really, now, does it? \u00a0Did Ahab get tired of the small stuff?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahab\u2019s Shadow: Accomplishment<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps\u2026the endless contention and intractable difference of leadership in a republic\u2014in any institution really\u2014\u201cgot to\u201d Ahab. \u00a0After all, he was King! \u00a0Couldn\u2019t he even organize and execute, on his own, the purchase of a vineyard? Some years ago thirty UM pastors from large churches gathered in Minneapolis. \u00a0We worshiped at Hennepin church. \u00a0Rod Wilmouth, the lead pastor there, preached a great sermon on the theme of faith that moves mountains. \u00a0His sermon title, though, was accidentally printed not as intended, \u201cFaith that Can Move Mountains\u201d, but, rather, as \u201cFaith that Mountains Can Move\u201d! \u00a0\u00a0He said, \u201cAnd I thought I was in charge here!\u201d \u00a0\u00a0As a public leader, sometimes, you can\u2019t win. \u00a0You don\u2019t succeed. \u00a0You fight city hall, tooth and nail—and you are the mayor! \u00a0Did he just want a sense of accomplishment?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahab\u2019s Shadow: \u00a0Marital Dynamics<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps\u2026this all has to do, then and now, with family dysfunction. \u00a0Jezebel, an early enabler, acts out for her sulking mate his lust for the vineyard. \u00a0Isn\u2019t that a picture? \u00a0I can imagine the political cartoons of the day\u2014\u201cImpeach the King–and her husband too!\u201d \u00a0She orchestrates the media, the courts, the public opinion of the day, the powers that be. \u00a0So the nation becomes a messy place. \u00a0A place where it\u2019s hard to tell who is telling the truth. \u00a0A place where the spoken public word is not always verifiable. \u00a0A place where innocent are found guilty. \u00a0A place where the apparatus of state is used for personal gain. \u00a0\u2018Hard to imagine such a nation, isn\u2019t it? \u00a0Or is it?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Jezebel is not really to blame here. \u00a0She just executes her husband\u2019s, her King\u2019s desire. \u00a0The shadow is his, not hers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Be careful dear friend. \u00a0We become the servants, unwittingly, of those whom we most want to please. \u00a0It is important for Jezebel and for you to know whom we are trying to please in life. \u00a0We are slaves of that one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faith in Christ, the faith of Jesus Christ better said, is God\u2019s gift and frees us, radically and truly frees us from all forms of enslavement to pleasing others. \u00a0Paradoxically, the faith of Jesus Christ does so by re-enslaving us\u2014to Christ alone. \u00a0In Him. \u00a0See where you are\u2014in the cosmic apocalypse of Christ. \u00a0See what time it is\u2014the time when new creation supplants creation. \u00a0Hear the Gospel: \u00a0<\/span>There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave nor free, there is no longer male or female. \u00a0There is no longer gay nor straight. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>No one can serve two Masters. \u00a0The life we now live in the flesh we live by the faith of Christ. \u00a0You are His.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who do you want to please? Did Ahab become caught up in unhealthy family systems?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahab\u2019s Shadow: Convenience<\/b><\/p>\n

None of these, finally, is the marrow, or the buried treasure of the Scripture today, nor the truth of our own time either.<\/span><\/p>\n

In spite, or perhaps because of his military success and material surplus, Ahab desired\u2026at depth\u2026and this is the tragedy of his tale\u2026 a more convenient God. \u00a0Ahab desired a less inconvenient deity. \u00a0Ahab desired, through all these other lesser cravings, a more compliant Lord. \u00a0One more in the mold of the nations, more Jezebel and less Elijah. \u00a0And here the shadow truly lengthens and fully falls.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahab shadowy desire, apocalyptically revealed here as truth, in the manner detected and discerned by the wise through the ages, by W James, L Martyn and St Paul, in the odd moment, by apocalypse truth happens, his desire was for a less austere God, one less inclined to invade human space with haunting, troubling questions about life and death and meaning and love and\u2026especially\u2026 JUSTICE.<\/span><\/p>\n

A little Elijah goes a long way. \u00a0He walks into the King\u2019s court and shouts, \u201cOne of us is cursed and I think it\u2019s you!\u2026Look\u2026there\u2026dogs will lick your blood.\u201d \u00a0A little of that goes a long way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is this really– MORE ABOUT US THAN IT IS ABOUT HIM?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahab\u2019s Shadow: \u00a0Our Own?<\/b><\/p>\n

Israel remembered Ahab\u2019s shadowy desire for a more convenient God, not out of reverence for Ahab, but because his desire somehow revealed the waxing national desire for a little lower heaven, a little lighter covenant, a little more convenient God. \u00a0\u00a0As the distant mirror of the Scripture may teach us, we are so interested because we know this figure and this desire so well.<\/span><\/p>\n

We, too, want a little more convenient deity. \u00a0One who will affirm our proclivities and ignore our cruelties<\/span><\/p>\n

We know this Ahab well. \u00a0Always a little sideways to the truth\u2026Politically able, morally twisted\u2026at heart faithless\u2026looking for more convenience than the \u201cinheritance of the fathers\u201d allows\u2026at heart hoping for an easy chance, the lottery of life, something for nothing, a quick pleasure, a garden delight.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>We get the leadership we deserve.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the horizon today we hear and see demagoguery\u2014America First, Birtherist, Misogynist, Racist, Xenophobic, Narcissistic (don\u2019t you love all these Greek rooted words?) bigotry. \u00a0<\/span>I sure did that well. \u2018Low Energy\u2019. \u00a0That was a one day kill. \u00a0Words are beautiful things.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Some express surprise, a sense of mistake, regarding the nomination in question. \u00a0Yet there is no surprise or mistake about the nomination in question. \u00a080% of voters in one party\u2014grand?, old?–agree with these three propositions: \u00a0Muslims should be banned. \u00a0A wall should be built along the Rio Grande. \u00a0Undocumented immigrants of all ages and stages should rounded up, arrested, jailed, and deported. (New York Review of Books, p 8-10, June, 2016) If you are in conversation with a member of such a party, chances are 4 out of 5 that you are in conversation with these views. \u00a0No surprise. \u00a0No mistake. \u00a0You see? \u00a0The shadow falls on us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over time, we get the leadership we deserve.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today we pray for the Orlando dead. \u00a0It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do so, as in gathering, and vigil, and silence, we have done all week. \u00a0First, and foremost, \u00a0we turn our spirits toward their loved ones and families and friends. \u00a0We return to the very themes preached exactly one year ago here, following Charleston, regarding gun violence. \u00a0Our BU SPH Dean Sandro Galea has furthered that argument, with strength, this very week. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, as a Chapel in the Methodist tradition, we also have a particular reckoning, now. \u00a0United Methodism has been part and parcel of a part of our shadowed culture that has fomented and augmented dehumanization of gay people, bigotry against sexual minorities. \u00a0Only two active northeastern bishops (Johnson, Devadhar) put their name this May to a shared letter rejecting in no uncertain terms this abject denominational failure. \u00a0Silent, silent were the vast majority of active general superintendents. \u00a0Now the chickens have come home to roost. \u00a0It\u2019s time. \u00a0The time for discussion is over, washed away in the blood of Orlando. \u00a0Local churches in Charge Conferences need to stop funding that supports bigotry, as, in one possible example, \u00a0in three general funds: \u00a0world service, the episcopal fund, and Africa University. \u00a0Annual Conferences need to go ahead and ordain and deploy gay people, as many are doing, the silence of their bishops not withstanding\u2014seven now across the country, including the actions taken in New England this week. \u00a0Bigotry (largely of southern US and Africa Methodists) is, from this day forward, globally, generationally, and grittily rejected. \u00a0Orlando is to Methodism and the Gay issue what Kent State was to America and the war in Vietnam, an apocalyptic moment when those who may still have thought otherwise, people of sound mind and heart, now turn. \u00a0It\u2019s time. \u00a0What the sad incompetence of the General Church, the General Conference, and the silent General Superintendents has ignored, look! by apocalypse!, the local churches and annual conferences now address. \u00a0We at Marsh Chapel adamantly and vigorously marry gay people and employ and deploy gay clergy. \u00a0Where we can support others to do so, we shall.<\/span><\/p>\n

One northeastern bishop this week callously sent out a letter about Orlando without even mentioning the targeting of the gay population. \u00a0A minister in his conference wrote him the following:<\/span><\/p>\n

I was shocked that no mention was made in your statement about the key issue the country<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

and our church are wrestling with: the oppression of gays. As long as our denomination and its leaders<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

not only continue the oppression of gays, but ignore their pain in the midst of being slaughtered\u2026.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

we will have truly made ourselves irrelevant in the healing of the world in this day and time.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

With a heavy heart\u2026<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

No, we want a little lower heaven, a little lighter covenant, a little less inconvenient God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel saw in hindsight that Ahab\u2019s shadow had become their own\u2014the easier worship of a less inconvenient God.<\/span><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about Ahab, it\u2019s about Israel. \u00a0It isn\u2019t about others, it\u2019s about us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elijah, Are You with Us?<\/b><\/p>\n

Elijah, in the end, speaks. \u00a0\u00a0Elijah never dies. \u00a0His voice is active, coming in forms we least expect, and sitting in empty chairs left vacant by faithful hearts. \u00a0Elijah\u2014rumpled and tousled. \u00a0Elijah\u2014skeptical of concentrated power. \u00a0Elijah\u2014with a passion for compassion. \u00a0Elijah\u2014concerned for the left\u2014out. \u00a0His voice irrupts now and then. \u00a0\u00a0So we are right to leave a chair, some space, vacant for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>I have not heard his voice in a while, but he does not die.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost forty years ago this spring, on at least one evening, you heard him full of compassion. \u00a0This spring has overtones from 1968, all the way to the California primary.<\/span><\/p>\n

On June 5, 1968, at 8am our phone rang, at breakfast. \u00a0My dad had gone to Chicago for a denominational meeting. \u00a0Breakfast with three younger siblings at age 13 is not exactly heaven on earth. \u00a0\u2018It\u2019s for you\u2019 my sister said.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/i>Now that is a first, a phone call, for me, at breakfast. \u00a0My father said: \u00a0<\/span>You probably don\u2019t know this yet, but your favorite, your hero, Robert Kennedy was shot last night in California, and probably will die today or tomorrow. \u00a0I know how much he meant to you, and I am sorry for our loss. \u00a0It is tragic, but we will get through this.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0As a pastor he always had a knack for showing up where he was least expected and most needed, least expected and most needed. \u00a0Wouldn\u2019t every minister want to be so remembered?<\/span><\/p>\n

Two months earlier, on April 4, Robert Kennedy was on his way to accept victory in the Indiana primary, five painful years after his brother\u2019s death and just weeks before his own assassination, a few hours after the killing of Martin Luther King. \u00a0Galatians 6:14 speaks of a triple crucifixion. \u00a0One redeeming feature of our own hurt is that it helps us proffer compassion to others who hurt. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Elijah keeps heaven high and the covenant heavy and God, God. \u00a0ELIJAH! \u00a0We wait for your voice today!<\/span><\/p>\n

Kennedy spoke to an inner city rally of black and Polish voters. \u00a0They had not heard the news, which he gave. \u00a0There is a generation deep moan that barks from the crowd. \u00a0I hear it still. \u00a0He stands, rumpled shirt and tousled hair before a single microphone, note-less and alone. \u00a0What courage to stand there that night, and then, Elijiah-like, to speak:<\/span><\/p>\n

*I have some very sad news for you\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

*In this difficult time it is perhaps well to ask what kind of nation we are, and what direction we want to move in\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>*Do we want bitterness, hatred, a desire for revenge, greater polarization of black and white?\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>*Or, with ML King, do we seek understanding, comprehension, to replace violence and the stain of violence with compassion?\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

*For those tonight who feel hatred and mistrust, I can also feel in my own heart that same kind of feeling. \u00a0I had a member of my family killed\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

*But we have to make an effort in this country to understand, to get beyond this time\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

*Aeschylus wrote: \u00a0\u201cEven in our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our despair and against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>*What we need in this country is not division, hatred, violence, and lawlessness, but love and wisdom and compassion and justice\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

*We need to \u201ctame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n

We still need to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.<\/span><\/p>\n

We still need to see thing as the never were and say, \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We still need to see wrong and try to right it, see suffering and try to heal it, see war and try to end it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps Elijah will take his place, fill his chair, and lift his voice again in our time, and shine some light through Ahab\u2019s shadow?<\/span><\/p>\n

– The Reverend Doctor, Robert Allan Hill, Dean.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

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Click here to listen to the full service Luke 8:230-29 Click here to listen to the\u00a0meditations\u00a0only Introduction \u201cI will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.\u201d \u00a0 On this Father\u2019s Day many of us think of our parents who rest now in greater light and on a farther shore. \u00a0You think today of your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1957,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}