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The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Grant us, O Lord, we pray thee, to trust in thee with all our heart; seeing that, as thou dost alway resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so thou dost not forsake those who make their boast of thy mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 18)
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The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): I Kings 12:21-33
A Sermon by
Fr. Daniels
on
I Kings 12:21-33
✛
Hope for Kings
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Our readings at our evening services the last few weeks have been from the first book of the Kings, and we are reading through it, and its successor volume, over the next few weeks. As you’d expect, it is a book about, well, kings: King David, to start with, then his descendants, and it covers the years which tragically include the division of David’s kingdom, sometime around the mid-10th century BC, or about three thousand years ago.
In fact, our reading today, from the twelfth chapter of First Kings, comes directly after the division of the kingdom into Israel, in the north, and Judah, in the south. Israel, ruled by Jeroboam; Judah, ruled by Rehoboam.
However, the prediction of this division happened not in the time of Rehoboam, but during the reign of his father, King Solomon. Solomon himself was the son of the great King David. But, as the narrator tells us, King Solomon—a man of unparalleled wisdom in other matters—took on as wives and concubines one thousand foreign women; the King James Version of the Bible charmingly describes him as “lov[ing] many strange women.”
Whatever the amorous consequences of these multitudinous marriages to strange women, the religious consequences were devastating. Solomon began worshipping, or at least supporting the worship of, strange gods, and not the God of Israel only. Solomon started making sacrifices to these gods, setting up altars to them, and supporting their priests.
And thus we read in Kings these fatal words of enormous consequence: “And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel” (11:9). The Lord says to Solomon, “Since you have not kept my covenant and statues, as I commanded you, I will tear the kingdom apart.” But, God says, for the sake of King David your father, and for the sake of Jerusalem, I won’t do it yet; I will wait until you have died, and your son is king.
Solomon reigned for forty years in all; when he died, his son Rehoboam succeeded him on the throne. It was during Rehoboam’s reign, described in the text directly preceding today’s reading, that the united kingdom split apart. Rehoboam continued to reign in the south, in Judah; the ten tribes in the north picked Jeroboam as their king.
We might hope that, even if the Davidic line in the south was to be punished for idolatry, perhaps the north could be an example of righteousness; perhaps they could act as a prophetic community themselves, showing Judah in the south what covenant faithfulness really looks like. We might hope that, but we would be disappointed. Jeroboam perceives, no doubt correctly, that if the tribes of Israel in the north continued to travel to Jerusalem in the south to make sacrifices in the Temple—as they were supposed to do—then it’s quite possible that they’d decide that this split in the kingdom was more trouble than it was worth, and they would start following King Rehoboam again, and Jeroboam’s position would be in danger.
To keep the people from going to Jerusalem, therefore, Jeroboam repeats the classic error of Israel from the days of Moses. The text reads, “So [Jeroboam] took counsel, and made two calves of gold”, and said to the people, You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough—Israel, these golden calves are your gods (12:28).
He set up these calves at the boundaries of the kingdom, installed his own priests, offered sacrifices there to the golden calves, and created a festival to celebrate these false gods. Today’s reading ends with an image that should cause shivers of fear to go down the spine of anyone who knows the jealous God of Israel: there is Jeroboam, standing in front of one of the altars he made to the golden calves, and offering up incense to them, giving them the worship that is due to God alone. As he swings the incense, back and forth, and the fragrant smoke rises up in front of the gleaming statues, we can imagine the clouds of God’s judgment gathering above. The time has not yet come, but Jeroboam has sealed his own fate, and the fate of his people: the narrator says later, “This thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam…to destroy it from off the face of the earth.” (13:34).
For this reason and others, there were terrible trials ahead for the Hebrew people; the division of the kingdom, and the constant warfare between north and south during the reign of these two kings, were only the beginning of their troubles. These stories of communities fracturing internally, of exile, of punishment, of death and destruction, are the result of the continuing condemnation that they bring upon themselves, cutting themselves off from the covenant that had been promised to King David and his descendants.
One sees therefore how the books of the kings undermine any hope that Israel has for salvation to come from human effort alone. When the exile to Babylon finally comes we see the ultimate consequence of Israel trying to rely on anything except the love and mercy of God. For Israel, wisdom didn’t work; piety didn’t work; not even religion worked: none of that could save them. By breaking the covenant, they were cut off from their God; and, when they are cut off from their God, Israel is no longer Israel.
By the end of these books of the Kings, it is painfully obvious that there is no salvation left for them, as their enemies completely dismantle the Temple, burn down their houses, and drag all but the smallest fraction of people off to Babylon. By the end of the book of the kings, it is not an exaggeration to say that Israel dies.
But in their exile, having been utterly destroyed, Israel would learn—not for the first time—that the God of Israel is a God of resurrection; a God who brings life out of death. As they were suffering in Babylon, God accomplished for Israel what Israel couldn’t accomplish for itself, graciously re-establishing the covenant relationship that had been broken by Solomon.
In their despondent state, they probably couldn’t have imagined that within a few decades the hand of the Lord would reach into Babylon and again come to the aid of his people. It probably seemed impossible, but the people of God would indeed return to the land, rebuild the Temple, and, in it, sing their praises to God. For no other reason than God’s loving-kindness, Israel would live again—and prosper again—as God’s chosen people, and that covenant would never again be broken.
The apostasy of Solomon, the son of David, had terrible consequences for the Hebrew people. But God raised them up again. And, many centuries later, not far from Jerusalem, another son of David would be born. His name would be Jesus. In him, the salvation that could only come from God comes from God. What Gentiles couldn’t accomplish for themselves, the son of God accomplished on their behalf; they were given a relationship with the God of Israel that they otherwise had no right to claim.
Nothing else could do that for us: not wisdom; not piety; not even religion. Only God’s love and mercy, revealed in Christ Jesus. Because of his graciousness, all people can praise the name of the Lord; all people can have life brought out of death; all people can be adopted into the same covenant that was made with King David three thousand years ago.
