“GOD IS THE RULER YET”

When I was about eight years old, my mother, my brothers, Michael and Roger, and a highly reluctant me would spend Friday nights looking at television. All went well until we got to the 9 o’clock show – the popular series, “House of Dark Shadows,” based on the exploits of an always blood thirsty vampire, Barnabas, and his female equivalent, Angelique.

Sure, some of you may be wondering, “Why didn’t you just go to bed?” Well, for three reasons: 1) The living room was next to the bedrooms, 2) the wall between them had about a foot of lattice work between the solid part of the wall and the ceiling, and 3) I had an overactive imagination.

So, instead of allowing squeaking doors, eerie screams and formless shadows to prey on my hapless imagination, I wedged myself between my mother and the couch, alternating between praying for commercials and praying for the end of the show. But the latter didn’t come for one, long, torturous hour. So, using both hands to cover my eyes, I turned my fingers into shutters, closing them to when the scene became too horrific, and opening them ever so slightly until the next gruesome scene.

After the show, I always seemed to be the last one to get to bed. That ritual simply served to prolong my agony. In the room next to mine, my brothers were safely under the covers. Sensing Roger’s anticipation, I held my breath, calculated and recalculated the distance between the wall with the light switch and the bed on the opposite side of the room, put my hand on the switch, flipped it off, and made a mad dash for the bed. But even before I lifted one foot off the floor, Roger’s voice crept up behind me – “Barnabas! Anglique!” With a scream fit for a horror movie, I shrieked my way to the bed, often entangling myself in the mosquito net covering the bed, and sometimes pulling the whole thing down on top of me.

Unlike the playful fun my brother had at my expense, many of the characters First Kings are deadly serious. David’s son, Adonijah, doesn’t even wait until his father is dead before he lays claim to the royal throne. To tell the truth, it looks as though David is as good as dead, and Adonijah, his oldest surviving son, is, after all, the rightful heir to the throne. So Adonijah wastes no time:

He surrounds himself with the trappings of kingship – “chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him.”
He sacrifices “sheep, oxen and fatted cattle,” and throws a party to celebrate his coronation, and
He invites “all the royal officials and all his brothers . . .” to the party.
That is, all his brothers, except Solomon. Enter the first of many dark shadows. But Solomon isn’t the only one left off the guest list. The prophet Nathan, along with other Solomon groupies, also wasn’t invited. Nathan, keenly aware that new kings typically kill off their rivals, goes to Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba, and concocts a cunning plan to help her “save her life and the life of her son.” Bathsheba follows Nathan’s instructions to the “t,” and to make a long story short,

King David gives orders to:
“have my son Solomon ride on my own mule . . .”
“let the priest Zadok and the prophet Nathan anoint him king over Israel,”
“blow the trumpet, and say ‘Long live King Solomon,’” and
“have him sit on my throne.”

With all that self-serving, scheming, and backstabbing at the beginning of this story, it’s not surprising to find more of the same as the plot thickens. In fact, today’s story can rival any episode of the Sopranos, Days of Our Lives, or Wicked, Wicked Games.

You see, the cast of characters in today’s affair includes Jezebel, and her husband, Ahab, the king who came to power:
Long after Solomon’s many passions had begun to overshadow his wisdom,
Long after he had built a dynasty built on political alliances and slave labor, and
Long after Solomon died, and his once united empire toppled and smashed into two – Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

King Ahab – the most wicked of all the kings that have ruled over the Northern Kingdom, Israel, is looking into his neighbor’s yard. Looking soon turns into coveting, and Ahab makes a play for what doesn’t belong to him. But Naboth refuses to sell his ancestral inheritance, and Ahab, the King of Israel, pouts all the way home. Still “resentful and sullen” when he arrives at his palace, he goes to his room, refusing to eat. But his wife – a woman of action – will have none of that!

She concocts a cunning plan – not to save a life – but to take a life,
She places Ahab and another king as the center of her scheme, and
She enlists the aid of the elders and nobles – many of whom are predisposed to support the king – the one who usually rewarded their loyalty with gifts of land.

All the scoundrels follow her instructions to a “t,” and, to make a long story short,
Naboth is stoned to death, and Ahab gets his vineyard.

And, as far as Ahab and Jezebel are concerned, that’s the end of the story.

Isn’t that what many people have come to expect?
That those who abuse their power will get away with it?
That crooked politicians, wealthy murderers or law-breaking heiresses don’t have to face the consequences of their behavior?
Isn’t that why many of us are surprised when justice is finally served?
Sometimes waiting for justice can wear us down. We wonder “where is God?” when those who are in power blatantly abuse it – lording it over the ones entrusted to their care.

Some of us even become cynical –
a sure sign that we’re living under the shadow of hopelessness,
the hopelessness that darkens our mind to other possibilities,
the hopelessness that often leads to indifference and inaction –
ensuring that, like Barnabas and Anglique - the Ahabs and Jezebels of our world will continue sucking the life out of their victims.

After all, if God doesn’t seem to care, why should we? So, as far as Ahab and Jezebel – and many who come after them – are concerned, that’s the end of the story.

And it would be, if God doesn’t care.
It would be, if God doesn’t see.
It would be, if God – and God’s people – don’t act.

But the Naboths of the world matter to God, and, as writer M.D. Babcock reminds us, “though the wrong oft seems so strong, God is the ruler yet.” So the God who sees, hears, and cares, tells Elijah to go, and Elijah goes. He goes to Ahab, and he pronounces God’s judgment: “Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.” (I Kings 21:19b). Because even though Ahab allowed Jezebel to do his dirty work for him, he is just as guilty as she is. You see,

By asking Naboth to sell inherited land, land that belonged to God and was entrusted to Israelite families, land that was supposed to remain in his family,
By using a fast – a solemn occasion of repentance – to destroy an innocent man, and
By falsely charging him with cursing God,

Ahab and Jezebel are dishonoring Naboth, and they are dishonoring God. In the words of Old Testament scholar Richard Nelson: “offenses against the heritage of the defenseless are offenses against God.” No wonder Ahab calls God’s representative, Elijah, his enemy. But if Elijah is Ahab’s enemy, he is Jezebel’s archenemy. Jezebel, the worshiper of the Canaanite god of the life, fertility and the rain – the one that couldn’t for the life of him give rain when Elijah pronounced a drought – Baal. So this story is not simply about people who abuse their power – it’s about who’s really in charge of this world – Baal or God?

Who are some of the Baals in today’s world?
How do they promise life, but fail to deliver on that promise?
How is the church called to be the Elijah of our world?

Even though he sometimes wavers, Elijah knows who’s really in charge. And he acts accordingly. Each one of us has to answer that question for ourselves. But how we answer, and how we act on that answer, can be, for us, and for many of God’s children, the difference between death – or life.