1 Kings 21:1-21
I don’t know if Elijah loved his job, but I have my doubts. Who could love a job where you have to constantly haul yourself over to the worst king in the history of Israel and confront him with bad news? He might not have loved his job, but he was good at it.
He had to be the best because he was dealing with the worst. Ahab was bad enough on his own, but everything was made worse by the fact of Jezebel, his foreign bride. She worshiped strange gods – the Baals, as they are sometimes called – and had strange ideas about the powers of royalty. In other lands in those days, including Jezebel’s homeland, kings had unlimited powers. They could take whatever they wanted to take. And so, it seemed mighty peculiar to Jezebel to find Ahab sulking on his bed like a moody teenager because he couldn’t get Naboth to sell him a vineyard.
Just for the sake of clarity, there was actually no law prohibiting Naboth from selling his vineyard. But clearly, there was a high value placed on keeping the land in the family from generation to generation. And, if some portion of land was sold outside the family, the scriptures specify that every 50th year the land is supposed to be returned to its original owners. No one knows exactly how this worked, or how well it worked, but the intended effect is to keep wealth disparities from getting out of hand. You could acquire property, sure. But you could not pass it down from generation to generation; there would come a point when you would have to give it back.
So I think it is not terribly strange that Naboth has declined the king’s offer to buy his vineyard. If he was not in need of cash, why would he sell it? It seems evident from the scriptures that such a thing is not in keeping with God’s desires.
Naboth might not have figured in the opinions of Queen Jezebel, though. Because, although Ahab might go no further in pursuing his desires, Jezebel comes from a different ethical worldview.
She sets in motion a plan to get rid of Naboth so they might seize his property. Everything goes according to plan and she tells Ahab, “Now go get your vineyard,” and he gets up from his brooding couch and goes happily skipping down the road, like a birthday boy, to see his brand new vineyard.
There he encounters Elijah. One more encounter with the prophet of God, man of courage.
Once again, Elijah has to stand before him, look this corrupt leader in the eye and say, I see you. I see what you did. God sees what you did.
It is the job of a prophet to put his or her life on the line for the sake of what is right and good.
It is the job of the prophet to speak God’s truth in places where it has been forgotten, where it has been rejected, or where people have simply decided to avert their eyes.
In the days of King Ahab, Jezebel simply rejected God’s truth. It was not her truth. Jezebel’s ethical worldview was a narrow one that consisted of herself and the very small group of people she chose to be included in it. Hers was a black-white zero-sum value system in which everyone was entitled to get whatever they could get in whatever way they could get it.
Ahab may not have subscribed to Jezebel’s rules. It’s hard to say. But if he did not approve of her ways, he at least decided to avert his eyes. Because if you didn’t see it, you don’t have to do anything about it. And you can even benefit from it. And if there are a few people who act like Jezebel, there are many of us who act like Ahab at times.
But God sees when we do this. Make no mistake. Other people might not, but God sees. And sometimes when you become aware of that, it is as if you have been met on the road by the prophet Elijah, convicted of your sin. It is up to each one of us, then, to decide how to move forward.
This situation with Naboth’s vineyard puts me in mind of one of Wendell Berry’s short stories. There is a character named Wheeler Catlett, who is faced with a problem and trying to work it out for the best. The problem is this: his friend Jack Beechum has died and Jack’s will has just been read. Jack left his farm to his only child, his daughter Clara. But he knows that Clara cares nothing for the farm. So Jack has written down his wishes that Clara sell the farm to his tenant farmers, Elton and Mary Penn. The Penns love the farm and it will be in good hands with them. Jack suggested, in his note, what he deemed to be a fair price, one that the Penns could afford.
But this was just in a handwritten note, not a part of his will. So Wheeler explains all this to Clara and her husband, hoping that there will be enough trust among the three of them to carry this out and see that Jack’s real will be seen to. But Clara cares nothing for the farm. She says to Wheeler, “I don’t doubt you are telling the truth. I don’t doubt that this is what my father wanted. I don’t doubt that he loved the Penns. But my father’s loves are not mine.
So that’s how it will be. The farm will be sold at auction so Clara and her husband can get the highest possible price. Now there will be others competing with Elton and Mary – a neighboring farmer, a man who has been buying up small farms to maximize his holdings; and a town doctor, who wants to invest in property, and wants to keep Elton and Mary as his tenants, to make money for him. This is not what Old Jack wanted – for his farm to be swallowed up into a giant farm, or for it to become a profit-making machine, exploiting the labors of others. But it didn’t matter what Jack wanted because, as Clara said, “My father’s loves are not mine.”
When I hear Clara say this, I think about how many different ways we say it, in words or in our actions, with respect to our relationship with our creator. That what God desires is not what we desire. That what God holds to be true is not of any consequence to us.
If these matters present us with any kind of ethical dilemma, we might decide that what God desires is just not practical or convenient for us. That God’s wishes are simply unrealistic in this world we live in, and I suppose God’s will often does seem unrealistic. People want what they want, the law is the law. What more can anyone expect of us?
In Wendell Berry’s story, Wheeler Catlett could have washed his hands of the affair after Clara said, “My father’s loves are not mine.” He could have told himself that he held up his end of the bargain, he fulfilled his duty to his friend, and that was it. He could have averted his eyes when they organized the auction, and he could have taken a drive out in the country on the day the auction took place across the street from his office. But Wheeler had met the prophet on the road, and he couldn’t see his way clear to doing that.
Instead, he talked it through with Elton and Mary. He talked to the other prospective buyers. He stood behind Elton at the auction to lend him strength. He took on some responsibility for making things right. And even though he knew it might not come out right, he knew he could at least try and so he did.
In the end, the Penns got the farm. They had to pay a good bit more than Jack had intended for them to pay, so they were in deep. Wheeler went back to his office and got on the phone with the bank. He set aside an amount of money he could afford, just in case there came a time when the Penns needed help.
Perhaps you would say it is unrealistic to expect Wheeler to do that. Surely it was. But he expected it of himself, because, I would say, he believed God desired it of him. And because it was what God desired for him, Wheeler was pleased to do it.
When you meet the prophet on the road, you might run the other way and look for cover. But other times, when the prophet looks you in the eye, you might see through God’s eyes. And you’ll be pleased to do it.
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Photo Credit: By חדוה שנדרוביץ – Hedva Sanderovitz via the PikiWiki – Israel free image collection project, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15272824
