June 17 th, Lords of Conscience 1 Kings 21:11-21

Transcription

1 June 17 th, 2007 Lords of Conscience 1 Kings 21:11-21 When I first learned the Ten Commandments, I was told they were listed in order of gravity. The first tablet was about our relationship to God, the second tablet about our relationship to neighbor. The 10 th commandment seemed to me like an add-on - rounding out the table. Coveting? I mean, next to murdering and adultery, wanting someone else s stuff seems harmless. It certainly is one of the commandments that society has not embraced. You will find no one in jail for desiring their neighbor s house. Neither shall you desire your neighbor s house, or field This is the kind of thing Tricia and I enjoy doing when we drive around town. Not to mention that this desiring drives our consumer-based economy. If we take the long view though, coveting has led to the most egregious acts in history. Coveting someone else s land or resources has ignited untold numbers of wars. Ask any civilization that has been on the wrong end of an empire if coveting is harmless. Ask Native Americans, Palestinians, Poles, Albanians, the people of Cyprus. To covet is to unleash sin and evil. Remember David and Bathsheba. David first desired Bathsheba. He then committed adultery. To cover it all up, he then gave false witness and then had Uriah killed so he could take Bathsheba as his wife. Likewise, today s story begins with coveting that leads to false witness that leads to murder. King Ahab covets Naboth s vineyard. He offers him a fair amount for the vineyard, but Naboth retorts, The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance. Ahab, as any king who is used to getting what he wants, lies down and refuses to eat. I have tried this at home. I just got hungry. His wife, Queen Jezebel, however reminds him that he is king. She tells him to get up and be cheerful. She begins scheming. She will not take no for an answer from lowly Naboth. So she sends word to the rulers and elders of Naboth s town, telling them to frame Naboth and stone him.

2 And so Jezebel has become a legendary figure. She is the archetype for wicked women who deceive. A Jezebel causes her man to turn away from God. This popular memory underscores Jezebel s role. After all, have you ever heard a wicked man called a real Ahab. While I find this biased memory interesting, I am more excited about the secondary characters in the narrative. Yes, Jezebel sent the letter. And yes, Ahab went down to the vineyard to take possession after Naboth was stoned. But what happened in between? After they received the letter from Jezebel, the men of the city, the nobles and elders, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. Just as it was written They proclaimed a fast, then seated Naboth at the head of the assembly. The two scoundrels brought a fake charge against Naboth. I picture two gluttons bringing the demise of an innocent man between bites, Naboth cursed God and the king. And then the people stoned Naboth, executed him. Jezebel did not take the vineyard all by herself. This was a community effort. This injustice took the cooperation of the community. At this point in the story it leaves the reader, slack jawed wondering, can justice really so easily be perverted. And the answer is yes. Yes, if the community tolerates it. Whether we are reading the stories of ancient Israel or the Sunday paper, we have a tendency to focus on the Kings, on heads of state, on key players. Going back to David and Bathsheba, we generally only remember David s sins, of which there were many. But the murder of Uriah the Hittite was to be carried out by the community. King David instructed Joab to set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die. (II Samuel 11:15). While the orders may have come from above, the community is responsible for its role. This is not a rare concept in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament everything is communal. It is the community s responsibility to uphold God s laws. Therefore, the community is held accountable when it is in violation of the covenant.

3 In the New Testament, the community s participation in injustice is most dramatically seen in the crucifixion of Jesus. Everyone did their part, Romans, Pharisees, chief priests, elders, scribes, disciples, bystanders, jeering crowds, and soldiers. All named. The story could ve easily portrayed Pontius Pilate as a cruel Roman governor who crucified our Lord, but instead the passion shows the communal role, our role, in the dispensing of justice, or in this case injustice. Back in the story of Naboth s vineyard, we see hints of community responsibility. Elijah meets King Ahab in the vineyard to pronounce an oracle of doom. This is the part about dogs licking up blood. The prophet Elijah outlines Ahab s infractions. Ahab has killed and taken possession. These actions have provoked God to anger and caused Israel to sin. Breaking commandments not only creates victims, but it is a transgression against God. Furthermore, Ahab brought the community of Israel down with him causing them to sin. The question remains: Can the elders and nobles and scoundrels in the vineyard saga really be held accountable if they are simply following orders? They did after all receive a letter from the King. This is an issue of competing Lords. Just as Joab received a letter from King David, Naboth s neighbors received a letter from King Ahab. Both were asked to violate the Ten Commandments. Looking back on conflicts, it is all too easy to identify faults - kind of like all the cheap shots we take at the disciples. It is not as if there is a red devil on the left shoulder and beautiful angel on the right. As we see in Jesus temptations the devil knows scripture. And so we have competing authorities influencing our conscience. Lords of conscience. And we have to sort out to which Lord we will be faithful; especially when we are given orders, laws to follow, instructions; when closing business deals, or even just in conversations with our friends. So who is Lord of Conscience? Is it the state, the church, the individual? As the Westminster Confession clearly states, God alone is Lord of the conscience. [1] The confession continues to explain the merits of Christian liberty. The Lord of conscience [1] Westminster Confession Ch.22, especially sections 2 & 3

4 tenet, however, can easily slip into doing what my conscience tells me to do. Time and again, delegates at the General Assembly are told to vote their conscience. The shortening of the confession to seven words has left out the phrase about contrary to God s word. [2] Our consciences are to be captive to God s word. Just to bring it a little closer to home, let s look back at the Enron scandals. The accounting at Arthur Anderson, among other firms, deprived thousands of their savings. But it is not as if one person switched out a couple of pages in an annual report. Instead, moral compromises were made along the way; there was pressure to boost profits. Everyone was telling everybody else what they were doing was okay. These were accounting tricks. When it came time to file reports the misinformation felt more like manipulation than false witness. The responsibility would be on the person who told me to do this. Regarding who is ultimately responsible, a fascinating science experiment at Yale in the early 60 s revealed the power of perceived diffusion. If a person believes the authority is legitimate they will do whatever the authority tells them to do. Stanley Milgramm, seeking to understand the Holocaust and whether all Germans could be considered accomplices, brought in ordinary citizens from New Haven, Connecticut to participate in an experiment. A Scientist instructed these citizens to shock a patient wired up to 450 volts. 65% of the sample listened to the actors pleas for mercy, agonizing cries, but continued to shock the patient. Milgramm attributed their willingness to torment an innocent person to the diffusion of responsibility and the perception of legitimate authority. Is that the excuse for Joab s army, for Naboth s village, for Enron scandals? For internment camps, for Mai Lai, for Abu Ghraib and Haditha? [2] An article by Margo Houts in Presbyterians Today in the What Presbyterians Believe section teases out the balance between conscience and scripture. Link to the article entitled A Balancing Act at

5 Perhaps; although it is too easy to look back and identify morally bankrupt acts, too easy to identify complicit acts where the community failed. The Milgramm experiment suggests that most of us would fail in similar situations. If we believe the authority is legitimate, our conscience fails us. I find this deeply troubling. So there is a nice picture to put in your wallet. As individuals we go along with torture. As a group we go along with the Holocaust, fraudulent accounting, and stoning Naboth. However, this is not a sermon about doom. It is a sermon about hope, and God s demand for justice. I see two ways out of this corner. First, it is worth noting that Millgram identified community as the most important factor in resistance. Quoting Millgrimm, The mutual support provided by men for each other is the strongest bulwark we have against the excesses of authority." [3] And most importantly, scripture must be our guide, not the state, not our political parties, not even our moms and dads. God alone is the Lord of conscience and we discern how God is working through the lens of scripture. To end on a word of hope, I want to tell you about a community that stood for justice. In southern France there is a small village called Le Chambon. During the Holocaust, the community of Le Chambon hid Jews in their homes, forged ration and I.D. cards, and smuggled Jews to safety in Switzerland. At risk to their own lives, they hid people on their farms, in their church, and in their schools. When the Gestapo left the village, folks would go into the woods and sing songs to let the Jews know it was safe to come back out. It was not of course a safe thing for anyone to do. The cousin of the pastor in town was taken away and executed in one of the death camps. It is estimated that this small community rescued somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 Jews from certain death. A survivor returned in recent years to ask folks why they risked their lives for strangers. He found no heroes, no prophets, no Elijahs crying, Thus says the Lord! Just ordinary [3] This understanding of community being the solution to resisting evil is biblical. For more on communities of resistance see Stanley Hauerwas work on the role of community in developing virtue ethics.

6 folks who said it was the right thing to do. But I suggest what he found was a community whose conscience was captive to God s word. God of Justice and Mercy, may we be a community who is captive to your word. May you alone be the Lord of our conscience. Amen. The Rev. Clay Thomas, M. Div. First Presbyterian Church Sarasota, FL