Bob Maddox's Blog

1 Kings 21:1-29
June 13, 2010
Discussion 9:00 AM, Church Parlor
With Bob Maddox

Naboth’s Vineyard
Later the following events took place: Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. And Ahab said to Naboth, ‘Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.’ But Naboth said to Ahab, ‘The LORD forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.’ Ahab went home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, ‘I will not give you my ancestral inheritance.’ He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat.

His wife Jezebel came to him and said, ‘Why are you so depressed that you will not eat?’ He said to her, ‘Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, “Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard for it”; but he answered, “I will not give you my vineyard.” ’ His wife Jezebel said to him, ‘Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.’

So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal; she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city. She wrote in the letters, ‘Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the assembly; seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him, saying, “You have cursed God and the king.” Then take him out, and stone him to death.’ The men of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. Just as it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, they proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the assembly. The two scoundrels came in and sat opposite him; and the scoundrels brought a charge against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, ‘Naboth cursed God and the king.’ So they took him outside the city, and stoned him to death. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, ‘Naboth has been stoned; he is dead.’
As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, ‘Go, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.’ As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

Elijah Pronounces God’s Sentence

Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession. You shall say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD: Have you killed, and also taken possession?’ You shall say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.’

Ahab said to Elijah, ‘Have you found me, O my enemy?’ He answered, ‘I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel; and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin. Also concerning Jezebel the LORD said, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.” Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat.’

(Indeed, there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the LORD, urged on by his wife Jezebel. He acted most abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the LORD drove out before the Israelites.)

When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth over his bare flesh; he fasted, lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster on his house.’

This Sunday, June 13, is Youth Sunday. Jessica Petersen will lead the service and preach. She is using a passage from 2 Corinthians but I decided to keep the story of Elijah going by using the Lectionary text today from 1 Kings. To help you get ready for her sermon, look at 2 Corinthians 2:1-6; 4:1-6 and come prepared for an energized service as she and the young people provide leadership for all of us.

The story of Ahab, Jezebel and Naboth is one of the more lamentable episodes in the Bible. Ahab the king coveted the small vineyard of his neighbor, Naboth. When Naboth would not trade away or sell the vineyard that had been in his family for generations, Ahab pouted and like the spoiled brat that he was, took to his bed and refused to eat.

When the wicked foreign queen Jezebel saw her husband, the king, acting so ridiculously, she scolded him then, behind his back, or was it behind his back, took matters in her own hands. She ruthlessly engineered Naboth’s murder by stoning whereupon she announced to her husband, “That silly Naboth is dead. Go claim what is now yours by forfeiture.”

God and Elijah boiled in anger at this profound, unconscionable affront to ordinary, common sense and foundational justice. Within a matter of days Elijah showed up at the palace. Ahab must have trembled at the sight remembering the previous nerve-wracking encounters with the irascible, unmanageable prophet of Yahweh.

Upon pronouncing doom on the House of Ahab, the king repented in sack cloth and ashes. In the anthropomorphic language from the Bible emanating from that era God relents and decides to accept Ahab’s repentance and to forestall the doom on Ahab’s house until after Ahab had died. Another tiny war some three or four years later cost Ahab his life kicking in yet another fascinating story that does see the house of Ahab wiped out, including the wicked Jezebel. Cecil B. DeMille and Oliver Stone could not tell a better story if they tried.

Remember this story takes place in Israel, the northern half of the miniscule country. Even though Ahab and Jezebel had ensconced the foreign god, Baal, as the first deity, the Spirit of Yahweh did not go away. Through ways not described in the Bible, Yahweh still spoke and called women and men who remained faithful to the ways of the Lord. This says to me in our UCC mantra, God is still speaking. And God continues to speak through the ages, in good times and bad, when black people in the south were lynched on the court house square, when gushing oil from far beneath the seas belch forth something like anger at being disturbed from its primordial sleep. God still speaks and nurtures and calls and enables when the nation seems riven with political strife that sometimes borders both on the silly and frightening.

This particular episode takes place in Jezreel, a city in the southern part of Israel with a climate ideal for the king’s summer palace. Right outside the walls of the palace Naboth tended the vineyard that had served his family and tribe for generations. In keeping with the laws of God that were actually common sense ways of managing life in that time, such plots of land could not be traded or sold or bartered away in marriage arrangements. With arable land at a premium fertile fields had to remain in tact. So the vineyard passed from son to son to son providing a living for the family.

Naboth, then, could not have disposed of the land even to the king if had wanted to. Ahab knew this law that’s why he did not push Naboth harder. Jezebel, from far away Phoenicia, at least forty miles distant, either did not know the law or chose to disregard it. Flexing her queenly muscles, brushing past the laws of God and the people, she forged the king’s signature and seal setting up the murder of Naboth.

Jezebel’s treachery and Naboth’s culpability set in motion wide ranging ripples of unintended consequences. Fundamental principles that had sustained life in the region for eons were turned on their heads. The sense of justice, the rule of Yahweh, tribal solidarity, even devotion to the king as God’s voice among the people were trampled. All this occurred over a tiny piece of ground that the king did not need. Forget about national security, forget about the need for a super highway to come through the property. The very vitality of the dynasty came under attack because of the king’s covetousness and the queen’s arrogance. You are right again. This is an old, old story the lessons of which we seem hardly ever to learn.

A sense of justice lies at the very heart of our humanity. When we fail to do justice to one another, we violate a huge portion of our fundamental DNA. Okay, what is justice? In my view, my friend was not treated fairly. In my view, my town, school, family, institution was not treated with justice. What to do? We set in motion careful efforts to right the wrong. We work on the systems designed to bring justice that sometimes fail or that are ignored. We try not to go to war with words or bullets. We try to remain civil and within the bounds of decency. But we stay at the task of doing justice and walking humbly with God.

We have come to say in our time: It’s not so much the crime, it’s the cover up. How many politicians have fallen when they implemented a cover up operation!

In this case, both the crime and the cover up became instantly known throughout the kingdom. The way the Bible tells the story, in a matter of days Elijah was on his way to the palace either in Samaria or in Jezreel. Ahab’s twisted heart must have nearly stopped when he looked up and saw his nemesis huffing and puffing into town.

I love the King James version of this encounter. Ahab glowers at Elijah and says, “O thou that troublest Israel!” That’s right. Shift the blame to the messenger. Ahab and Jezebel’s idolatry had brought on the calamities not Elijah’s pronouncements. The oil spill is unspeakable. Blame BP. Blame the President. But don’t look at our long-standing willingness to be prisoners to fossil fuels. Don’t confront the mega-fortunes that oil has generated and the power of those mega-companies to perpetuate our imprisonment.

Elijah minces no words with the king. This is the last straw. Ahab, you and your house have been weighed in the balances of God’s justice and found wanting. Your house is laid waste. As the dogs licked Naboth’s blood, a new pack of dogs will soon lick the blood of your dynasty.

Well, Ahab fell at the feet of the prophet. In sack cloth and ashes he repented. In the telling of the story, God relents and puts off the ultimate destruction of Ahab’s dynasty. True, within a short time Ahab lay dead on the field of a war he did not have to fight. The throne would pass to his son and grandson before the final end came. The consequences, however, of Ahab’s cruelty and injustice could not be forestalled. Naboth’s vineyard was the beginning of the end for Ahab and his family.

Forgiveness comes, even generously, but the consequences of this or that act live on and on. The wound may heal but the scars remain. How much better it is for us to count the costs ahead of time. Even then our best most considerate calculations can go awry.

The Naboth story has endured because it never ends. A thief in the night has visited our church and stolen all the cooper down spouts from our gutters. He did not take into account the security cameras that caught him stealing. What’s more, the cameras picked up the writing on his shirt that police will use to find the culprit. When the television crews asked me about the thief and the theft I said he’s dumb. To steal cooper pipes is bad enough but to do it with his name on the back of the shirt is just plain stupid. He will get caught. He will pay a price. How silly of him to run the risk of ruining his life, his capacity for future employment not to mention the damage he could do to a mother who loves him and all for a few hundred dollars. And to add insult to injury some petty thief has sneaked through the church during church services pilfering stuff from desks: Janet’s little kit with her tooth paste and aspirin, a tiny bag from Sanelma containing a few dollars in petty cash. We can replace the downspouts, not with copper this time. Janet can buy more toothpaste and the church will survive without the petty cash. What a human tragedy that the Ahab and Jezebel mentality prevails to this very day.

Much to talk about when we meet this Sunday morning in the parlor for our interesting, fun-filled discussion. Join us at 9:00 AM. Then don’t miss the youth service and picnic.

Robert L. Maddox