Sunday Reflection: Ancient Israel and Modern America

Last updated on: February 14, 2016 at 7:41 am by Anne Kennedy

Sunday Reflection: Ancient Israel and Modern America 2016-02-14T07:41:38-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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And the word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, eat your bread with quaking, and drink water with trembling and with anxiety. And say to the people of the land, Thus says the Lord GOD concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the land of Israel: They shall eat their bread with anxiety, and drink water in dismay. In this way her land will be stripped of all it contains, on account of the violence of all those who dwell in it. And the inhabited cities shall be laid waste, and the land shall become a desolation; and you shall know that I am the LORD.” – Ezekiel 12:17-20

I have noticed, over the last ten years, the dying remanent gasps of this last generation’s, I say that in the old fashioned biblical way, conflation of the upward trajectory and sense of promise of America with the ancient biblical promises of Israel. The city on the hill. The nation that brings good around the world. God’s favor falling on our land. More recently–if we repent, just like ancient Israel, God will spare his coming judgment. That’s all on the right. On the left it is pushing the agenda around the world that the right thinks we need to repent of–abortion and gay marriage.

Ancient Israel was a precarious and peculiar tiny place. A stubborn people, sinful like everyone else, strangely distinct, persecuted by a God who spent a vast sea of words berating them over their sin. And unlike the Assyrians and Babylonians next door, there wasn’t anything they could do to appease this God. The remedy was to stop trying and ask for help. Poor Jeremiah, in the last desperate days before Jerusalem falls, is just trying to get the king to stop trying, to surrender, to Nebuchadnezzar and to God.

In many ways, America could be counted as very like Israel. It is a robustly religious place, where the works of the law and the goodness of the individual are manifestly held dear in every beating heart. Everyone, practically, believes they are heaven bound and that God should be happy with who they are. We could say that of every human person, regardless of what kind of God they believe in. The trouble is out there, not in here.

So the American Christian, going to read the bible, is often tempted to think that the text his about him, where he is right now, as if he is one of those people in the Old Testament, one of the good ones, and God is about to give him all the benefits of heaven this second. He doesn’t ever set himself in the place of Zedekiah. No, he is one of the remnant, waiting for everyone else to repent and be good. You take out your plumb line and measure yourself some territory, and God will give it to you.

Whereas, I would say, the bible is extremely pertinent to every American, Christian or not, but not in the way of reading himself, or indeed herself, into the text. No, the way to read the bible is to stand afar off and watch the desolation of sin of the people, and the salvation worked by God, with a terrifying sense of dread in the pit of your stomach. And when you see an image go by that you know is universally true, you can confidently and assuredly say, Amen.

Surely, then, it is appropriate to say, ‘I am eating my bread with quaking and drinking my water with trembling and anxiety, because of the violence that is in this land.’ And I do say that because Antonin Scalia was swept away yesterday into perpetual light, and he, in a position of power and influence, had been able to say No to a lot that needed to be said no to, even when that no was swept aside. And it is fitting that God should have removed him, and taken him home, because the situation is even more obvious now than anyone wants to cope with. Abortion is the law. And marriage is no longer marriage. And our inhabited cities are becoming more of a wasteland, morally and practically, every day. We can say this not because we are some modern form of Israel, but because sin is sin is sin. Rebellion is rebellion. Murder is murder.

And God is God. And so the remedy, for each of us individually, is to give up and beg him for mercy. Not to come up with another solution, another fix, but to wave the white flag of spiritual surrender and finally admit that the human choice is always violence, and God’s choice is to absorb that violence In himself on the cross.

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