On Wednesday, we observed the Nativity of John the Baptist, transferred from Monday, June 24. John and Jesus stand at the two solstices, John, emerging from the dark wilderness at the time of light, Jesus a tiny light at the time of darkness. John is often disturbing, and one phrase from the readings appointed for the day gave us all pause. It comes from Acts 13, a sermon on the history of Israel given by Paul to the synagogue at Antioch: “The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. For about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. After he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance for about four hundred fifty years.”
“Wait,” said one of us. “God destroyed seven nations?”
There is no easy way around that. God is free to do what God will do. But as Isaiah reminds us in chapter 55:8-9:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
This suggests to me that God can destroy without killing. God is life. So, my prayers tell me, something happened to those seven nations, but they were not obliterated; they were resurrected, the point being new life, not conquest.
No, the real test lies with Israel, and here’s the importance of Torah, the teachings, the way God asks his people to live. We are not to destroy life. “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord in Deuteronomy 32:35. We are to give our troubles to God and open ourselves to God’s answer. We get into trouble when we take matters into our own hands. We are not to destroy anything. Or as another wise parishioner said, “Conflict is inevitable. Violence is a choice.”
So argue with me. Everyone does.
In other news, some of you noticed we were using a new Eucharistic Prayer last Sunday. It’s Eucharistic Prayer One from Enriching Our Worship, a set of authorized liturgies written for the Church after the 1979 Prayer Book was published. You can expect more of these as years pass. Prayer One lifts up themes of justice. Prayer Three, which we use during Easter, revels in theme of creation and rebirth. If you are interested, a PDF of Enriching our Worship is available, and you can download one by clicking here.
