Sermon for November 29, 2015

The reading

2 Kings 22:1-20, 23:1-3

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.  He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left. In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, the secretary, to the house of the Lord, saying,  “Go up to the high priest Hilkiah, and have him count the entire sum of the money that has been brought into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the threshold have collected from the people;  let it be given into the hand of the workers who have the oversight of the house of the Lord; let them give it to the workers who are at the house of the Lord, repairing the house, that is, to the carpenters, to the builders, to the masons; and let them use it to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the house.  But no accounting shall be asked from them for the money that is delivered into their hand, for they deal honestly.”

The high priest Hilkiah said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.” When Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, he read it. Then Shaphan the secretary came to the king, and reported to the king, “Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the workers who have oversight of the house of the Lord.”  Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “The priest Hilkiah has given me a book.” Shaphan then read it aloud to the king.

So the priest Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to the prophetess Huldah the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; she resided in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter, where they consulted her.  She declared to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me, Thus says the Lord, I will indeed bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants—all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read.  Because they have abandoned me and have made offerings to other gods, so that they have provoked me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.  But as to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall you say to him, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard,  because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard how I spoke against this place, and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, says the Lord.  Therefore, I will gather you to your ancestors, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace; your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring on this place.” They took the message back to the king.

Then the king directed that all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem should be gathered to him.  The king went up to the house of the Lord, and with him went all the people of Judah, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great; he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. All the people joined in the covenant.

 The message

Over the past few weeks, we have talked about the words, warnings and message of hope expressed to God’s people by the prophets like Hosea and Isaiah. Both people served as God’s messengers about 650 years before Jesus birth.   Hosea talked about this forgetting of the law, agreement and promises between God and people with the metaphor of an adulterous spouse who breaks the commitments made in marriage but is forgiven. Isaiah talked about the same situation as a vineyard, that is well cared for and sustained only to produce wild, worthless grapes. In this case, the vineyard is abandoned and left to be destroyed but there is the promise of a savior, a messiah who would restore the good and right relationship between God and people 

 In the centuries after God first spoke to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and sent Moses to led the people out of slavery in Egypt, there were many moments of complaint, disobedience, failure to trust God and the abandonment of the covenant.  There is a cycle of disobedience, punishment , repentance and restoration that happens again and again. There were also moments of reform, restoration and faithfulness.  There were always leaders and people who never lost hope, who never forgot the covenant with God and called others back to faith.  

Today we hear the story of one of those moments and leaders.  King Josiah takes over the leadership of Israel at a bad time. There was war and conflict everywhere and the future was uncertain. Empires have grown and fallen.  The people of Israel have strayed into the worship of Baal and the other pagan gods of their neighbors. The covenant with the God of Israel is all but forgotten, God is seen as weak and less important than the empires of the world and their gods.   God’s work in their history, the stories of God’s accompaniment and intervention are dismissed as weird, irrelevant tales of their ancestors.  Things were so bad, the law, the commands of God at the center of their faith and relationship, were lost, not read or heard in years. 

King Josiah orders the repair, rebuilding and maintenance of God’s temple paid for with the taxes collected for that purpose. (the money was just sitting there, no one cared to use it).  During coordinating and overseeing these repairs, the high priest finds the scrolls of the law and gives them to the King’s assistant.  In a very Lutheran moment happening a long time before Luther, Josiah hears the law and it scares him. In hearing God’s law, the sin of the people is revealed and exposed.  Josiah turns to God for mercy, to try and avoid the promised consequences of disobedience.  

After hearing the law, Josiah is faced with the burdens of knowing how far the people have strayed from God and knowing the consequences of their sin.  His first stop is the prophetess Huldah, who is sought out to verify the scroll and help direct the King’s actions.  This is her only appearance in the scripture (she does appear in 2 Chronicles as well but it is the same story).  She is clearly a highly respected prophet since she is turned and entrusted with this great responsibility.  Her response is great for Josiah and the people around him but not so good for future generations.  First, in what some scholars say is the first authentication of scripture, Huldah verifies that the scroll is God’s word.

 

Huldah goes on to announce that because of his faithfulness, Josiah would not see the law fulfilled. Josiah would die in peace before the consequences of sin were felt by the people, before their destruction, suffering and defeat.There would not be a reprieve though, the real and promised consequences of sin would come to be at a later time. The temple in Jerusalem is destroyed in a crushing defeat by the Babylonians in 586, about 25 years after Josiah’s death. In this event the southern kingdom experiences the promised consequences of disobedience and failing to live up to their agreements with the Lord. (the Northern kingdom of Israel had already been defeated decades earlier).  This state of exile, suffering, defeat and oppression continues for centuries.  

Josiah tries to avoid this fate. After consulting with the prophet Huldah, Josiah orders all leaders and people to gather at the temple.  I imagine at that point the temple had become a bit of a historic or tourist site, where little worship happened and which people saw as part of history (sort of like we view the temples of ancient Greece today).  That morning though, it was once again a place of faith. Josiah reads the scroll of the law and then acts. He publicly promises to follow the Lord, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. After this, all the people joined in the covenant. Israel was once again the people of God.

Following this reading of the Law and public affirmation of faith, we come a time called Josiah’s reforms.  He destroys all of the temples to baal and the other pagan gods, eliminates their priests and prophets, and ends their worship. We should keep in mind that neither Huldah (nor anyone else) says or suggests that this renewal of faith will stop the looming punishment prescribed in the law.  We will see that the damage was done.  When the Babylonians arrive, the Lord who led and protected the people of Israel does not intervene, there are no plagues, no parting of the sea, no improbable victories, God allows them to be defeated and the temple to be destroyed.   

In this event, we see the first part of the prophet’s message fulfilled. The people of Israel had strayed from God one too many times, their lack of faith and failure to remember and worship the Lord would not be overlooked again.  This time, that cycle of sin, punishment, repentance and restoration would take much longer than it did in the past, restoration was a long way off. The second part of the prophet’s message, that God would send a messiah, a savior remained unfulfilled for almost 600 years of oppression, conquest and life as a colony of one empire or another.  The people of Israel waited with hope, expectation and disappointment.  When Jesus does come, he raises no army, builds no empire, and appoints no king.  It is not the sort of restoration they expected. The use of punishment to drive people back to the Lord had failed to maintain a faithful community hundreds of times. People just kept going back to their sinful ways.  It would not be repeated again. Through Jesus, God was, in fact, not setting us free from the suffering of this world. Instead, God did something new, God was setting us free from that cycle of sin and consequence.  In baptism, when we say that we die to sin and rise to new life, When we say sin has no power over us, when Paul writes that we are saved by grace, not the law, when I can stand here and confidently announce, because of love, God forgives our sins, all of this is pointing to a great change in God’s interaction with the world.  Though Jesus death and resurrection, we are set free from the true consequences of sin and death. 

Next week, we our reading will come from the prophet Isaiah, who speaks words of hope to the hopeless. The following week, we will have the last of our Old Testament readings for this church year. We will look at the story of Ezra and Nehemiah.  They were two leaders of Israel who the Persian King Cyrus the Great gives permission to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple that the Babylonians destroyed, offering another glimpse of hope.  After that we will have the story of Christmas and start reading through the Gospel of Mark.