AND GOD SAW... stories of God seeing and acting in Hebrew Scripture
2 Kings 22:1-20; 23:1-3; Luke 24:30-32
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King Josiah was a remarkable boy.
He probably didn’t do much governing at age 8,
when he was made King.
But he must have been well-tutored,
because by age 26, he was making waves, and making history.
He undertook a major campaign of reform and rebuilding—
repairing the temple in Jerusalem,
removing artifacts of Baal worship which had overtaken it,
and restoring it to the worship of Yahweh alone.
A scroll (or “book of the law”) was found,
which emboldened Josiah even more to “make things right,”
to repair not only the temple,
but repair the broken relationship with Yahweh.
And repair the religious and social disorder
that has come to define Judah.
Josiah repented, with loud weeping, of the sins of his ancestors,
and he set about making things right.
Some Bible scholars catch a whiff of maybe a little propaganda here,
as Josiah’s far-reaching religious reform,
also just happened to help him out politically.
But just reading this story at face value,
here we have a powerful leader humbling himself,
repenting of the sins of his ancestors,
and taking every measure possible
to repair the harm that was done.
In other words, he was cleaning up a mess that others had made.
And that makes a good Bible story,
because it is not hard for us to find ourselves in it somewhere.
_____________________
Here’s where I went with it.
I have been taught, since childhood, probably like you,
that if you make a mess, you clean it up.
When I was a young boy trying to figure out how life works,
that meant, if I didn’t make the mess, I didn’t have to clean it up.
Now that I’m an old boy trying to figure out how life works,
I found out my responsibilities are a little more complicated.
Deciding what I’m responsible for is a little tricky.
Deciding what we, collectively, are responsible for is even trickier.
Harmful attitudes, decisions, and actions have been done by people
who came long before me
Either they were my ancestors,
or they were a group I am part of, and identify with—
Americans, or more specifically white Americans,
or even more specifically white male middle-class
Americans in positions of influence and power.
These decisions and actions
might have been made long before I was born.
Or they might be made now, but I have no say in them.
I might even personally and actively oppose
these decisions or actions.
Trouble is, because I am part of the group that took these actions,
I have at least a share of the responsibility.
I may have likely benefitted economically, vocationally,
socially, and in many other ways,
even if I am strongly morally opposed to those actions.
Folks, white privilege is real, regardless how I feel about it.
Systemic oppression is also real.
Generational trauma is also real.
And we are not even that many generations removed
from the horrors of enslaving other human beings,
and depriving human beings of basic human rights.
The Doctrine of Discovery provided a theological basis
for doing violence against indigenous Americans,
and is still alive today,
and has components that need dismantling,
as some of you have been learning together in recent weeks.
So, how do we make things right?
We know that the God we worship
is a God who loves justice and righteousness.
God’s main mission is the restoration of shalom.
Making things right that have gone wrong.
Repairing what is broken.
For King Josiah, it meant repairing the temple,
and restoring what had been lost or broken by his predecessors.
What does repairing what is broken look like for us, today,
given the harm done by people who have gone before us?
Where does my responsibility begin, and end?
Which messes should I help clean up, and how?
It’s complicated, to put it mildly.
We could spend—not hours, but days and weeks and years—
working hard, together, to come to satisfying answers
to these huge and overwhelming problems.
But sometimes, the best thing we can do,
is the one thing that’s right in front of us,
that, with some shared wisdom and shared effort,
we can make a difference in one place.
Today, I’m sharing this sermon time
with two members of Park View who did exactly that.
Their stories are very different, but they are the same in this way:
They joined a shared effort to make something right,
that they, individually, weren’t responsible for,
but as part of a group, they saw and owned their responsibility,
and decided to get involved in the work of reparation.
First, we’ll hear from Barb Fast, then from Phil Helmuth.
_____________________
I invite us all today to learn from King Josiah,
and learn from Barb Fast and Phil Helmuth,
and then look for opportunities you might have
to contribute to some work of repairing harm,
whether small or large.
If it seems overwhelming, gather together some others,
and see what shared wisdom and shared effort can do.
It will take deep listening, and radical openness—
openness of eyes, ears, and heart.
Today, let’s sing our confession together,
VT number 732, in your hymnal, or on the screens.
—Phil Kniss, November 26, 2023
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