| The indictment against Israel is thorough as they live their life outside of the gracious covenant with God - a recalcitrant people.
YHWH's majestic governance over this recalcitrant partner, which had at the outset been marked by generosity, now comes as judgment. The judgment is in fact the complete nullification of Israel, so that Israel ceases to be. The historical mode of nullification is exile. Israel is "scattered", a new term in Israel's Yahwistic vocabulary, of which YHWH is characteristically the active subject. Israel is scattered to the winds, away from its promised place, and away from its resources for identity. Exile is indeed the defeat, loss, and forfeiture of life with YHWH. The exile is to be understood as an actual geopolitical event in the life of this community. There were indeed displaced persons and refugee communities. It is possible to give a geopolitical explanation for the exile: the displacement of the Jews from their homeland was an effect of Babylonian expansionism under Nebuchadnezzar.
If we are not what we say we are, what are we - something else. This point about Israel being a 'recalcitrant' partner is the story of all of us who claim to be the sons and daughters of our God and yet we live as though we are not at all under the wing of our God. One of the feared words when I was growing up as a Roman Catholic was the term excommunication. It was used as something that was done to you by the larger church. In reality, it is something that a person does to ones self. The church does not push people out, people walk out the door and turn their back to the promise of life that is to be the church and the church then simply names what they have done - left the communion. I would then argue that there are many times when the church leaves behind what it is to be and individuals must point out that the church has left the way of Jesus. When individuals do that, they are called prophets and often booted out. For Israel, Exile meant they were cut off and, in essence, would have to deal with the world that they chose to live within rather than the life of God's Reigning power. If you trust weapons - live within the world of weapons and lords and power transfers and famine and --- exile.
Connection: We must always be willing to go back to that call that has been given to us - that invitation to be God's beloved. It is there that we face how far we have walked away and what it would mean to turn around and return to the God who waits for us
O God, who watches how we turn away and follow other powers, keep us close to you and have your Spirit of life become our breath. Amen. |
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