First Congregational, Bakersfield

The last time this congregation had an interim minister was in the mid-1980's. In fact, we had a series of interim ministers then. I was one of them during the first summer.

Near the end of the period, the Church Council added me to the staff for $1/year, though I have not been paid in 20 years, since the treasurer resigned to move to Fresno. Those of you who were members of the congregation then will remember the circumstances.

The congregation had voted to fire the senior pastor. It was necessarily a divisive decision. About 30 members formed what they called The Backyard Church in support of the outgoing minister. I led an evening study group with about a dozen of them. Some of them were so upset by the whole process that they withdrew from the church.

But I see several of you here this morning that did come back and went on to take leadership positions. If I remember correctly, one of the interim ministers was fired, too.

They were difficult times. It was a period that took a great deal of energy on the part of the moderators and Church Council. However, I remember those 2 or 3 years as some of the most exciting in my more than 25 years as a member.

Why?

I think it was because of all the energy that was required of us. Church became more of a priority for more people. As we went through the process of calling the next Senior Pastor, we had to look at ourselves more closely.

We came through that transition stronger than we were before, and I pray that we will do so again. I do not anticipate that our upcoming period of interim ministry will be as long or as hectic. We needed a long interim before, because there was much healing to do. Jenell has left us in good shape.

Also, I am told that our new interim minister has had training and a lot of experience to help us through this transition.

End of first sermon.

That is an important concept. It may not always be obvious that the concept has roots in ancient Israel. It is illustrated very well by this story about Naboth. It is also not obvious that ancient Israel was constantly dealing with transitions.

We know all too well that we must deal with rapid change today. We have learned how to deal with the fact that our computers are obsolete by the time we take them out of the box. The pace of change today may be one of the reasons for the bitter polarization in our politics and even in religion. Those who want to change more quickly are at odds with those who want to slow the pace of change. Then, there are those of us like myself who want to change some things and turn the clock backwards on others.

By contrast, it is easy to think of traditional societies that -- from our vantage point -- seem unchanging. However, when we look at the details, we see that there were many challenges and many changes, and each one of them had its opponents.

When Israel first asked for a king, Samuel warned them against it: A king will tax you and draft your sons into his army. He will take your daughters to work in his kitchen. He will appropriate your vineyards to give to his courtiers. He warns them that they will become slaves to the king (I Samuel 8:10-18).

Again, when David became king, he knew that building a temple would increase his prestige. However, Nathan quotes God, saying, in effect, "I have gotten along quite well without a temple all these centuries, thank you.  Who needs it?" (II Samuel 7:4-7).

None of this is surprising, because the Israelite notion of a king and his role was quite different from that of their neighbors.

We see that sharply in this story about Naboth. It is worth noting that Jezebel was not an Israelite. She was the daughter of a Phoenician king, and she was accustomed to kings that never took no for an answer. Ahab, however, is aware of the Israelite tradition that ancestral land is sacred. It cannot be sold, because it belongs to the whole clan. It is inherited from the ancestors and held in trust for future descendants.

Today is Father's Day, but being a father for Naboth is much more than a greeting card or a necktie. He has obligations both to past and future generations. Naboth says, "The LORD forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance" (21:3), because he believes he has no choice. It is not his to sell. God, after all, is the landlord.

In Leviticus 25, God says, "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants" (25:23).

If poverty forces someone to sell part of the land, his relatives are obligated to buy it back (25:25). If money is not available to buy it back, then it must be returned to the family in the 50th year of jubilee without charge.

"If there is not sufficient means to recover it, what was sold shall remain with the purchaser until the year of jubilee; in the jubilee it shall be released, and the property shall be returned" (25:28).

The law is designed to prevent the accumulation of large land holdings in the hands of a few and to prevent the creation of landless peasants. Ordinarily, only sons would inherit property, but in the book of Numbers (27:1-11), Moses makes an exception for a man who had five daughters and no sons. The reason is clearly stated:  The family name should be preserved, and the land should remain in the clan. Furthermore, the daughters are required to find husbands within their own clan.

"Every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the Israelites shall marry one from the clan of her father's tribe, so that all Israelites may continue to possess their ancestral inheritance.  No inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for each of the tribes of the Israelites shall retain its own inheritance" (Num. 36:8f.).

"It shall be for the Israelites a statute and an ordinance, as the LORD commanded Moses" (27:11).

On the other, Ahab is reluctantly willing to observe the Israelite customs. And Jezebel must at least pretend to observe them.

The rule of law was too deeply rooted to be ignored. Of course, no justice system can work if its officers can be corrupted and witnesses are willing to lie. The two witnesses testify that he had cursed both God and God's anointed ruler. Naboth is stoned to death, and II Kings 9:26 says that his sons were killed with him. No one is left to inherit the land, and Ahab confiscates it.

Jezebel had the good sense to stay away while the kangaroo court does its dirty work, but God reveals the truth to the prophet Elijah. He pronounces sentence on Ahab and Jezebel with an appropriate punishment. Just as they have cut off Naboth's family without any descendants, they too will have no descendants to carry on their name.

The story also presents us with a conflict between rich and poor.

The OT never says there is anything wrong with wealth or power. But there is something wrong with poverty and powerlessness. There is a lot wrong when the rich use their power at the expense of the vulnerable.

When Micah describes the glorious future "when nation shall not lift up sword against nation," he also says "they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees" (4:3f.). Each family will have their own little plot of land, and there will no longer be any poverty.

This vision needs to be retranslated for our modern, urban society.

But Israel's struggle for justice has some parallels to ours today. We are again experiencing a widening gap between rich and poor.

Friday's Californian carried a story about the increasing sales of luxury items, including handbags that cost almost as much as the median household income.

It said that 25 hedge fund managers, together, earned more that $14 billion last year.

The editorial in last weeks' US News and World Report talked about the disappearing middle class in America. It points out that taxes on the middle class have risen in the past 35 years, while tax rates for the top 1% have been cut in half.

And it is harder for the middle class to finance higher education, which has been one of the vehicles of upward mobility.

I would add to that my fear that vast differences in living standards make any society more unstable.
 When there is too big a gap between rich and poor, whether it is on different sides of the tracks or different sides of the border, crime increases and life can become more dangerous.

I can only guess what Elijah might have said if Jezebel bought one of those handbags. Samuel's warning about a monarchy proved to be true. That made Micah's vision, a century after Ahab and Jezebel, of everyone with his own vine and fig tree all the more attractive.

End of second sermon.

It is often said that Luke, more than any other gospel, gives a prominent role to women. That certainly is the case here. A woman's actions are the occasion for Jesus' insightful story. The passage also reminds us that women sometimes accompanied Jesus and the 12 disciples. Three of them are important enough to be named, and one is even the wife of an important official in the royal court. The last line suggests that Jesus and the disciples are supported by women, who had more wealth than they did. The anonymous woman is identified as a sinner, probably a prostitute. OT provides that the wages of prostitution cannot be an offering at the temple (Deut. 23:18).

But Jesus does not worry about that.

He knows that there is forgiveness for any sins, no matter how horrible. And his story makes the point that the really big sinners understand that better than some of us who commit more respectable, less noticeable sins.

Jesus is such a skilled story-teller that he lets Simon deliver the punch line: The one whose debt is greater will have the greater love for the forgiver.

Sin is not a very popular word today. And many churches like ours do not normally include prayers of confession. The more old-fashioned order of service that we are using this morning provides a good reminder to us more respectable sinners. As Paul says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23).

But that is never the end of the story for Christians.

He goes on to add that we "are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."