Together for God - 2nd Kings 10:12-17

2nd Kings 10:12-17

12 Then he set out and went to Samaria. On the way, when he was at Beth-eked of the Shepherds, 13 Jehu met relatives of King Ahaziah of Judah and said, “Who are you?” They answered, “We are kin of Ahaziah; we have come down to visit the royal princes and the sons of the queen mother.” 14 He said, “Take them alive.” They took them alive, and slaughtered them at the pit of Beth-eked, forty-two in all; he spared none of them.

15 When he left there, he met Jehonadab son of Rechab coming to meet him; he greeted him, and said to him, “Is your heart as true to mine as mine is to yours?” Jehonadab answered, “It is.” Jehu said, “If it is, give me your hand.” So he gave him his hand. Jehu took him up with him into the chariot. 16 He said, “Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD.” So he had him ride in his chariot. 17 When he came to Samaria, he killed all who were left to Ahab in Samaria, until he had wiped them out, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke to Elijah. (NRSV)

We all want to belong, to be included, to be accepted. We long for community, safety, and a place where we can feel at rest. The world we inhabit, however, is full of contrariness, division, discord, and voices clamoring to classify people into groups, separating us from them and demeaning all who are somehow other. To allow for the fulfillment of that yearning, we need to move beyond our penchant for sowing discord and division. How then do we deal with those with whom we disagree? How do we build a community in the midst of disharmony, disagreement, and so many issues that would divide us?

Jehonadab was an interesting character. We do not really know a lot about him directly, other than what his descendants have to tell us about him. In Jeremiah 35, we learn that Jehonadab forbade his descendants from ever living in houses or drinking wine. Rather, they were enjoined to live in tents perpetually. In today’s passage of 2nd Kings 10 that would already have stood out as strange. Israel and Judah had long since settled the Promised Land, taken over or built homes, planted orchards and vineyards, and looked upon wine as the basic symbol of Yahweh’s blessings and receiving the fullness of Yahweh’s provision. For Jehonadab to make such injunctions upon his descendants would have stood out from the most basic assumptions of Israel and what it meant to bask in Yahweh’s provisions. He would have stood out in his day akin to the Amish in Pennsylvania, holding fast to the lived realities of a former time as though in defiance of how the world has shifted and continues to shift around them.

On one hand, that Jehonadab stood fast for following Yahweh despite the whirlwind of religious change in Israel under Ahab and Jezebel’s influence marked him as an ally for Jehu. On the other hand, Jehu was not wholeheartedly consistent in his allegiance to Yahweh and standing against all forms of idolatry. The two were very unalike in so many ways from a standpoint of culture, of religious inclination, of economic background, and more.

Jehu had just come from slaughtering the sons of Ahab in his quest to rid Israel from Ahab’s dynasty and establish himself as king. He was en route to accomplish more to rid Israel of Ahab’s power structure and Israel’s link with Baal worship. He chanced upon Jehonadab and asked him one simple question: “Is your heart as true to mine as mine is to yours?”

Jehu could have focused on all the things that separated them and kept them from seeing eye to eye. He recognized, however, that there was more at hand than a question of how the two might disagree in matters of opinion. No two of us agree on everything. We all have opinions and understandings of the world that are particularly our own. They are shaped by our differing experiences, what we have read, the people with whom we have spoken, and our personal reflections upon life. Jehonadab had developed some very strange opinions in regard to how one should live. Neither Jehu nor Jehonadab concerned themselves with these disagreements. Rather, Jehu wanted to know if Jehonadab were in line with him in his quest to rid the land of Baal worship that Yahweh might become front and center. That was all that mattered.

There is room for us to disagree on the minutiae of faith. Jehu understood that, as did Jehonadab. They held strongly to their own opinions, and yet they determined to come together on weightier matters. They would continue to disagree on many things, but they would travel and work together, regardless. They determined that their hearts were true to the task at hand and joined forces to support one another.

Neither one determined to take the time to convince the other of the error of their ways in order to adopt their respective positions. Neither one determined that the other could not be an ally in serving Yahweh’s purposes until they nailed down all the particulars on modes of worship, got all their doctrine in order, and agreed on how Israel would operate at the end of the journey ahead. Instead, they were concerned with serving the purposes of Yahweh and allowing each other the liberty to be right or wrong in how they approached that responsibility.

The nomad and the future king of Israel rode up in the chariot together, joining forces for a singular task at hand, a task larger than either one of them. They allowed Yahweh’s mission and purpose to become a higher principle than the strategies, opinions, and customs each would continue to hold and follow after the fact. There was only one real issue they needed to get right in order to join forces for the task at hand. Each needed simply to know that the other was taking the same journey and following the same path of elevating the purposes of Yahweh above their own.

The task ahead of Jehu and Jehonadab was larger than either one of them. It was of greater import than all the things that could so easily divide them, over which they might argue and debate well into the night and throughout the course of their lives. They were convinced, however, that the mission and purpose before them went beyond those deep-seated opinions they had each developed over the years to make sense of the world and their lives before Yahweh. It was enough for them to latch onto the central mission in front of them, putting a stop to the idolatry of Ahab and Jezebel that Israel might once more be devoted to Yahweh as the only God worthy of their worship and service. That mission was so much greater than all the other things.

Too often, we lose sight of the importance of this simple principle we see in this short, seemingly throw-away passage in 2nd Kings. We forget the stories that tell us more about the characters in play. We ignore the relevance of their interchange. We jump past the implications this seemingly innocuous encounter has for our own lives. When we stop to think about it, however, the Biblical text is so concise and sparse in regard to detail we have to recognize that for any material to have made the cut it had to have been relevant to the redactors who left the story intact. There is a larger mission we can too easily allow to fade from our sight.

Our mission is to love one another. That love must make itself known in our attitudes and actions. Jesus was so very clear on that. Most people on the street could tell us Jesus requires that we love everyone as we would love ourselves. They would also tell us we don’t measure up. If we are going to call ourselves Christians, that must change. We must embrace one another, despite our differences in culture, identity, opinion, and practice. We must embrace one another as fellow servants of God in Christ Jesus, people for whom Jesus died. If we do not love one another, the Bible is clear that we are not of God.

We don’t have to be alike to love one another. We love our children despite our differences of opinion with them. We do not have to share the same cultural norms to love one another. We do not have to speak the same language, the same dialect, or the same accent. We do not have to relish the same styles of music, worship, or liturgy to love one another. We do not have to share the same political leanings, embrace the same priorities, or shop at the same merchants to love one another.

And yet, our love for one another, including those beyond the confines of our faith, is what Jesus cast as defining for the world that we belong to Christ as children of God. John is clear that not loving one another is a breaking point that severs our belonging to Christ. He says we cannot love God without loving one another, for God is love. Neither do we get to use the dictates of conscience as an excuse not to love some category of person. Just as my own faith requires learning and growing, it requires change along the way. It requires the humility to accept that at some point or another, I am wrong. It requires that I accept others I deem to be wrong. After all, at the end of the day, we might both be wrong. We can still love one another, despite our differences of opinion. In fact, we are required to do so.

Is your heart right with God? Then, inasmuch as I believe mine to be right with God, let us work together to accomplish the task God has laid upon both of our lives. With all God’s servants everywhere, let us climb into the chariot that awaits to carry out the task at hand. We can still discuss our differences of opinion, as long as we do not hold them over one another as a test of fellowship and fellow servanthood. After all, the task at hand is so much greater than all the petty things on which we disagree.

We don’t have to agree on all things to work side by side to take the good news of Jesus Christ to the world around us. All we have to agree on is that we must do it. The world needs the kind of community this kind of love builds. Will we rise to the challenge of the mission set before us? “Beloved, let us love one another in word and in deed.”

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Call to Worship:

One: The Lord is with you,
Many: And also with you.
One: We are called to love one another without excuse.
Many: We must love those who call us neighbor.
One: We are called to love despite our differences.
Many: The gospel of Christ extends to those who don’t share our opinions.
One: We are called to love those who would be our enemies.
Many: Christ died for us while we were yet enemies of God.
One: We are called to love because God is love.
Many: God showed the extent of love in that Christ dies for sinners like us.

Suggested prayer:
Lord, grant us the strength to look beyond our differences. Grant us the wisdom to recognize how often we change our own opinions. Grant us the grace to extend acceptance for those who challenge our assessment of the truth. Grant us the peace to know that Your will calls us to minister alongside all you seek to love You with their whole lives and love others as themselves. Grant us the will to look beyond all those things we allow to hinder community that we might build a society in which all can find acceptance and belonging because of Your great love that has reached even us. Amen.

— ©Copyright 2019, Christopher B. Harbin

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