King Jeroboam set up a worship place in Bethel, and said, “Here are your gods, Israel.” He did it because he thought, “If this people continue to go up to the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem to offer sacrifices, the people’s hearts will turn back again to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will put me to death.”
Jeroboam is bringing alternatives for God to ensure his own power. He uses god, worship, and festivity as political symbols. An alternative god that represents the power of the king will create its system and crush the people in the name of its worship. Fighting for God only creates a void in human lives. Power struggles in the name of God will bring a godless society. Even in the case of David making Jerusalem as the centre, it was not only a holy city, but also a political centre. From being a shepherd and king, David and Solomon grew to be an emperor. Solomon received many wives and their gods to keep his kingdom unchallenged. It was no more a promised land in reality, it was a conquered land. In an empire, only the emperor lives, not people, not even God. Even though there may be a super god itis a language to ensure imperial power. People are to serve the interests of the emperor. This type of governance is not part of the promises of the covenant God had made. Which is the boundary of the promised land? When God made the promise of giving them a land flowing with milk and honey, did that mean to chase everyone away from where they would reach? Would the 'chosen' people live among differences of the strangely chosen. Would God really wish all other tribes and nations be wiped away? God’s will had a promise as their inheritance that would last forever. The expansion of this promise was what God would like to have done by the chosen people. Only the depths of our hearts extend our boundaries and widen our horizons.
Jesus’s concern was that the people may faint on the way, not whether they will follow him and support him. He gave them bread to eat, not alternatives for god that ensured his power. This second multiplication of bread may also have included gentile crowd. Bible scholars say that this text has a gentile touch even in its language. It was in the last chapter we saw Jesus being in Syrophoenicia, a territory of gentiles, and extended healing seeing the faith of a woman. Coming back to Galilee he offers them not just scraps falling from the master's table, but bread itself. When Jesus calls his disciples, it is also an invitation to participate in his compassion. What does it mean to us today in a politically and religiously biased world, to know, to love, and live together with Jesus? We do have an abundance of alternatives of power-centres, rituals, religiosity, and reshaped gods and Christs of our liking. Gods and religiosity that build boundaries are not god and religion at all. Which king who stood for ensuring one’s own power was devoted to God and the good of people? Only a community formed in communion with one another and with God shows that God is in their midst.
Participation in the life of Jesus, being a disciple, means a true sense of gratitude to God, for everything comes from, and depends upon, God. A true life with God offers the language of sharing, extending our hearts beyond favoured boundaries, and communion with God and with others. Participating in the gratitude, praise, communion that Jesus lived and extended to others we re-create our true image. We are able to give life to a new sense of human life and how we relate to the world around us. We are not kings, creators of gods, we are the children of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment