Stephen
Terry, Director
What
Have They Seen in Your House?
Commentary
for the June 22, 2019 Sabbath School Lesson
“ At that time Marduk-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon
sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of his illness and
recovery. Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in his
storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine olive oil—his entire
armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his
palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.” Isaiah 39:1-2, NIV
Our lesson quarterly begins with a narrative about King
Hezekiah found in Isaiah chapters 38 and 39. Hezekiah is identified as a good
king who is faithful to God. Nonetheless, he is diagnosed with a terminal
illness. Bereft, the faithful king petitions God for healing and God assents to
do so through the services of the prophet Isaiah. In the second of the two
chapters, we learn that in some manner, the king of the Babylonians hears of
Hezekiah’s illness and sends emissaries with condolences. Hezekiah’s response
is a reverse image of a similar episode involving King David. When the king of
the Ammonites died, David sent emissaries to the king’s son, Hanun, to express
condolences.[i]
Hanun’s advisers insisted that these emissaries were sent to spy out the land
prior to an invasion and convinced him to treat them poorly. Of course, this
incensed David, and he did indeed then go to war with the Ammonites, much to
their chagrin. Their response, however, infers that it must have been a known
tactic to send spies in such a manner. This makes it somewhat unusual that
Hezekiah would react as he did. Instead of a response of skeptical wariness, he
showed them everything he owned. No doubt being pleased at such openness, the
spies returned with their report to Babylon. As a result, Babylon was now aware
of a rich potential target to plunder and eventually came calling to collect.
The choice of Hezekiah’s story as a foundation for a
study on the idealized Christian home is a puzzling one; for it makes an
example of a home setting that was not all it appeared to be. Yes, Hezekiah was
a faithful king who was known for destroying idols and supporting worship of
the true God. He was a man of prayer who turned to God when he felt threatened personally
or when there were attacks on his kingdom. While in many ways he brought Judah
back from apostasy, he failed in others. Perhaps it was because in spite of his
faith, his temperament was weak that he had no lasting effect on the moral
course of the country. Not only did the people quickly slip back into their old
ways, but they were worse than before Hezekiah became king. Sadly, even
Hezekiah’s own son, Manasseh, raised in the royal household to succeed his
father, became one of the most vile and vicious kings of Judah. The Bible tells
us that he filled the streets of Jerusalem with innocent blood.[ii] This is contrary to those
who think that a perfect Christian home will somehow guarantee the production
of faithful Christian children.
The idea that we can shape others is sort of a human
implementation of the concept of predestination. While it does not deal with
eternal realities, it implies that a child’s destiny can be controlled by the home
atmosphere. While it is true that children in their early years, like sponges,
absorb many, many things from the world that surrounds them, there comes a
time, often referred to as the age of accountability, when they begin either
accepting or discarding those influences based on personal relevancy. This is
normal. As many parents can affirm, there is no given formula for child rearing
and family relationships that will produce an unquestioning automaton
predestined for heaven. In fact, the idea of Arminian free-will theology is
based upon the idea that such is not the case. This is the theology of
Seventh-day Adventism, even though in practice, we often act as though we can
control the will of another, especially when it comes to our children. Sometimes,
in spite of all our desires to the contrary, we are only able to stand and
watch as our children step up to the forbidden tree and partake of the fruit. We
know the result of that meal. We know from our own bitter experience, our own
bad choices, that the poison is lethal and pervades everything in life thereafter.
But often the only consolation we are left with is the knowledge that the fruit
potentially contains some knowledge of good as well as evil.
We might wonder if we could order our homes in such a
manner as to provide a greater chance of everyone reaching heaven, why wouldn’t
we? This is a fair question that borders on the issue of theodicy. Sometimes we
wonder why God doesn’t put his thumb on the scale to tip the balance a little
more toward universal salvation. Many understand that he does not in order to
preserve our free will, a free will that allows us to genuinely love our
Creator with human, not robotic, love. Of course, that freedom also allows the
freedom to hate God as well, and many have chosen that path. God is able to
allow free choice for all yet remain undiminished in his divinity. We, in our
lesser state, seem to forget this when dealing with those around us, our
families, our friends, and our neighbors. In spite of God’s example, we
continue to try to shape their destinies by our words and actions as though action
A will always produce response B. This is how we use computers, and it is
called programming. It is not how we should relate to human beings.
When someone comes into our home, we should not be
providing them with a false model of Christian behavior with the Bible on the
coffee table and perfectly scrubbed children attending silently on every wish
of the adults in the room, while listening intently to whatever political,
religious or prejudicial nonsense may spew forth from adult mouths. Instead,
our children should be taught how to reason for themselves through the options
they encounter with an ability to weigh the consequences of those choices apart
from unquestioning dependence on others. While some may feel that their child’s
unquestioning obedience is an asset, such loyalty is too easily subverted by
other authorities that may not have the child’s best interest at heart. Skepticism
of authority, even parental authority, can be a valuable survival skill in a
world awash in conflicting ideas, many of which are simply opinions. As
bruising as this idea may be to parental ego, we might do well to remind
ourselves that there is no perfect parent. The stark honesty of a child when
questioning what we think or do should remind us of our need for humility and patience,
not only toward the child, but toward ourselves as well, for we are still
growing and learning just as the child is. We not only hope for, but we rely on
God’s love for us to moderate his aspect toward us as we say and do stupid,
even offensive things toward him and one another. It is the knowledge of his
creation having free will that helps us to know that he understands the consequences
of that and the difficulty we have navigating between Scylla and Charybdis,
sometimes pulled this way and sometimes that.
In the end, we have no more control over the ultimate
choices of our offspring, our spouses, or anyone for that matter than Hezekiah
had over his own son. We can introduce them to those things we have found
beneficial in life, and among those I would include the Bible and Jesus as well
as the great thinkers of history both religious and secular. While we cannot
control anyone’s destiny, we are simply not that powerful, we can ensure our
families have the tools that will help them as they reason through the challenges
that will face them. A professor I had once in college liked to quote a verse
out of context to support the idea that God loves those who reason. He quoted
Isaiah 1:18 from the King James Version of the Bible where it says, “Come now, let us reason together…” While I am skeptical of those who build
a theological edifice on uncontextualized scripture, there is another, more
profound, illustration of the point. If God didn’t love reasoning, why would he
pull together so many people over thousands of years to produce sixty-six
briefs to make his case? While these “briefs,” or books of the Bible, were not
dictated or handwritten directly by God, I think we can at least grant them the
status of Amicus briefs filed on his
behalf. And ultimately, having been presented with this tome holding both good
and evil, constructed from the paper manufactured from a living tree and shaped
and printed for the task of placing the case in our hands that we might choose
our course, that choice, as it always has been, is left entirely up to us.
