Saturday June 21, 2008 - Jehoiada's Revenge and the hunt for Mammon  

Posted by siouxbhoney

I'm either starting to catch up a little bit, or these are getting easier.



2 Chronicles 24:17-25

After the death of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah came and paid homage to King Joash, and the king then listened to them. They forsook the temple of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and began to serve the sacred poles and the idols; and because of this crime of theirs, wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem. Although prophets were sent to them to convert them to the LORD, the people would not listen to their warnings. Then the Spirit of God possessed Zechariah, son of Jehoiada the priest. He took his stand above the people and said to them: “God says, ‘Why are you transgressing the LORD’s commands, so that you cannot prosper?Because you have abandoned the LORD, he has abandoned you.’” But they conspired against him, and at the king’s order they stoned him to death in the court of the LORD’s temple. Thus King Joash was unmindful of the devotion shown him by Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, and slew his son. And as Zechariah was dying, he said, “May the LORD see and avenge.”



At the turn of the year a force of Arameans came up against Joash. They invaded Judah and Jerusalem, did away with all the princes of the people, and sent all their spoil to the king of Damascus. Though the Aramean force came with few men, the LORD surrendered a very large force into their power, because Judah had abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers. So punishment was meted out to Joash. After the Arameans had departed from him, leaving him in grievous suffering, his servants conspired against him because of the murder of the son of Jehoiada the priest. He was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.



So, young King Joash, who we read about yesterday, was made king at seven years old, and was always watched over by Jehoiada. A little before our reading, it describes how Joash was always good when Jehoiada was around, and even built the Lord and his people a new fancy temple. Then Jehoiada goes and dies, and Joash has to stand on his own two feet and make his own moral judgments. Life was rockin' easy when the old mentor was alive to tell him what to do, but the second he's gone, it seems like he falls prey to peer pressure when the princes come around, just like a rebellious teenager, out having wild parties and setting up altars to other gods. Why couldn't anybody in the Old Testament figure out that this is the thing that God hates the most? He was always coming down HARD on guys for this. So he sends in a small invading force to conquer and humiliate, and Joash's servants kill him and bury his body with the common folk. I can hear God talking about it now: "I don't know how many times I need to repeat this, people: NO OTHER GODS."



Matthew 6:24-34

Jesus said to his disciples:“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

What is mammon? I know that this is something that every kid in Sunday school probably asks, but I can't remember. My study bible says this: "Mammon: An Aramaic word meaning wealth or property.", and wikipedia says Webster defines 'mammon' as: 1) the false god of riches and avarice. I wonder if Jesus is using an extreme example to just tell people to stop worrying so much about money, or if we are really supposed to live in the fields, and hunt and gather? The bible says a lot about money, and I don't really understand how to mesh it all together, so I feel a little pulled back and forth. My real opinion is our modern day other god really is Mammon, and has been since most of the other gods were banished by the combination of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam taking over the world. God doesn't seem to like us thinking about anything more than we think about him, and probably most of us (certainly me) think about money and security and nicer things WAY more than we think about God. Except of course when we pray "Please God, help me get more money and security and nicer things."

I wanted to end today with a link to a very interesting story that I've been following from the Vatican. Holocaust survivors announce symposium on Pius XII’s work to save Jews during WWII

This entry was posted on 6/21/08 at 6:28 AM . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

0 comments

Post a Comment