-Shantideva
"Worry goes down better with soup than without."
-Jewish Proverb
Have you ever read a story in the Bible and thought, “I don’t get it.”? Short and to the point. I am going to cover one of those here by one of my favorite sections of the Bible. The first 4 chapters of 2 Kings.(My first being the first 4 chapters of Galatians)
2 Kings 2:19The men of the city (the city is Jericho if you didn’t know) said to Elisha, "Look, our lord, this town is well situated, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive." 20 "Bring me a new bowl," he said, "and put salt in it." So they brought it to him. 21 Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, "This is what the LORD says: 'I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.' " 22 And the water has remained wholesome to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.
I don’t get it. Hey, our land is unproductive because our water is bad so bring a new bowl with some salt in it. Throw in the salt…there, God says everything is taken care of. And that is the story.Here is a picture of Jericho.
As you hopefully read in a previous blog, there is always a narrative behind the narrative. There is always a story behind the story and a history behind the history. Jericho had a very complicated strange history. All this that happened with the salt, land, spring, water, Elijah, and the people is riding on top of another story. What we are going to look at is a story rooted in what I would call a pre-modern consciousness. Today, we have cars, computers, and massive technology which forces us to see ourselves as hyper sophisticated moderns. What happens when you read the Bible due to this pre-modern consciousness is that you have to realize the way they did things and how they thought can seem very strange to our modern minds. They had not yet been to the moon. So, as we go through some the history of Jericho keep that in mind and remember it is a pre-modern consciousness, which was strange and weird. Don’t try to dissolve it or make it sanctified. Just let it be weird. That may help bring some insight into this. Cool?
The history. Jericho had first off been conquered by a man named Joshua.
Joshua 6:26
At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: "Cursed before the LORD is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: "At the cost of his firstborn son will he lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest will he set up its gates."
So way back in the history of Jericho, it had been conquered and the conqueror had essentially said, “Anybody who tries to rebuild this city will be cursed.” Now to us moderns, cursed is like voodoo, witchcraft sorcery crap. And the curse was specifically if anyone tries to do this, their firstborn (which is important to carry on the family name, legacy and bloodline, basically a huge problem) won’t survive. Fast forward a bit in the cities history.
In 1 Kings 16, 34 In Ahab's time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in acordance with the word of the LORD spoken by Joshua son of Nun.So Jericho has a history, it is a history of a curse that if you try to rebuild this city, it will not go well for you.
The idea of a curse was something these people were familiar with, as strange as it sounds to us. Now look at Deuteronomy 28 and you see how many curses and blessings come from following and obeying versus not. Things go well if you follow God. Or you turn away and things will fall apart.
1 If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God: 3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
And so on…skip to verse 15. 15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: 16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. 17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. 18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. 19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. 20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. 21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed. 25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
And finally in verse 29 if you don’t obey you God you will be forced to watch reality TV for life.
What I find interesting is the blessings are 14 verses and the curses just go on and on and on. But then in chapter 30 1 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes.
Now it is fascinating that we read the curses and think this is just craaazy sort of pre-modern superstitious horrible stuff will happen to you but, in the end, if you read that far, at any point you return to God you will be fine. When you return everything will be restored. You walk away and there will be all sorts of consequences but at any point you return, everything is fine. Hanging in this sort of consciousness at the time of Jericho with Elijah is this history they would have carried with them about Joshua, Ahab who tried to rebuild it, first born sons and youngest sons being stricken down, blessings and curses and all this crap swirling around this town of Jericho.
Example. How many of you have went to a new job and went into someone’s office space and wondered why is this person acting like this, or that person looking like that and not talking to them or…how about a friend’s family reunion and felt something strange in the air and someone says to you, “Well, let me give you a little bit of background.” Then you realize the history and are like, ahhhh…that is messed up. There is a history floating around the place. Jericho has that sort of history floating around. Elijah charges in. He is told the water is bad and the land is unproductive, which is language from the curses of Deuteronomy, “Bring me a new bowl.” He says.
Now let’s get into it. The word new is the Hebrew word Hadash. Hadash has all sorts of meanings. Sometimes it means to renew and can be found used for renewed heart, spirit, kingdom, life, youth. Sometimes it means to rebuild. You can find it used to rebuild a city, temple, or an alter. Sometimes it’s used to repair. It refers to new songs, new covenants, and new mercies. The word has all sorts of depth and meaning to it. Somebody bring me a new bowl and put salt in it. So they brought it to him.
Salt you find again and again in the scriptures as part of their ritual and sacrificial system. Salt had symbolic value. Notice the reference in Leviticus. Do not leave salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings. What was the covenant? The covenant was, no matter how bad it gets, no matter where you find yourself, no matter how complicated things get, no matter how hard your heart was, you can always return to God. No matter how much you have screwed it up. No matter how many destructive choices you have made. No matter how seriously you have lost your way. No matter how many other gods you have worshipped. No matter the regrets you have accumulated. You could always return and He will restore you. So you screwed up, the salt is symbolic of the restoration. You can always come home. You can always turn and say oops…and God will say, “Come on back, come on back.”
In Numbers it is an everlasting covenant of salt. People back then were just like us, textile-kinesthetic. We need physical things to remind of us of far larger realities. In the ancient world among these Hebrews, salt, had this symbolic power to remind you that no matter where you found yourself, this God says, that at any point you can turn and come home. Elijah steps into this very complicated system where the land is unproductive because of disease and he simply says bring me a new bowl and put some salt in it. Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt in and he said, this is what the Lord says, I have healed this water. Never again will it make the land unproductive and never again has the water been impure to this day. This is a picture of the Spring
Elijah steps in and says give me a new bowl and put some salt in it. He takes the bowl and throws it in and basically says we aren’t going to bother with that anymore. Let’s get on with it. And that’s the story.How do we begin to unfold it? First, let me give you a couple of insights. For Elijah, history does not decide, it merely describes. For Elijah, the history of the city does not decide the present or the future of the city; it just describes what happened, not what will happen. Your history describes what you’ve done, where you have been, what you’ve been involved in, who you were with at the time. It describes your past, but it does not decide your present or your future.
How many people let their history a confusing blend of describing and deciding? All this has gone on, so obviously this is where it is going to take me. Really? Well, I challenge that. I say that is not for sure. Elijah steps up says, “What? Curses? Oh come on, come on…give me that bowl and give me some salt. Game on.” Did he sit down with the city and say, tell me what your sin is. What have you been dealing with and how did you wear your clothes and how could have you been so dumb…no…it’s like he is saying, “give me some salt, come on, new day.” One scholar even says what Elijah does is simply usher in a whole new era for these people. “You are still bringing that stuff up? Come on, new day. Game on. Bring me some salt, and a new bowl. Here we go. God says everything is cean and taken care of. Let’s get on with it.”
You could perhaps look at it this way. According to Elijah, curses are meant to be broken. “I know the Bible says, but ya ya ya, come on people, no more.” What does Elijah think of Joshua’s curse? “Ahhhh whatever, bring me some salt. God’s everlasting covenant says that kind of stuff? Ahhhh *shrugs shoulders* I don’t know” New things can happen that break the patterns and cycles of the old. Can you imagine somebody being there saying, “No no no! The Bible says!” Well, actually no, God says. Or my favorite way to look at it. According to Elijah, new word can always be spoken. There is always space for a new word. You have told me situation is this? Ahhh…I think a new word can be spoken about that. You are describing things like this? I think a new word can be spoken about it. You are telling me no future is inevitable here? I think a new word can be spoken about that.
Now, when we as moderns read a story with a pre-modern consciousness about curses and people suffering their first born, there is a part of us that says ok, seriously? And for many there is the feeling like, see, this is why the Bible is ridiculous and this is why I don’t follow church sorts of things and don’t believe it. It is because we live in a new reality were these sorts of things don’t really have anything to do with our world. Unless, you think of the phrases people use…”I just can’t get a break. This kind of thing always happens to me. Just my Luck! Like I expected anything else. Always the inevitable.” How modern are we? How many people with a great sense of sophistication, enlightenment, education and a modern consciousness actually speak terribly pre-modern superstitious curse sort of language without even realizing it? How far have we come? Think about the phrase “Just MY Luck!” What? You have luck? Or you have a particular version of luck? Did you keep the receipt? Take it back! Think of the ways people are seduced into the thinking that it is just inevitable. How is it inevitable? “Well, because of what happened.” How in your mind did what has happened determine what is going to happen? This type of stuff always happens to me. It does? Is it documented? Is it tangible? You have evidence of the future? You have taken bits and pieces and selectively picked the parts out you have experienced and created a narrative based on that, but we could have just as easily picked out different parts of your story and crafted a narrative.
To what degree under the myth of objectivity is a terribly random and subjective way in which we guide things? And what Elijah does is charges in the midst of all of it and says bring me a new, “Bowl, bring me some salt, it is a new day.” And he ushers in a new era.
Perhaps you can look at it this way. What we think and believe matters. And often times with spirituality, or with communities of faith, what we believe people immediately go to big issues of doctrine and then you get into discussions, and then you end up with different churches on each corner. When you say belief, for many people immediately veers dogma sort of crap about these people are right, there people are wrong, they have their eleven statements and these folks have their 4 and they have their own pool for baptism and blah blah blah. For many of us, your exact stance on supralapsarianism isn’t something you probably think about much…but you do have narratives and scripts and patterns of thinking that actually determine the choices we make, each and every day of our lives.
When we talk about belief, the truth is we live from a very deep seed of sub-conscious belief systems that actually determine the way we live and move every day. It is those patterns, cycles, and rhythms of thought that actually determine your actions. If you have deeply viewed somewhere in your psyche “this kind of thing always happens to me” that is going to deeply shape the way you interpret events. If you believe deep in your bones, just my luck, then when things come along that is going to color and shape the way that you read the events of your life. Things that reaffirm, “see I have bad luck”, are going to get elevated at the expense of things that don’t confirm that. How you believe deeply shapes the way you interpret the world and the way that you respond. If you have decided somehow that you are unlovable then when you interact with others and are given opportunities to give and be loved by others, it will deeply shape at the everyday level how you interact with people.
Jesus comes along and he simply makes a statement by saying repent. Do you know what the Greek word for repent is? It is metanoia. Meta means change like a metamorphosis, a change of form. Metanoia means to exercise the mind. To think. To comprehend. The word has lots of nuances, but the literal word for repent in the Greek simply means to think about things in a whole new way. Phew. To think about things in a whole new way. Jesus says, leave from that, and see it in a whole new way. The first Christians took this idea and understood that they needed to take their every thought captive. They would realize what they just said when they would announce “Just my luck!” Wait! Did I just say that? What do I mean by that? Has that been shaping the way that I live?
Here is what Jesus wants to do. Jesus wants to break in to your mind. He wants to take the superstitions, the curses, that crap and those stories, and those messages you were sent, and drag them out into the light and create a whole new era where you don’t live by those thoughts and patterns. It happens in this inner dialogue that happens with us. If you were abused or were told abusive sorts of messages and that stuff is in there and it plays a role, Jesus wants to enter into that and invite you to repent, to change your thinking, in a whole new way.
Elijah charges into Jericho. The people say the land in unproductive and the water has a disease. He simply says bring me a new bowl, with some salt in it. Let me remind you of what God is like. Some of you have bought into the notion of a violent God who is just waiting to hurt you with vengeance. Some of you have bought into the God who is the God of the curse that puts spells on places. Apparently the history of this place has decided how the future is going to go. I want to get you some salt to remind you that God has said for a long long time, return to me and I will renew it. So anyways, he takes the salt in the water and says it is a new day. Enough of that. We are starting over. The water has been cleansed. Away we go. Game on. What Elijah does is a powerful message that we can always start a new cycle and that our toxic beliefs are dangerous and it is time to repent of those beliefs.
One of the gifts we do to each other as humans is interrupting one another. Sometimes that is the best thing you can do to someone. On a regular basis I meet people and loaded in their language is unbelievably destructive verbiage that they have bought into. Sometimes we need to be interrupted in the middle of our thoughts with a fresh new word that simply says no, you don’t need to live with that. You don’t need to carry that around. Sprinkle some salt in that water.
