“Fickleness”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Judges 2:1-5, 11-23 (Forward, p. 93) CEV p. 241
It is doubly sad when people fail to keep their promises and betray their important relationships, and especially when this concerns God’s people and the Lord. Once they had entered the Promised Land and no longer had Joshua or any of the other leaders from their time in the Wilderness with them, they forgot what God had done. Furthermore, the text tells us that this generation ‘did not know the Lord’. So, there would seem to be a double failure here, both in telling the story and in kindling, passing on, that relationship to God to the next generation.
So, what happened? The text tells us that this new generation ‘bought into’ the lifestyle, habits, and priorities of the culture around them. They absorbed their ideas and began to worship, or prioritize, the things that their neighbours valued. The text calls them ‘idols’, but in reality, an idol can be anything or anyone that we value more than God, or that we give a higher priority to than to God. They didn’t mean to be fickle, but rather just unconsciously and undeliberately slipped into this lifestyle. And, because of this, they lost the support and protection of God and fell prey to all sorts of misfortune.
Sadly, this saga sounds all too familiar. How many from our newer generations today might easily be compared with the generation that Joshua describes. Their parents and grandparents may have known the Lord and known His doings, but what about this generation? Far too often, other things, well-intentioned things, good things, have slipped in and displaced the things of God. Sunday sports and other activities, time at the lake or at the cabin, a weekend away, recovering from the night before, catching up on chores or just resting or relaxing after a busy week all step in so very easily to replace the worship pattern that previous generations knew and respected. But, then there are three even more fundamental questions, ones that go to the heart of how we have ‘practiced’ Church. Firstly, how well has this generation learned and internalized the Christian story? Secondly, have we assisted them in making this faith their own, helping them come to into their own relationship with God? And thirdly, have we provided ways and means of nurturing that relationship, helping it grow and helping them deal with the issues and problems that inevitably come our way—what some churches call discipleship?
My conviction is that we, both as individuals and as a church, especially as a mainline church, have failed in all three counts. I’m not sure that even our own members, those of the parent and grandparent generations, know the faith story very well, well enough to tell it, transmit it, to others. And, along with this, have they been enabled to know their own stories of God and His doings well enough to share them with others?
I’m afraid that far too often we have relied on others, pastors, Sunday school teachers, and youth leaders to do the job for us, when, really, we should be able to do this ourselves. But then, how? How will we start doing this, especially when neither we nor our churches have been in the habit of doing this, and have often lacked the resources, know-how, energy, and motivation necessary? Some excellent questions, but necessary ones if we are to stem the fickleness, the lack of commitment and faith, that the generations after Joshua exhibited. Let us pray for God’s help and guidance in this. Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge…for the Lord would be moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them” (verse 18).
“Several years ago, my son and I made a pilgrimage to several civil rights landmarks, including the home where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had lived during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I sat at the kitchen table and heard about a difficult night when Dr. King had sat there. He wrote about that night in ‘March Toward Freedom:’ “I prayed aloud….‘I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.’” Then, “at that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced him before … I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying, ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth, and God will be by your side forever.’”
“Sitting at that table, I felt an overwhelming sense of God’s call to stand with the persecuted and oppressed. I continue to pray for clarity and to remain obedient to that call so that God will also prepare me to be ready to face anything.”
Moving Forward: “Where is God calling you to work for justice?”
A concluding note: The only reason God needed to raise up judges for the people of Israel was that they had been routinely disobedient to God in worshipping other things, idols, rather than God. How much might the same be said of us? And could we not also say that this is an underlying cause of the injustices that are all too prevalent in our world? I would say so.