AUSTRALIAN POLICY TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE UNDER QUESTION 

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news

2 Samuel 5:22-6:11

22 Once again the Philistines came up, and were spread out in the valley of Rephaim. 23When David inquired of the Lord, he said, ‘You shall not go up; go round to their rear, and come upon them opposite the balsam trees. 24When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then be on the alert; for then the Lord has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines.’ 25David did just as the Lord had commanded him; and he struck down the Philistines from Geba all the way to Gezer.

6David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. 3They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart 4with the ark of God; and Ahio went in front of the ark. 5David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.

6 When they came to the threshing-floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. 7The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God. 8David was angry because the Lord

had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah; so that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day. 9David was afraid of the Lord that day; he said, ‘How can the ark of the Lord come into my care?’ 10So David was unwilling to take the ark of the Lord into his care in the city of David; instead David took it to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 11The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months; and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. 

Sometimes it seems strange to me that I should be looking for spiritual nourishment from an edited report of a battle that took place 3000 years ago. But the little details count. David is a genius at guerrilla war and decides to attack the Philistine army from the rear. This decision is however credited to the Lord, who has been approached, probably by lot. Of course this is a thoroughly human strategy but the author emphasises that it’s in David’s character to believe that it comes from God. Would God have been delighted with the result, we may ask, since it involves the deaths of many of his Philistine children. Still, there is something in this theological knot that can’t simply be cut with the sword of reason.

God rewards his followers for rescuing his holy ark by killing the man whose solicitude led him to touch it. Of course I could make a sermon out of this on the danger of being over casual with holy things, but that’s to remove myself from a God who actually kills in these circumstances.

So answer me now, bible-believer. Did God kill Uzzah? Say no, and you might as well chuck the bible away. Say yes, and you’ve got a killer God on your hands. Say a Christian must interpret it in the light of Christ and you only escape till I ask, “Was Jesus more or less disrespectful to holy custom than Uzzah?” The author doesn’t reveal what he thinks but he records David’s anger against the Lord at the loss of a good man. Jesus too was angry at those who placed holy custom above the lives of people.

Mark 8:1-10

8In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.’ 4His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ 5He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ 6Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

If the feeding of 5000 people reveals Jesus as the shepherd king of the twelve tribes of Israel (12 baskets leftover); then this story reveals him as shepherd king of the gentile nations traditionally 7 in number (7 baskets leftover). Some of them have indeed “come a great distance” to be part of the messianic people. Jesus’ compassion for them and his teaching of them means that they cease to be inferiors in God’s kingdom. They too are nourished by the food that Jesus gives, which is his life.

On this day the church remembers William Wilberforce (d1833) who spent much of his life in parliamentary opposition to first of all, the slave trade, and then the institution of slavery itself. It took the church a long time –indeed some of its branches are still recalcitrant on this issue-to deduce from basic Christian faith that slavery was evil. This is in no small measure due to the fact that there is not one text in the Bible which unambiguously denounces it. We believe that Wilberforce and his associates were holy because they opposed slavery. Can we call a book that permits it, holy?