Untitled Sermon

Wait what?!? What is going on? Just last week we saw all of Israel, both north and south unite over King David and now the kingdom is dividing into two kingdoms again, north and south. To get us on track I’m going to fill in some gaps so we can really grasp what is going on. After David reigned over all of Israel for 33 years, his son Solomon then became king. Despite Solomon being granted wisdom, he made a lot of dumb mistakes. We’ll forgo his love life and focus on his treatment of the people. Solomon did solidify Jerusalem as the capital and part of the greatness of that was building the temple at Jerusalem. The problem with all of the building projects Solomon had was that he enforced forced labor on the people. Essentially all the work that God did by bringing the people out of Egypt was undone by their own king. It’s no wonder God said that asking for a king would only be trouble. The man in charge of these work forces was Jeroboam, but he eventually fled Israel. He then came back when Solomon’s son Rehoboam took over from his father.

This is where we pick up. Rehoboam is going to be king no matter what, but it seems as the people gather to pledge their alliance to the king they don’t want the work conditions to continue to be as harsh as they were under his father Solomon. Rehoboam takes advice from what seems like advisers from Solomon’s reign and then new advisers that have come up with Rehoboam. He decides on harsher conditions to force their loyalty rather than being compassionate. It doesn’t work out well for him and the only tribes left to him are Judah and Benjamin, and they become the southern kingdom of Judah. I believe what we talked about last week is exactly at play in this story as well. When David was at his best he was fully focused on God. Clearly Rehoboam is not focused on God but on his own power and selfish ambition.

Now that Rehoboam has made the choice of forced labor the other 10 tribes follow Jeroboam and form the northern kingdom of Israel. This coup or secession happens in a bloodless manner because God spoke to a man of God Rehoboam and Judah end up not going to war because it would only kill their own people that had just been united. So this is how the kingdom divides into two, after less than 80 years of being united. Judah follows the line of David and Israel follows whoever is able to stay in power.

You would think that if Rehoboam was so foolish as to want even harsher forced labor that at least if we take a look at Jeroboam things will be better. You’d be wrong. Where Rehoboam failed in his love and compassion for the people he was supposed to serve, Jeroboam failed at his understanding of what God wants for worship of God. Jeroboam also asks for advice and the solution they come up with for worship in the northern kingdom is to build two gold calfs and places them at two places of worship. Jeroboam and his advisers clearly forgot to listen to or read the stories of the wilderness journey of the Israelites.

As we see neither king seemed to pay any attention to God nor did either of them see themselves as a servant of the Lord like David had. Rehoboam was focused on showing just how powerful of a king he could be and maybe even more powerful than his father. Jeroboam was so worried that he might lose his newly acquired power that he built idols and worship sites for the people of Israel to worship at. If we continue to look throughout history I don’t think it takes a lot of work to see how the need to hold onto power or get power usually results in people ignoring the will of God.

Today we celebrate the Reformation and while Luther was not perfect by any means, he did do his best to help the church focus back on God and spend less time and money, power and buildings. The pope was so focused on the fact that his treasury was empty and he needed to finish building St. Peter’s Basilica, that he, like Rehoboam and Jeroboam, listened to his advisers and decided to sell indulgences. Indulgences under the guise of forgiveness of sins, was the path to pay for a monument to God. Martin Luther saw through the thin veil of the intention of the indulgences and other practices of the church at that time. Luther, unlike Rehoboam and Jeroboam, did his best at keeping the united. He did not want a divided church like the divided kingdom under these two selfish kings.

What Luther left us is a legacy of sharing God’s undeniable salvation by grace alone through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is what we are called to share and proclaim. We don’t proclaim a king like Rehoboam, Jeroboam, or any of the kings that have come after them in any part of the world. We proclaim Christ as king who was the ultimate servant of God, who always had his focus on God’s will and desire for this world.

We see that so clearly in our gospel reading today. Actually, it starts just before our scripture today when James and John want to sit at the right and left hand of God. If we look at this reading in light of what we’ve seen in the Old Testament, essentially what James and John want are to be the advisors of Jesus when he sits on his throne. If there is anything we’ve learned today it’s that the kings with the help of their advisors make really bad decisions. People tend to focus on power and glory instead of their relationship and need for God.

Which is why Jesus tells them that if they just look around at the rulers over them they’ll very easily see that these rulers hold that power and authority over them. Then he tells them that in order to follow Jesus they will not have power but they will have a servant heart, and not just them, but Jesus himself came not to be served but rather to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus takes this idea of what it means to be king. In fact he knows all the ways that king has been used and he and God are not impressed with it, Rehoboam and Jeroboam are no exceptions. So he takes this kingly idea and he not only returns it to what it was like when David was at his best, a servant of the Lord, but then he takes it even further to say that the only way to truly experience God’s love, grace, and forgiveness is for this king, this son of man to give his life to make it happen. That this king came not preserve his life and his power, but to give up his power and his life so that we may have life and have it abundantly. God did this so that we might know what true power looks like, and it looks like God’s only son on a cross, giving up his life so that we would not follow the folly of the kings of this world, but instead focus and rely on the true king, who is our Savior Jesus Christ, and through believing we would be called children of God and have life in his name. Amen.