If Nahum can believe God is just and good, he’s my favorite prophet.

Nahum 1:2-11

October 18, 2009

Bad memories

Perhaps today’s sermon title brings to your mind some personal experiences and stories.  It does for me.

My elementary school years I attended a boarding school, far away from my parents.  I don’t remember a lot of details, but I remember a kid named Frankie who was a bully.  And I remember my older brother telling Frankie, “I can beat up Bobby if I want to, but don’t you touch him.” 

“Uncle Jim” was my boarding parent in the later elementary years.  He was British and very strict.  He kept control by bullying, and many of the boys would receive beatings on their legs with flexible rods we called “teddy canes.”

During my middle school and high school years, we were back in the U.S.  The early 70s was a time of racial tension all across the South, and Portsmouth, Virginia was one of the hot spots.  My brother lost an eye in an unprovoked, racially-based act of violence.  As a slowly developing, non-athletic, underperforming white kid I remember several instances of intimidation.

Bullying, though, is not just for kids.  It happens in workplaces and families and communities and volunteer organizations and churches.  Several years ago, I was bullied by those in authority in my denomination who threatened my professional standing and reputation.

What about you?  Any memories or current experiences of bullying? 

I have to admit that none of my experiences of being bullied comes close to what the prophet Nahum was dealing with.  Mine were short-lived, and I always had something else in life to compensate for the bad stuff.  Nahum addresses bullying which extends across generations, with no compensating factors, and no hope of improvement.

Uphill climb to favorite status

This fall at Corinth, we are looking one by one at twelve little books of the Bible tucked in the back of what we call the Old Testament.   Generally called the “minor prophets” (because of their length), I have determined each week to invest enough of myself in the prophet of the week that it becomes my favorite.  Nahum made it tough.

Nahum made it tough to be the favorite because he’s not a storyteller.  People like stories.  We warm up to stories.  Nahum tells no stories.  Nothing about himself except his name and his hometown, and 2700 years after he wrote those pieces of information don’t tell us much.

If we don’t have stories, we at least like word pictures and analogies.  Nahum made it tough because the word pictures and analogies he does use are harsh.   “But I, the LORD All-Powerful, am now your enemy….I will cover you with garbage, treat you like trash, and rub you in the dirt” (3:5-6, CEV).  As Neil Forrest said this week, Nahum is not someone you would invite to your wedding or your birthday party.

Nahum made it tough to be the favorite because he seems a little schizophrenic in his writing.  Emotionally, how do you go from 1:6, “His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him” to 1:7, “The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble”?  His most famous one-liner, quoted by the Apostle Paul in Romans 10:15, is about the beautiful feet of a person who brings good news (1:15).  But that hardly seems a description of Nahum.

Nahum made it tough to be the favorite because he’s preaching about the same city, Nineveh, that Jonah preached to a century earlier.  But Jonah, albeit reluctantly, is about giving people a chance to turn over a new leaf.  Nahum says, “no second chances” (1:9, Message).

But mostly, Nahum made it tough because he is Exhibit A of why many church people since the time of Marcion the heretic in the second century after Christ have been saying, “I don’t like the Old Testament God.  He’s too mean and vengeful.  I like the New Testament God of love.”  Even if we have to deal with a balanced biblical image that God is both holy and loving, wrathful and merciful – the guy who preaches the a punitive God has a hard sell if he’s going to become the favorite.  Even for a week.

Nahum became my favorite this week.  It happened Monday night.

Assyria the bully

I led three Bible study groups this week on the book of Nahum.  Here’s a plug for Bible study groups at Corinth.  In addition to Sunday School, we have several groups that meet through the week.  What happens in these groups is Bible study, but more than that, it’s community, relationships, support.  They have different formats and include different demographics, but several of them study whatever Scripture text will be the focus of the following Sunday’s sermon.

Some of these groups rotate leaders, and some don’t meet weekly, but this week led three different discussion groups.  I worked on my preparation on Monday night, and it was interesting to take each group through the same process I went through as I studied.  For most if not all participants in the group, Nahum went from being an angry spokesperson for an uncomfortable God to being someone worthy of our attention, if not the favorite minor prophet.

Three factors altered my thinking about Nahum.

First, his audience.  In the language of the sermon title, Nahum is not writing to the bully.  He is writing to and for the bullied.  It puzzled me at first that some commentators described Nahum as a book of hope and promise.  Not if you’re a Ninevite!  But it’s doubtful anyone in Nineveh ever read or even heard about Nahum’s prophecies.  He was writing to and for the benefit of their actual and potential victims – the nation of Judah.

Second, his message.  In a sense, you have to step back from Nahum’s specific words and grasp his overall theme.  Nahum’s job is to answer the complaint that the world is unfair.  That bullies win, and are never held accountable.  It always seems like that in the moment.  But Nahum’s message was not about a moment.  It was about centuries of cruel domination by the Assyrian empire.  Think Hitler’s Holocaust stretched over 300 years.  Think three centuries of Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden as a dictator rather than a terrorist in hiding.  The message of Nahum is that justice does and will ultimately prevail.

Third, his context.  This was emotionally most powerful for me and for the Bible study participants.  Nahum was actually dealing with a situation worse than 9-11 or, dare I even say it, the Holocaust.  The Assyrian kingdom has a reputation in history for being the cruelest empire in the history of the world.  Over a period of several hundred years, its kings bragged of taking cutting off the noses and lips of their vanquished foes, of piling up heaps of severed ears, of skinning alive enemy soldiers and stretching out their skins on the city wall, of dragging opposing kings behind their chariots through the city streets, of tearing limbs and tongues out of their enemies.  I’m sorry to offer you that graphic description in a Sunday sermon, but you have to understand Nahum’s context to grasp why he writes as he does.

In addition to their treatment of other nations in general, remember that Nahum is writing to the people of Judah.  They are what’s left of “God’s chosen people.”  Under David and Solomon about a thousand years before Christ, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had attained their peak of faithfulness to Yahweh, of expansion and security, and of wealth and prosperity.  When Solomon’s son took the throne, however, the nation fractured into two parts.  Things were never the same after that.  Israel and Judah declined in every sense of the word over the next four hundred years until both lost their independence and identity.

Those centuries of weakness paralleled the centuries of bullying by Israel’s neighbor to the northeast, Assyria.  Let me give you two of seven known instances.

An Assyrian king named Tiglath Peleser III (745-727) invaded Israel (2 Kings 15:19-20).  King Menahem of Israel knew that he could not resist militarily, and so, in order to escape torture and death, he agreed to pay Tiglath Peleser a thousand talents of silver.  It’s hard to know exactly how much money that was at this particular time, but by the time of Jesus a talent was equal to 10,000 days’ work for a common laborer.  A thousand talents would be a billion dollars.  That’s probably a little high.  In current commodity markets, a talent (90 pounds) at $17.50/ounce would be worth $25 million. 

What Tiglath Peleser demanded of Menahem was probably somewhere between those figures.  The king of Israel demanded 50 shekels of silver from every wealthy man in order to pay the ransom.  They were probably glad to do so, given Assyria’s reputation.

Fast forward about a generation.  Shalmaneser king of Assyria decided to put an end to the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital, Samaria.  Sweeping through the fields and small towns was hardly a challenge, but the fortified capital required patience for a long siege. Starving the city by cutting off its supply routes for three years, Shalmaneser put an end to Israel and deported its people to Israel.

He then turned his attention to Judah and again quickly occupied every part except the capital city.  Hezekiah king of Judah was a godly man and the city was spared through a miraculous intervention, but in the meantime Shalmaneser’s field commander bullied Judah’s king, his allies, and his God.  When one of Hezekiah’s commanders tried to negotiate in a trade language, the Assyrian commander responded in Hebrew, “I want your soldiers to understand that they will be eating their own excrement and drinking their own urine.”

There is a larger picture here, of course.  Israel and Judah have turned away from God.  The prophets place the blame for their national humiliation squarely on the shoulders of the kings and people who did not obey the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.”  The resulting moral dilemma is the question, “Why would God use a nation even more wicked than Israel to punish his people?”  That question is framed and answered by Habakkuk – next week’s “favorite prophet.”

While the prophets consistently condemn Israel and Judah for their unfaithfulness, Nahum is the best example of a prophet who insists that the bully, in this case Assyria, will face justice.

Bullies in context

This is Nahum’s message about bullies.  They are going down.  They seem invincible.  They feel high and mighty.  They use their power to terrorize and intimidate.  But there is justice in the world because there is God.  Against present appearance and experience, they will be held accountable.  Name an international bully anywhere on the pages of history who didn’t ultimately demonstrate this truth – Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein.  During the peak of their power it looks like their bullying is permanent, but it never is.  Never.  Ever.  God is just.

Here’s how Eugene Peterson introduces Nahum in The Message –

The stage of history is large.  Larger-than-life figures appear on this stage from time to time, swaggering about, brandishing weapons and money, terrorizing and bullying.  These figures are not, as they suppose themselves to be, at the center of the stage – not, in fact, anywhere near the center.  But they make a lot of noise and are able to call attention to themselves. …From time to time, God assigns someone to pay attention to one or other of these persons or nations or movements just long enough to get the rest of us to quit paying so much attention to them and get back to the main action: God.  Nahum drew that assignment in the seventh century B.C.

Nahum’s message about bullies is to keep them in that context.  That’s why Nahum is really a book about hope.  It’s not about hope for Nineveh.  It is about hope for Israel.

When Nahum seems schizophrenic, it’s because in one line he speaks of God’s wrath toward Assyria so that in the next he can assure Judah they are not forgotten.  God may be “slow to anger” (1:3), but he is “a jealous and avenging God” (1:2). “With an overwhelming flood he will make an end of Nineveh” (1:8).  They will not stand.

Enduring message

So what does Nahum have to do with us?  How does he tell us to respond to bullying?

I wish he would tell us what types and levels of bullying need action.  I wish he would tell us when and how to intervene.  He doesn’t.  If I tried to offer steps 1-2-3 to correct bullying whenever it occurs, it would be Bob’s advice, not Nahum’s.  Believe me, I don’t always know.

What I do know is that we are called not to think like the world.  The world’s response usually falls into the animal instincts – “fight or flight.”  When we teach our children, or believe ourselves, that the only two options are to hit back where it hurts or run the other way, we are thinking like the world.

We are called to live differently, to think differently.  What would be some distinctively Christian responses to bullying in its various forms?

Humility. “There but for the grace of God go I” is always a necessary perspective when the sins of others – toward us or not – become evident.   

Transformation.  Jonah’s mission to Nineveh reminds us that God longs for repentance.  What actions and prayers of mine toward the offender indicate that I share God’s heart?

Patience.  Usually we are in a much greater hurry than God.  He is “slow to anger,” while we want things solved yesterday.  There is a time and place for action, but sometimes it’s not right now.

Hope.  God is just, and the promise of Nahum is that a day of complete accountability will come for every person and even every nation.

Trust. Nahum’s message is a reminder that even when it doesn’t look like it or feel like it, “The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble.  He cares for those who trust in him.”

If in his circumstances he can say that and mean it, he’s my favorite prophet.

Amen.