Today’s Scripture Reading (May 24,
2013): 1 Kings 14
The cry of
the heart of every child that I know is this – if all my friends are doing it,
why can’t I. Now, I think even as kids we understood that the statement itself
was an exaggeration – not all of our friends were doing it. And I think that
deep down we also understood that some of our friends were even lying. But that
did not stop us from making the assertion – all of my friends. And so, years
later, I can still quote my mom’s response – if all of your friends were going
to jump off of the bridge, would you like to jump off as well. I never said it,
but I know the response that was in my head wanting to come out of my mouth –
no mom that is stupid – and maybe more to the point, I don’t want to jump off a
bridge.
Peer
pressure is an amazing thing. If all of our friends are doing something, we
somehow felt that it was our right to do the same thing – especially if it was
something that we wanted to do. When I was in grade six, the local professional
football team (the North American version of the game – not soccer or futball)
won the league championship. The next day the city’s mayor came out on the
radio and cancelled school for that Wednesday so that the kids of the town
could show up at the local hockey arena and welcome the football team home. But
almost immediately the Chairman of the local School Board and overturned the
Mayor’s decision saying that the Mayor had no right to cancel school. The result
was confusion. With the Wisdom of Solomon, the schools decided to remain open,
but not to take attendance. And so the choice of what to do was left in the
hands of the students and their parents. I had friends that fell into three
basic categories. Some of my friends were going to school that afternoon; their
parents were not going to allow the skipping of school even under these
circumstances. Some of my friends (actually a rather small group) were planning
to take the bus downtown to the arena and welcome the football team. And
another group were simply planning to take the afternoon off. I knew about all
three groups, but I also knew exactly what I wanted to do – I wanted to go and
yell and scream for the football team – so I informed my mom that “all my
friends were going.”
Jeroboam is
afraid that if he allows the people of the Northern Kingdom to go to the temple
in Jerusalem to worship God, then they will fall victim to the propaganda of
the Southern Kingdom. So he builds two calves and tells the nation that this is
the God that had brought them out of Egypt – come and worship them. And on some
level I think that we totally understand that emotion. But the question that we
need to ask is what Rehoboam’s excuse was? Why did he follow Jeroboam’s example
and begin to set up other gods. Some experts want to blame Solomon, his dad,
and the way that he was raised. But from what we know of Rehoboam, maybe a more
logical explanation is simply that he followed the actions of his friends. They
were planning to jump of the bridge, so Rehoboam would jump as well.
But maybe on
the most basic level, Rehoboam simply did what he wanted to do – he followed
the desires of his heart. And if we are not careful (and disciplined) the
desires of our hearts will always present us with the opportunity for sin. On
that day in Grade six, it ended up that all of my friends turned into one other
guy that I barely knew. But together we caught a bus and went to cheer our
football team home – not really because all of my friends were doing it – but
because it was the thing that I wanted to do.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings
15
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