Today’s Scripture Reading (June 1,
2013): 1 Kings 22
There is an
old episode of M*A*S*H where Potter and Hawkeye are called out to a small
combat hospital at the front. With bombs and shells falling all around them,
their task is to put the wounded back together long enough to get them to a
hospital. After completing their task, they were making their way back to the
4077 when all in a sudden the bombs start exploding all around them once more. Now,
it probably didn’t help that the two homeward doctors had also discovered that
Klinger had remembered to pack some beverages for the ride back and both of the
men were now drunk. But at the right moment the doctors find a foxhole and jump
in. And then begins a conversation over the use of guns. Potter is adamant.
They have side arms with them, and the guns are meant to be used. But Hawkeye
disagrees. His memorable statement is that he would heal their wounds, and he
would bind their wounds, but he would not inflict their wounds. Potter finally
convinces Hawkeye to simply discharge his weapon into the air and try to scare
the enemy off with the noise, and to that Hawkeye agrees. He pulls trigger on
his gun with the barrel pointed at the sky until he has no bullets left. No
harm done, either to the enemy or to Hawkeye’s ideals. Just six wasted bullets.
In the story
of this battle, it seems clear that Ahab is the target of the enemy. And so
when the enemy sees a man dressed as a king, it is natural that they would
think that that king would be Ahab. But when they take a closer look, they
realize that it is not Ahab. It is still a king – in this case it is the King
of Judah - but in the heat of the battle it seems that the king of Judah is not
worth an arrow.
And yet,
even though the soldiers of the attacking army have been commanded to fight
only against Ahab, someone fires an arrow anyway. This arrow is the counterpart
of Hawkeye’s bullets. It is fired without purpose and without a target. It is
like someone had the arrow loaded into the bow and just decides to loose the
arrow rather than release the pressure of the bow and put the arrow down. The arrow
is wasted. It has no chance of doing any damage, except that it does. Somehow that wasted arrow finds the one spot
on Ahab’s armor that is vulnerable to attack.
Throughout history,
people have tried to put a name to the soldier that fired the fateful arrow. But
in so many ways that just seems to defeat the point of the story. Ahab’s death
is not brought on by a skilled warrior and it is not the result of a cleverly
designed attack. Ahab would be killed by a wasted arrow and a warrior too lazy
to not to let the arrow fly. Ahab’s life ends in such a way that it could only
be called an act of God – and
in fact it is an act of the God that Ahab had
denied throughout the length of his life.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Kings
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