He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. – 2 Chronicles 14:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 21, 2019): 2 Chronicles 14

Early twentieth-century novelist Marcel Proust argues that “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” I just had breakfast with some friends, and as we closed our dialogue one of the group commented: “Thing sure aren’t the way that they used to be.” It is a valid comment. I am typing on a computer instead of a typewriter, I carry my phone in my pocket, my car has a camera built into it to show me what it is that is sitting behind me, and my vehicle plays the music that I want off of my phone and begins playing that music soon after I enter the car without me needing to do anything. My TV has over a hundred channels (I remember when there was only three), but I rarely watch live presentations preferring to view digitally saved or on-demand shows more than sitting down at a specific time so that I wouldn’t miss my program. However, none of this was what my friend meant. He meant that things used to be better. And that I am not convinced is true.

Proust is right; we remember things differently. The good times are a lot better in our memories than they were at the time that we lived them. And in the same way, the bad moments are often remembered to be a lot worse than they were. Seldom do we remember events the way that they really happened. There are discrepancies in what we remember, and what we remember is just a version of what was.

There is no doubt that Asa was a good king. Asa was more like his ancestor David than his father Abijah had ever tried to be. But the question is this: How good was Asa really? There are essentially two biblical sources that give us the story of this good King. One is the Book of Kings, whose stories were probably gathered starting somewhere around 620 B.C.E. with the history’s final form being ready somewhere around 550 B.C.E. The second document is Chronicles which is a little later history, gathered and produced somewhere between 400 and 250 B.C.E., but most likely around 300 B.C.E. or around two and a half centuries after the first history. And the agreement between the two accounts is remarkable, but with Asa there is a small disagreement, especially concerning the high places. The high places were personal places of worship that were, throughout the history of Israel, hard to find and remove. Several good kings either did not or were not able to remove the high places. The Book of Chronicles says that Asa accomplished this task, making him even more like his ancestor David. But the author of Kings is not quite sure. Even though Asa did a lot of amazing things during his life in support of God, the author of Kings states that he struggled with the removal of the High Places. “Although he did not remove the high places, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life” (1 Kings 15:14).

Did Asa remove the high places? The best that we can say is that that is a definite maybe. Remembrance of things past is not necessarily remembering things as they were. But whether Asa was able to remove the high places or not, there is no doubt that this was a good king who wanted to serve his God to the best of his ability. And God never asks of us anything more.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 16