Obadiah
Obadiah
A sermon by the Very Revd Nicholas Papadopulos
Sunday 1 September 2024
It’s not often that a preacher can include an exclusive preview in his – or her – sermon. But…
I spent last weekend not at Glyndebourne but at Greenbelt, the Christian festival which has for more than fifty years celebrated faith, activism, and the arts. One of the speakers was Richard Rohr, the American Franciscan whose books, podcasts and daily emails have for many years helped thousands of us follow in the way of Christ. Nowadays Rohr is too frail to travel, so hundreds of us gathered in front of a massive screen wearing waterproofs and carrying umbrellas, while he addressed us via video link (and without a trace of smugness) from the desert heat of his base in New Mexico.
He spoke about the new book which will be published later this year, The Tears of Things. Hence the preview: in it Rohr reflects on the prophetic narratives of the Hebrew Bible, among them the prophetic narrative of Obadiah.
Standing on the waterlogged turf I could hardly believe my ears. Here was one of our age’s most remarkable spiritual leaders speaking about the very text which I had to speak about this morning. Now – had that text been a Gospel, or one of Paul’s epistles, or a substantial prophetic figure like Ezekiel then I would not have been surprised. But – Obadiah – really?
I could channel the Greenbelt vibe and ask you to raise a hand if you’ve read the book of Obadiah. But I won’t. Instead I’ll ‘fess up. I chose it for this series because I couldn’t remember ever reading it myself. I have no excuse: it’s the shortest book of the Hebrew Bible. It comes in at a mere 440 words. We know nothing about its author. Obadiah means ‘servant of the LORD’, so it may be an individual’s name or a title that’s been ascribed to someone unknown. We know next to nothing about its date. But whatever the book lacks in length or in historical specificity it makes up for in violence. Its author has left us an excoriating 440-word diatribe against the Kingdom of Edom and its inhabitants.
Edom. You’ll remember that Esau and Jacob were the twin sons of Isaac. Esau emerged first, his body red and covered with hair. He grew to be a skilled hunter, a man of the field. Jacob emerged second, gripping his brother’s heel. He grew to be a quiet man, living in tents. The smoothness of Jacob’s skin perhaps presaged the smoothness of his character, for the story goes that, helped by their mother and by the unlikely scent of lentil stew, he cheated Esau of his birthright and of his father’s blessing.
Jacob and Esau become reconciled, but the bitter sibling rivalry which characterizes their early years later characterizes the relationship between the two kingdoms which the Biblical authors ascribe to their heirs and successors. In the case of Jacob, this was Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem; in the case of Esau, this was Edom, the territory surrounding Mount Seir, south of the Dead Sea.
Judah and Edom – the kingdoms of Jacob and Esau – have a history or war, occupation, and reprisal. And Obadiah, a partisan of Judah, writes with the wrath of a brother scorned. In the seven verses we have heard read he accuses the Edomites of slaughter and violence, of standing aside while Jerusalem is ransacked, of rejoicing over Judah’s ruin, of looting Judah’s goods, and of betraying its surviving citizens. It’s quite a charge sheet. Obadiah loathes Edom: he takes great pleasure in its approaching downfall, and event which, though him, the Lord prophesies: ‘as you have done, it shall be done to you’.
Its brevity and its vengeful character have meant that while it is part of the Biblical canon Obadiah is like an embarrassing cousin: part of the family, but mentioned rarely and certainly never invited to a party. You might just about hear Obadiah read if you turn up to Evening Prayer on the fourth day of October (should your church be using the Prayer Book Lectionary, which is unlikely). In one of the two one-volume commentaries on the Bible which sit on my shelves it merits three pages of comment; in the other, two; I have never heard a sermon on Obadiah, read an article on Obadiah, or seen a theological argument which turns on the interpretation of Obadiah.
Yet Richard Rohr chose to mention Obadiah in his address to Greenbelt, and in his forthcoming book, and he chose to categorize him not as a ‘false’ prophet, or a ‘bad’ prophet, or an ‘unhelpful’ prophet, to be disregarded; but as an ‘incomplete’ prophet, to be learned from. Incomplete because Obadiah starts angry, remains angry, and shows no sign of becoming other than angry. In this he differs – Rohr argues – from ‘complete’ prophets such as Isaiah or Amos. They too are angry. They too begin by calling down curses on different nations and different cities. But, unlike Obadiah, they don’t end there. And that’s because both Isaiah and Amos go on to describe encounters with God that take place despite their anger. Encounters which stop them in their tracks. Encounters which lead them beyond rage against the nations. Encounters which propel them towards a larger vision of God’s justice, God’s mercy, and God’s love.
It’s not, Rohr argues, that anger is wrong. It’s not: sometimes it’s necessary, and sometimes it’s good, but it’s not an end in itself, and if it’s all that we have then the consequences are catastrophic, as Obadiah himself bears witness. His prophecy ends with a vision of a world transformed, sure, but of a world transformed through conquest and genocide. The vision of Obadiah is a vision in which the house of Jacob burns the house of Esau; the vision of Obadiah is a vision in which there shall be no survivors of that house. Obadiah’s vision, Obadiah’s anger, offer us only self-righteous destruction. True, he closes with apparently eirenic words: ‘Those who go have been saved shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’S’. Those few words allow those one-volume commentaries assert rather lamely that in the end it is God who triumphs. The kingdom shall be the Lord’s – so that’s alright, then. But we must ask ourselves – at what cost? God triumphs, but how many burned cities, how many abandoned children, how many needless deaths…how many of any of these does it take to prove that God triumphs? If our Scripture sanctions suffering, sanctifies carnage, and spiritualizes killing, then those who follow the way of Christ cannot be reading it right. Which is why I’m looking forward to reading Rohr’s new book.
So- it’s the first day of September, we’re approaching the end of our summer series, and am I glad to have made an acquaintance of this embarrassing cousin? Yes. You see, if Rohr is right (and I think he probably is) then in Obadiah we see mirrored a stage of human growth and development – a stage in which many of us get stuck – the stage of moralizing and judging, of passion and rage – the fatal stage when we are possessed by the certitude that we are right; the stage when we must prevail. And some of us mistake our obsession for the will of God, and then we are downright dangerous.
If we don’t get beyond anger we are incomplete, and if we shut our ears to the call of God and close our eyes to the encounter with God then we will not get beyond it. Perhaps Obadiah is harmless enough, stuck in the latter pages of the Hebrew Bible, read by few and cared about by fewer. But you and me – that’s a different story. The Obadiah in each of has the power to unmake the world. Amen.