Of altars and sacred stones and dispossession

“You must completely destroy all the places where
the nations you dispossess have served their gods…
you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred
stones…hack to bits the statues of their gods and
obliterate their names from that place.” –Deuteronomy 12:2-3

The Israelites were being sent by God to “dispossess” other nations of their lands and to dwell there.  But in this call, they were also being called to act as a kind of purifying agent.  They were called to go to this new land and tear down the altars, smash the sacred stones, hack to bits the statues and obliterate the names of these false gods from that place. To purify that place. 

            On a literal level this call horrifies our diversity sensitive ears. We shudder at the very idea of knocking down someone else’s gods.  Instead, in the name of sensitivity and diversity, we tend to look for ways to affirm and celebrate those beliefs and acknowledge their equality and validity. All in the name of avoiding conflict and promoting peaceful co-existence.  Anyway, who am I to knock over someone else’s idols and tear down their altars? What right do I have to tell someone else what to believe?

            And yes, there is some value in this attitude. Some value in acknowledging that we do not (personally or communally) possess a stranglehold on truth.  Plus, we can’t just walk into someone else’s home and start obliterating the names of their gods from the altars and stones and walls and poles of their home; not if we don’t want to start a war, at least.

            Clearly in the time of which Deuteronomy speaks that was literally a part of God’s plan. In this story, that was definitely included as part of the dispossessing and purifying plan God was laying before His people. 

            So, if we are not being called to actual war by this passage, what does it say to us today? What “land” are we called to dispossess? What altars and statues and sacred stones are we called to smash and what false gods are we called to obliterate?

            For me, the first thing to do with scripture is to accept that if it is the Word of God, then it truly does contain eternal truths.  And second, if God truly is love and truly loves each and every one of us, numbers even every hair on our heads, then I would tend accept that God is truly speaking to us through His word and He is truly speaking to each and every one of us.  And I would definitely take His words very personally.

            So, what do these words say to me –personally?  Well, I’ve been meditating on St. Joseph lately and so I return to that contemplation and see how these words help me understand Joseph or how Joseph’s example helps me understand better these words. 

            So, here goes: Joseph had a home, a career, a sense of place in his community, a reputation as an honorable and just man, and to that he had hopes for his new bride and coming life with Mary.  There was security and comfort and safety in this life, but God had something else in mind; a very different kind of life—the life of a refugee, of a step-father, of a cuckold even, --a life of complete self-surrrendering (it seems). Looking at it from my perspective, it looks like a life of letting go; letting go of personal dreams, letting go of career objectives and life goals. It looks like God is calling Joseph to dispossess himself of the lands of comfort and safety and independence and to obliterate any personal gods such as pleasure and security, and to put himself completely into God’s hands. Let go of those gods, smash them and hack them to bits and put your trust in Me.  I will bring you into a land of dependence, and vulnerability, a land that looks to the world like shame and foolishness, and you may not even live to see the fulfillment, to understand the reason (the point) for this life.  You will simply have to trust me… completely.  Will you let go of your gods, your altars, your sacred stones and come with me?

            So –where have I built altars to my personal gods of ego and pride and pleasure and safety and comfort? Where have I set up sacred stones to honor them?  What are the personal beliefs/desires/dreams that I hold sacred? Are there certain topics I simply won’t be challenged on? Politics? Money? Morality? Poetry? Art? Thin crust extra garlic pizza? Hmmm.

You see, for me, I don’t hear God talking about someone else and their false gods, their sacred stones… I hear Him talking to me.  About my gods...  I really do take His words very personally.

Consider the stubborness of Pharaoh

“Pharaoh sent urgently for Moses and Aaron and said:

I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you.

Now forgive my sin, I implore you, just this once, and entreat

The Lord your God to turn this deadly thing away from me.

When Moses left Pharaoh’s presence he prayed to the Lord,

 and the Lord changed the wind into a west wind, very strong,

which carried the locusts away and swept them into the Sea

of Reeds. There was not one locust left in the whole of Egypt.

But the Lord made Pharaoh stubborn, and he did not

let the Israelites go…”  --Exodus 10: 16-20

Boy this Bible reading is kind of tough stuff. I am working my way through Exodus now and coming to the very familiar story of Moses and Pharaoh, I was quite surprised to bump into this verse –a phrase repeated a few times in this story.  What does it mean?  Why would God make Pharaoh “stubborn?”  If, as we are told, God is love –how does making Pharaoh stubborn reveal God’s love?  It is easy to see how it plays out for the Hebrews who receive their freedom and 40 years of wandering.  But consider the stubborn Pharaoh (and all of Egypt); what does he receive? Boils, frogs, locust and the death of his first-born son.  Why does God make the Pharaoh stubborn?

If we assume that God doesn’t literally make Pharaoh stubborn, then we are still left with the question: Why is it in the story? Repeatedly? Starting with God’s assurance to Moses:

“I myself shall make Pharaoh stubborn…” (cf. 7:3)

Even if we assume this is just a story that is trying to explain how the Hebrew people came out of Egypt, we still have to wonder why the ancient author would have chosen to tell it in this way? What is the author telling us about God? And, what is the spiritual or moral lesson that is being imparted?  If Pharaoh is simply an allegorical figure (a symbol of enslavement to sin –for example), we still are left with the fact that God seems to willfully stop Pharaoh from changing his ways.  What does that mean?

To my 21^st century mind, it seems unfair of God to make Pharaoh stubborn. It seems unloving. And so, we might ask, what did it say to the ancient reader? Was there a lesson in Pharaoh’s stubbornness that transcended narrative logic? Or was it a lesson about God’s authority? Was it an assertion that God can make someone do something against their own best interest? Or was it a lesson about how God’s ways are not man’s ways?

I don’t know. But it is perplexing and seems to hold a paradox of some kind at its core. 

If we assume that Holy Scripture is Holy and truly the Word of God then the issue becomes even more complex.  Why would God say such things about Himself?  What is He trying to teach us about Himself and His ways…? And –of course—we may have to ask ourselves whether questions of fairness are meaningful when it comes to God.   And His ways.