This week's Lectionary reading from Isaiah is all about Plan A. It clearly states that God will provide for the needy and will handle the enemy. In fact, handle the enemy so handily that potential enemies will respect God's power and then leave God's people unscathed.
That was always the plan, you know ... that God would be the one to deal with the Israel's enemies. It was Plan A.
There was never a Plan B.
From the get go, God told the Israelites He would deliver them from Pharaoh, would "go before" them, would provide for their needs, would "drive out" the peoples living in the Promised Land so the Children of Israel could then occupy it. Over and over, God promised Plan A.
Of course, if you are any student of the Bible, you know things didn't turn out quite as planned. But who changed?
For some reason, we humans keep insisting there must be a Plan B ... the plan we come up with that is not God's plan. Why do we do that?
Jacob's descendants kept insisting they knew better than God; their Plan B. They kept returning to the worship of the Egyptian gods. [See this week’s Exodus passage] So, God kept reminding them that it was He who brought them out of Egypt. Then, they constantly complained because God's provision was not always self-evident. God reminded them, through Moses, that He would provide for them ... and then sent a daily sufficiency of quail and "manna." They complained when they became worried about water. They fought battles to take the Promised Land. They wanted a king of their own. It never seemed to end.
God used miraculous means to accomplish these things: divided a sea, dropped food from the sky, spilled a stream of water from a rock, sent a cloudy pillar to lead them by day and a fiery pillar to lead them by night. And yet, year by year, they moved further and further away from God's plan. Oh, God kept trying to move them back to Plan A, but the Israelites were resistant.
God kept trying to keep their hearts pointed at Him. When they went to battle without His approval, they lost. When their King disobeyed, God replaced that king with His own choice. Even God's prophets kept reminding them of Plan A: trust God for your needs and trust Him to handle your enemies.
When Jesus conducted His Earthly ministry, He, too, kept pointing them back to God's Plan A: love you enemies and pray for them, trust God with your concerns. [See this week's Philippians passage] Instead of filling our minds with things like revenge, He points us to the best thoughts; the kinds of thoughts we can think all day every day ... if we're not busy planning the downfall of our enemies!
And, as much as we might think we would be justified in doing so, we cannot point a finger at the Children of Israel. We, too, are trying to live our own "Plan B." And, there is something else we share with the Children of Israel.
Like them, we, too, can always choose to follow Plan A.
________________________
A version of this reflection appeared in prior years as “Plan A.”
_________________________
READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 23 (28) (October 15, 2017)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//
Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14
_________________________
Photo: Stephen Orr
No comments:
Post a Comment