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Wednesday, 17 December 2008 22:41 |
I am both inspired and troubled by the book of Joshua. On the one hand God’s promise and presence in the story of Joshua give me courage, as they must have encouraged the original hearers of the story, to face the challenges of faith and life. On the other hand, I am deeply troubled by the whole concept of divine initiative toward conquest. The divine dream of the Promised Land was realized through the blood of Canaan’s original residents. I am not satisfied by the argument that the Canaanites were bad people and deserved to be killed or displaced. I am further troubled by the way Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land became the justification for the United States’ western expansion in the 1800’s under the fictions of the New Israel and Manifest Destiny.
These issues illustrate the importance of careful exegesis of Biblical texts and faithful interpretation for our times. One value of Lutheran interpretation is to try to find the plain meaning of a text. We want to know how a reader or hearer in the time in which a text was written would have understood the text. I believe that the original hearers would not have taken issue with the divine initiative toward conquest. The goal of the Promised Land was central to the faith and life of the people of Israel. The people did not question the integrity of the conquest. Their issues were to trust completely in God’s promise, presence and power, and to carry out God’s laws, faithfully. In order to get at the intended meaning of the book of Joshua, therefore, I will set aside, for now, my concern about the belief in divine conquest and take it up after we have heard the powerful challenge and promise that God has to offer in this book
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The book of Joshua describes what happens when promise meets trust. God promised to Joshua God’s presence and power. God’s promise was also a command to keep God’s law as was consistent with God’s covenant with Moses and the people of Israel. Joshua lived out God’s promise and command as he conquered the people whom God had already given into his hands. Joshua responded to God’s promise and challenge with the unswerving obedience of a soldier and challenged the people of Israel to do the same.
The beginning of the book of Joshua shows God’s confident promise to Joshua. The promise comes from God. “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I promised to Moses.” (Joshua 1:3) What I find fascinating, here, is the wonderful juxtaposition of verb tenses regarding time in this promise. “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread…” The verb is in future tense. Joshua has not yet taken a step. But the promise is expressed in past tense, as though it has already been fulfilled. “…I have given you.” Joshua has not yet put his foot forward. He has not yet begun to fight, but God has already declared the battle won. God has already accomplished the goal even though it has not yet been literally realized. This does not mean that Joshua can just sit back enjoy God’s victory. Joshua has to live into the promise he has already been given by faith. Dorothy Day said, “Pray as though everything depended on God, then work as though everything depended on you.” This is a theme that is consistent with both Jewish and Christian faith. We live by promise. We act in the present as faithfully as we can to God’s Word, trusting in God’s promise. We believe so strongly in the promise that it is as though God’s promise has already been realized, even though we can see evidence that it has not been fulfilled and that there is much work to do.
God promised Joshua God’s presence and power. “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5) This promise is grounded in God’s faithfulness in the past and continues with absolute certainty into the future. No explanation is needed. I only hope that the reader will hear and take to heart this sure promise of God. “I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you.” How might our faltering lives be held up by this sure and certain promise? How might our anxious and worried hearts be strengthened by God’s presence and power? How might we be moved to courageous action were we to take these promises to heart and live them, even when we are afraid? I think of the stuttering characters written and played by Woody Allen in his comedies. I think of the bumbling cowardly deputy sheriff Barney Fife from the Andy Griffith show. How might these modern anti-heroes be changed into the likes of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood by the power of God’s promise and presence? (Well, that’s nice rhetoric, but there are issues with John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, too. Oh, well, I hope you get the point.) The point is that God’s promises to Joshua apply to us as well. God is with you. God will not fail or forsake you. We can live into those promises.
In fact, God’s promise comes to Joshua, (and to us), also, as a command. God says, “Be strong and courageous.” This is more than encouragement. This is God’s command for Joshua and the reader as well. How can we be strong and courageous? Aren’t those the qualities of heroes? Surely, God does not expect so much of ordinary people like you and me. But God’s command is given with the strength to become what God would have us to be. God tells Joshua twice to be strong and courageous, and each time, God offers an explanation or a reason for this strength and courage. “Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.” (Joshua 1:7) In other words, be strong and courageous for the sake of the promise. We many not have much confidence in ourselves, but we can trust God’s promises. Then God says it again, even more emphatically, “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:7) Be strong and courageous on account of the Law. We find strength and courage when we stay focused on God’s will and way for our lives. I think of the eleventh step in Alcoholics Anonymous, to seek only God’s will and the power to carry it out. If this is our focus, than we have no room for fear, doubt or despair.
Joshua responded to God’s promise and command with absolute faith. It appears that being strong and courageous was already part of Joshua’s character. I’m not sure he needed to be told any of this. But these are also qualities that people of faith are called to have whether they possess such courage by nature or not.
The rest of the book of Joshua describes his military leadership and the Israelites’ conquest in a variety of ways of various towns and peoples in the land of Canaan.
I must confess a secret fascination with the brilliant strategies of war described in the book of Joshua, and an admiration not only for Joshua’s unswerving faith but also his military cunning. I would not be surprised if military commanders still study Joshua’s wisdom in picking out the most alert soldiers as they drank from the stream, creating a special ops force and using guerilla warfare against his enemies. Generals might still admire how he skillfully drew out his opponents from their walled cities while the rest of the army entered the city and set it on fire. There is the familiar theme of sending out spies who took shelter in the red-light district of town, and the mysterious tactic of marching around the town of Jericho, blowing trumpets and shouting down the walls. My Oxford NRSV notes state, “the account of the fall of Jericho is more ritually symbolic than military in its significance.” I’m sure the Pentagon is still trying to figure that one out in some secret lab in New Mexico, but the Jazz cats of the 1940’s knew the secret all along. Listen to Dizzy Gillespie bring down the house. Blow, man, blow!
If a hippie-hearted pastor with pacifist tendencies like me can be fascinated by the machines and strategies of battle, than I wonder how we will ever get to that place prophesied by Ezekiel in which we will study war no more. “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” --John Lennon
God promised God’s presence and power. Joshua responded with courage and faith. He lived into the promise. The book of Joshua shows the fulfillment of God’s promise to bring the people into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Joshua trusted God. As the people took possession of the land, Joshua called them to do the same, to trust in God and keep the covenant laws. “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Joshua said, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15). This is Joshua’s confirmation of the promise that God gave Joshua in the beginning. The people responded, “We will also serve the Lord, for he is our God.” (Joshua 24:18) They repeated that promise several times in what appears to be a ritual renewal of the covenant. Yet keeping this promise seems to describe the drama of Israel, and of humanity.
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While the book of Joshua is a powerful assertion of God’s promise of presence and power, and a heroic account of a person’s cunning, courage and unswerving trust in God, and though the book of Joshua shows God’s fulfillment for the people of Israel of attaining the Promised land, it raises troubling questions about the nature of God as a Warrior and the role of God in the movements of history. The image of God as warrior was prevalent in ancient times, especially as various tribes and lands each believed in their own gods whom they believed contested against that of the other during battle. Such primitive notions fall away, except in football locker rooms, when we understand one God of all tribes, nations and worlds. The belief that God is involved in the great and small movements of history is prevalent throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament and I generally share that belief. But I don’t imagine that human beings with our very limited view of ourselves and of the workings of God in history can presume to know or claim God’s will or even approval in matters of war and conquest. Humans are too apt to justify our oppression, war and cruelty when we feel it is to our advantage, and often blind to our own injustice, prejudice and abuse of power.
The idea of Manifest destiny in American history proves to be a cautionary tale.
“Manifest destiny was a term used to describe the belief in the 1840’s in the inevitable territorial expansion of the United States. People who believed in manifest destiny maintained that the United States should rule all North America because of U.S. economic and political superiority, because the U.S. population was growing rapidly, and because it was God’s will that the United States should do so. The phrase was first used in 1845 by John O’Sullivan in an article on the annexation of Texas. The spirit of manifest destiny was revived at the end of the 1800’s, during and after the Spanish-American War.” World Book Encyclopedia 2008
“We Americans,” wrote Herman Melville, “are the peculiar chosen people—the Israel of our time.” www.digitalhistory.uh.edu
Mintz, S. (2007). Digital History. Westward Expansion, Manifest Destiny Period:1800-1860. Retrieved 11/25/2008 fromhttp://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display_printable.cfm?HHID=311
The World Book Encyclopedia mentions U.S. economic and political superiority and other factors which certainly made western expansion possible and seemingly inevitable. But when the movements of power and influence translated into the myth of Manifest destiny, this nation created a moral framework to justify war with Mexico and undeclared war, oppression and displacement of Native Americans.
“Aggressive nationalists invoked the idea to justify Indian removal, war with Mexico, and American expansion into Cuba and Central America. More positively, the idea of manifest destiny inspired missionaries, farmers, and pioneers, who dreamed only of transforming plains and fertile valleys into farms and small towns.”
www.digitalhistory.uh.edu
Mintz, S. (2007). Digital History. Westward Expansion, Manifest Destiny Period:1800-1860. Retrieved 11/25/2008 fromhttp://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display_printable.cfm?HHID=311
The more recent history of Manifest destiny causes me to cast a questioning eye on the Biblical assumption of the Promised Land. And likewise, the story of the Promised Land translated into American History makes me want to caution us Christians from arbitrarily juxtaposing Biblical history and statements of faith uncritically upon our contemporary life. Neither Canaanites nor Native American’s deserved to die so that others could enjoy the Promised Land or Manifest destiny.
In a documentary I saw some years ago about peace in the Middle East, Israeli citizens and Palestinians living in Israel gathered for a week of heart-to-heart conversations. One Israeli commented at the end of the dialogues, “I have always believed that God gave this land to the Jews. I just didn’t know that God gave this land to others as well.”
I hope that reading the book of Joshua will help us to know with absolute confidence God’s promise, presence and power in our lives. “I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you.” I hope that like Joshua we will respond with faith. I hope that we will not presume to understand God’s hand in the great movements of history nor assume that God is on our side. With confidence that every place our foot will tread, God has already given us, may we seek to love and serve God and neighbor, standing against hatred and oppression. I hope that we will respond with Joshua, “We will also serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
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