Psalm 47; Isaiah 51:1-3; Matthew 11:20-24
Wednesday 1 July - Rev. Jerry Eve
Today in our New Testament reading we have three towns whose fate in Old Testament times has been one of destruction, contrasted with three in New Testament times who have refused to support Jesus and his disciples. The story we have in Matthew has a parallel in Luke 10:13-15. In both gospels, our story follows that of the sending out of the twelve disciples. Their mission is said to be one of preaching and healing, but it would also have been to build support. They are told by Jesus that, ‘wherever people don’t welcome you, shake the dust off your feet as a warning to them.’
The three Old Testament towns are Sodom, Tyre and Sidon. Sodom is destroyed when at Genesis 19, ‘The Lord rained burning sulphur on the city.’ And Tyre and Sidon are destroyed by the Babylonians. Just one the references we have to this can be found at Isaiah 23 where we read, ‘Howl with grief . . . Tyre has been destroyed . . . City of Sidon, you are disgraced.’
The three New Testament towns are Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. They were all located in Galilee, Capernaum on the northern shore of the lake, Chorazin about two and a half miles away on a hill overlooking the lake, and Bethsaida – well, we’re not exactly sure where Bethsaida was, but must presume that it, like Capernaum, was a fishing village. It’s where one of the disciples, Philip, was from (his home town), and where our own Andrew and his brother Peter lived (see John 1:44).
Chorazin is only mentioned twice in the Bible, and both times in connection with this story of the unbelieving towns. Capernaum is mentioned quite a number of times. It was where Jesus once lived (see Matthew 4:13). And Bethsaida was where the disciples were heading when Jesus walked on water, where the feeding of the five thousand took place, and where Jesus healed a blind man. Interestingly, after he does this he tells the man not to go back into the village, and it may be that this was because he felt he couldn’t trust the villagers there not to interrogate the man as a spy and then contact the authorities.
A short time afterwards, a Samaritan village refuses to receive Jesus and his disciples because of what they are up to i.e. heading for Jerusalem. And, to be honest, it is difficult not to sympathise with the villagers there, as we know from far more recent history how armies of occupation will quite often destroy whole villages who are rumoured to harbour or lend support to rebels.
Let us pray (and in lieu of a prayer, we’ve got two different translations of a poem by the revered Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (1889 – 1966). Anna lived through turbulent times in her native land, but while others left (and didn’t look back), Anna stayed in Russia (where at times she must have felt like a pillar of salt). It’s informative, I think, to compare translations)
Lot's Wife
The just man followed then his angel guide
Where he strode on the black highway, hulking and bright;
But a wild grief in his wife's bosom cried,
Look back, it is not too late for a last sight
Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square
Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,
And the tall house with empty windows where
You loved your husband and your babes were born.
She turned, and looking on the bitter view
Her eyes were welded shut by mortal pain;
Into transparent salt her body grew,
And her quick feet were rooted in the plain.
Who would waste tears upon her? Is she not
The least of our losses, this unhappy wife?
Yet in my heart she will not be forgot
Who, for a single glance, gave up her life.
(trans. Richard Wilbur)
Lot's Wife
And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.
(trans. Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward)