Hezekiah's Shrug

Hezekiah was a panda.

Okay, not a real actual panda.

Hezekiah, a good king as kings go in Israel between David and the exile, was many things, but none of them was black and white and furry.

Endangered, though, yes,  Hezekiah had been very ill, sometime back in 2 Kings 20.  But he'd been healed by God, and quite apart from a fresh spring in his step, Hezekiah seemed to think he might be bulletproof.  A little while later in Isaiah 39 we find him showing off his wealth and armoury to envoys from Babylon, a bit pompous, a bit proud, a bit boastful.  With hindsight Hezekiah might not have done that, because Babylon were the very people who, a few years later, piled into Israel and took people off into exile and more or less ended Israel as an ancient nation, certainly as any kind of power.  

But he did it, like a man giving a shady stranger his PIN and mother's maiden name, like a man showing someone with a stripy top and a sack marked swag where the spare key is kept and the size of his plasma telly.  Whoops, as history might say.

And when Isaiah tells him off and passes on the news that God will make the land pay in generations to come for this act of hubris, Hezekiah fails to fall on his knees.  Instead he nods sagely, while thinking on the inside, "Well, at least it won't happen when I'm alive."

He's a panda.  Honestly, those pandas, do they know how much we dote on them, how iconic they are (literally for the World Wildlife Fund) for us in terms of conservation?  Do they think we show endless footage of other animals arriving at zoos?  They're on telly more than Kate Middleton or Alexander Armstrong.  And they're going extinct.  Humankind is putting rather disproportionate effort into encouraging them to reproduce, but will they do it?  

No.  They can't be… bothered.

This panda would rather ride a plastic horse.  Tsk.

They don't give a monkey's that one day they'll be extinct, probably for the same reason as Hezekiah isn't too fussed by the prospect of a future invasion of Israel by those Babylonians.  It won't happen in their lifetime.  Pandas are very very unlikely to go extinct in their own lifetime.  They have no thought for the rest of us and our grief once they've gone.  Ruddy selfish, those pandas.  Stop chewing the 'boo and start doing the do, Yin-Yang and Ju-Jitsu!

Pandas and Hezekiah.  Inconsiderate, see.

It's not as if the rest of us would ever doom future generations to rising tides and temperatures and global warming and things getting politically hot under the collar as wars are fought for water.  It's not as if we're living like there's no tomorrow and ironically making sure that at some point there really will be no tomorrow.  Is it?  Hang on, excuse me while I drive my Chelsea tractor down the corner shop…

Last time I preached on Isaiah 39 and Hezekiah's shrug (sounds like a fresh ailment!) I needed a counterpoint, a contrast, an example of someone who does the opposite, who eschews short-term comfort for long-term reward to someone else.  Surprisingly I chose Jesus.  In the garden.  With a crucifix.  Jesus, declining the short-term-ism of fleeing or calling down angels to save him from the Roman arrest and death.  Jesus, making the future better by bearing the brunt of things today.

A Gallic shrug, yesterday.

And then of course I expanded onto medieval cathedral architects and builders, those people who designed and constructed and carved… but whose cathedrals were so long in the making that they knew they'd never see the finished product.  And they put their shoulders to the wheel nonetheless.  No Hezekiah's shrug for them.  They went to their graves knowing that the benefit of their work would be seen by future generations.

Jesus bled for people that hadn't even been born yet.

Those builders sweated for people who weren't even a twinkle in their father's eye.

And neither Jesus nor the hod carriers had any guarantee that people would look back with any gratitude.  Not so much as a jot.  But they seem to have believed that shoulders weren't for shrugging but for bearing bricks and sins.  And probably having someone kneel on them as he hammered those nails home.

And us?  Psalm 78 invites us to tell the next generation the wonderful works of God.  We can be very good at watching things go to hell in a handbasket (although other means of transport are available), very good at bemoaning and bewailing all sorts of stuff.  It's time to be better in the present and sow some seeds to make a better future, both in mission and emissions, for the whole world and for the soul world.

What can you do?  My film club twinned our toilet six times with villages in the developing world.  My friend took up buying Fair Trade wherever she could for Lent.  I'm going to keep on telling schoolchildren about Jesus.  Don't shrug… shoulder the responsibility… enjoy the possibilities…

Thank you and goodnight.