9th November 2025
Lest we forget...
Those of us who pray with the Lectio 365 app have been reflecting this week on a little known and rarely read section of the book of 2 Kings. The books of 1 and 2 Kings take the reader from the high point of the kingdom of Israel, the building and dedication of Solomon's magnificent temple, through decline and chaos under subsequent kings to the eventual trauma and disaster of exile. During the books we read the repeated refrain that a king "did evil in the eyes of the Lord" - pursuing idols in the form of wealth, sex and power, and ignoring God's commands to focus on justice for the poor, the oppressed and the foreigner in the land. There are a few good kings, but their reigns are too short, or they are too disempowered to make a real difference. And whilst prophets - Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah - steadfastly call the people and their rulers to return to God in repentance and faith, there are plenty of false prophets speaking a more popular message of straightforward victory. These historical events happened around 2,500 years ago, but the issues raised by the writers of these books are strikingly modern.
This Sunday is Remembrance Sunday, and it's a Sunday I always approach with deep ambivalence. It's all too easy for sections of the media to slip into a lazy nostalgia about Remembrance Sunday, to make it all about the heroism of "our boys", about a time when Britain was great, the Kingdom was united and life was simpler and more straightforward. A careful reading of 1 and 2 Kings should warn us against slipping into such thought patterns. It is clear from the biblical account that, even in the glory days of David and Solomon, the seeds of future decline were being sown. We cannot look back upon the events of two world wars without remembering the deeply ambivalent role of the British Empire - and the seeds of current wars that were sown as areas of the world that were not ours to command were carved up with scant awareness of the needs of indigenous peoples.
And yet, even in the chaos and decline provoked by the people's sin, the books of 1 and 2 Kings demonstrate hope in the steadfast faithfulness of God. In 2 Kings 13, following a devastating military defeat, King Jehoash (sometimes spelt Joash) visits the prophet Elisha. Elisha does not condemn Jehoash outright, nor does he prophesy doom. He invites Jehoash to see differently, to participate in God's desire for the people's flourishing. In a symbolic act, Elisha tells Jehoash to fire an arrow through an east-facing window, a sign that God will defeat the threat from the east, and stands with him, his hands over Jehoash's, in a gesture of solidarity. He then commands Jehoash to strike his remaining arrows repeatedly on the ground. In his desperation, Jehoash obeys - but he lacks the persistence and trust to continue. Elisha rebukes him for striking the ground only three times; Jehoash's lack of persistence means that Aram, the enemy, will remain only partially defeated.
If Remembrance Sunday has meaning in our troubled times, it must surely be in the call to persistence. We know that God's desire is for a just world, where all peoples can flourish in peace, free from war and oppression. During our Act of Remembrance, we will commit ourselves to continue to strike our arrows on the ground - to join in with God, through our prayers and through our works of justice and peace, as God continues to build his kingdom amidst the sorrows and sufferings of the world.
