In today’s first reading we are presented with the story of Naboth’s vineyard – an example of how when entitled leaders, and men in authority get drunken with wealth and power, they will end up committing shameless acts before God where trampling the innocent underfoot will seem to them a right, rather than a sin. But God sees all. The story of King David and Uriah come to mind as well, but how many examples do we have even in our own lives, and our own day?
The main characters in the story of Naboth’s vineyard are King Ahab and his Sidonian wife, Jezebel. We have seen both of them before and the general impression is that Ahab is weak, while his wife is corrupt and ruthless. We recall that it was she who introduced the worship of Baal, the false god, into Israel and had wanted to avenge the execution of the Baal priests by killing Elijah.
The story begins on a reasonable enough note. King Ahab asks Naboth to exchange his vineyard which adjoins the king’s property for another one or, alternatively, to be given its value in money. This property was in Jezreel, where Ahab had a second palace, in addition to his main one in Samaria. In other words we are talking about excesses, not necessities.
In spite of his position, the king could not confiscate land. The king’s power in Israel was limited by the Law, so Ahab was unable simply to take over privately held land and this causes him a crisis. What to do? The king who normally got whatever he wanted, and when he wanted is suddenly being denied?
Naboth refuses the deal set by the King because the ownership of the land was a sacred tradition handed down through generations. Naboth’s refusal to dispose of his land was based on the conviction that the land belonged to the Lord and that a perpetual lease had been given to each Israelite family. Ahab was once again, repeating the mistakes of the authority figures in the past who thought they were above God, and provoked him by their staunch pride and recklessness. Naboth’s vineyard was to be jealously preserved as the family’s permanent inheritance in the promised land. Is this not why we see continuous wars being waged in this very day over this very same land? This story of Naboth occurs well before the birth of Christ, and the land was already being held as sacred in those times.
In being denied, Ahab resorts to sulking while his wife, Jezebel, however, upon being told by him what had happened, was much more determined to acquire the vineyard herself, at whatever the cost.
“Get up,” she says, “eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”
She sends letters to all the leaders throughout the land, signing them with the name of the King, and commands all the people to fast given that Naboth had committed a grievious crimes, by commiting treason against the king and blasphemy against God. Both false accusations carried the punishment of death by stoning. This drastic condemnation of one lowly man by Kingly decree should have raised many eyebrows.
It is an image which is taken up again by our Lord himself in the parable of the vineyard, and how it had been usurped by evil doers, but more poignantly, it is a prophecy of our Lord’s unjust trial which leads to the punishment of death by crucifixion on the false charges that he had cursed both God and Ceaser. Yet, God is witness to it all. Nothing escapes his perfect justice—and most especially the actions of those in authority who should have known better.
Back to the story of Naboth, it seems that the possessions of those condemned to death went to the king – Jezebel’s main intention for the whole charade.
It is possible that there may, in fact, have been some form of calamity at the time, such as a drought or famine, which gave Jezebel the excuse to get rid of Naboth. She wanted to create the impression that a disaster threatened the people, a disaster which would only be averted if they would humble themselves before the Lord and remove any person whose sin had brought God’s judgement on them.
We see what malicious conspiracies are conjured up by the wealthy, the powerful, and those inclined to evil, to deceive the masses and exploit the innocent.
Everything was done to the letter as Jezebel, in the name of the king, had ordered. The two witnesses gave their false testimony and Naboth was stoned outside Jezreel, as the law required (recall that Jesus, too, was brought outside the city for his execution). From references in the Second Book of Kings, it seems that Naboth was actually stoned on his own land and his sons were stoned with him. This eliminated the heirs who might make claim to the land, thus leaving it for the king to take over.
With the vineyard now ownerless, Jezebel told her husband, as king, to exercise his right and take it over for himself. The reading ends with Ahab going down to Naboth’s vineyard to take it over but, as we shall see in tomorrow’s reading, there is an unpleasant surprise in store for him.
Naboth displayed a courage which was heroic. Him cursing God was the furthest thing from the truth, for he actually preferred death to betraying the goodness of God who had blessed him and his family in such beautiful ways. In so doing, he lived the directions of Christ in today’s gospel which call for heroic virtue.
Today’s reading shows us that the justice of the world is often flawed, corrupt, and at best a poor substitute for the perfect justice of God. In today’s gospel, Jesus points out how their justice system had evolved to an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” precisely because even the true criminal was being punished beyond what was reasonable. Therefore, this was a law that had been stipulated in the old testament to actually protect the person who commits a crime from being punished more severely than what his actions deserved. So they created that rule: an eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
While Jesus acknowledges this rule, he nevertheless calls for a virtue beyond the demands of justice and the punishments one would incur when it comes to those who harm us in any way.
Jesus says to us that as children of God, we need to rise above the virtues and the justice of the world and begin to live in a way which reflects our faith in the presence of God in our lives, as opposed to those in power and authorities who abuse of their rights as if there was no God. We believe he exists, and we believe he has forgiven us our sins, which were infinite in nature, something we could never atone for through our own good merits, because it is not a man whom we offend by our actions when we sin, but God, a limitless and infinite being.
Yet, he forgave us. He did the unimaginable and gave his Son as a ransom to liberate us from sin which held us bound. Jesus says to us: now, YOU do the unimaginable and forgive someone who has deeply hurt you. God has been good to you when you offended him, now be good and generous to others who have offended you and unshackle them from the chains of their guilt and shame.
This is where the power in our forgiveness and treating the poor as we would Jesus, comes from: our faith that God is, and because he is, my life needs to reflect that.
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