Scripture: 2 Kings 2:23-25
He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small
boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go away, baldhead! Go away,
baldhead!” When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the
Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and then returned to Samaria.
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It can be said, without the slightest hint of overstatement, that perhaps the most powerful, damaging weapon in the human arsenal, is the little white lie.
The self-justified lie.
The mistruth we tell, knowing that it’s not exactly correct, but convinced that it’s so small, so inconsequential, that it doesn’t really matter at all.
Those things we tell others, that we tell ourselves, to justify ourselves. The things we say to make it so that others see us in a flattering light, full aware of the rationale and complete reasons behind the things we do, even when those things weren’t…actually…all that great to begin with.
This is something we’re all guilty of, me probably more than most. This pressing need to self-justify, to explain ourselves, to have it be heard that we are reasonable people doing reasonable things, despite all evidence to the contrary; this is a human force to be reckoned with. Probably the strongest single element of the human psyche.
When we want to make ourselves, our loved ones, our celebrities or our heroes seem appropriately sympathetic, we have this ability to twist reality just so, to take the fundamental truths of a situation and twist them, just a little bit, so that we come out on top.
Now you may be wondering what that has to do with bears? In fact, I’m betting that, if you have ever heard today’s scripture passage, it was probably shown to you as something comedic; an example of some of the weirder stuff buried in the back corners of the Bible. I know I have often used it in this exact way; as a humorous example of that one time that God gave a prophet the ability to summon bears at people who annoyed him.
It’s funny because it’s so over-the-top, right?
Shortly after witnessing his mentor Elijah ascend to heaven bodily in a fiery chariot Elisha, having now taken the mantle of prophet on himself, has been spending time in Bethel.
And on his way out of the city, he finds himself followed by a crowd of young boys who, in that unique way that young boys often have, manage to identify his greatest insecurity and mock him relentlessly for it.
Then..you just get this mental image of Elisha fuming at these kids who’d been insulting him, turning towards them like Halle Berry’s “Storm” in that first X-Men movie, eyes glowing white with mystical power as he utters a curse in the name of Almighty God.
And then…SUDDENLY BEARS!
And if you read the passage cold, without any real knowledge of the language or culture or anything, it seems that Elisha’s response to these kids’ attacks on his follicular fortitude is not only an insane overreaction, but also a really terrifying indication of what God empowers those who speak God’s word to do.
I mean…did you realize that prophets could summon bear armies out of nowhere?
…Does this mean that I can summon a bear army?
Well, having had any number of times in life where I have had my insecurities pointed out to me in blunt, even hurtful ways, I’m pretty sure if I could spontaneously summon bear armies, I probably would have done it by accident at least once already. So…probably not.
Still though…that’s a pretty nuts thing for a man of God to do, right? To call upon the power of Almighty God, spawn a couple of she-bears just to absolutely murder almost 4 dozen prepubescent terrors? I mean…if God is Love and all that…how in the hell does this track?
But that’s where that little white lie comes in, that misdirect; that little twist meant to give cover for our Biblical hero so that we can go on thinking of him the way we all truly think of ourselves; blameless.
You see, it all rests on that one line: “he cursed them in the name of the Lord.’
We hear that word “curse” and our mind fills with images of the mystical; Kathryn Hahn shrouded in purple smoke, strung up on invisible guide wires and all that. And with that one word, we begin to see the narrative; Elisha called down a magical curse, drew upon the ineffable power of God, and caused the bears to attack, showcasing just why you don’t attack a man of God.
But, as any middle-schooler who just discovered Urban Dictionary will tell you, a “curse” isn’t just a magic spell.
In fact, the Hebrew word here, qualal, doesn’t have anything to do with magic, invocations of power (divine or otherwise), or anything mystical at all. As it happens, the word is a light one; trifling, is what the dictionary says. “To make light of,” it says, giving context to the much farther down definition of “curse, or despise.”
Elisha didn’t employ some sort of divine prophetic God-magic to summon bears from the Ether just to murder a bunch of children.
Elisha just told the kids to f-off.
That’s…all that really means. No mysticism, no magic, no summoning of any kind.
And that kinda makes sense, to be honest. When you think about it, that’s a way more proportional reaction to getting mocked by children.
Which means that the bear attack probably had to do with a mob of more than forty children wandering out of the city just to loudly mock a bald guy, like a finger food buffet loudly announcing its presence to a restaurant full of hungry she-bears. And it had nothing to do with any sort of mystical God-based superpowers.
There’s an phrase in Latin that speaks to this very common, very normal human mistake; post hoc ergo propter hoc. Literally, “before it therefore because of it.”
Or, as we find ourselves saying all too often on the internet…correlation does not equal causation.
It’s so easy for ourselves take a couple of things that seem related, and hang our hat on them being intimately connected, even if we know they’re not, all because it makes the narrative better for us. It gives us, or our heroes, the sort of justification we absolutely need them to have.
It makes for a better story.
And when we get people focusing on the story we want to tell, it becomes so much easier to keep them from noticing all the terrible things we’ve done.
Because when we take away the false correlations, when we take away the explanations, the justifications, and the carefully-presented facades, what we’re left with is our true selves.
People who are riddled with insecurities, self-hatred and self-doubt.
People who are all too often ruled by our own bitterness, trapped by our own hatred and pain, so blinded by the things we want to be true about ourselves that we can’t see who and what we really are.
Take a look at today’s passage one more time, and ask yourself a different question. Don’t think about how the kids mocked Elisha, and don’t allow yourself to see the bears as a direct effect of Elisha’s curse. Let those things go. Instead, ask yourself this question:
What did Elisha actually do when she bears attacked 42 young children?
Did he come to the rescue? Call for help? Fight off the bears with his own two hands like the Old-Testament version of “Unnecessarily Jacked Jesus” that you can find tackily spray-painted onto the side of your average Southern extremist’s van?
Or did he just…go on? Leaving those annoying kids to bleed into the dirt.
That right there’s the reason why, I think, this passage remains in the Bible. Not to warn us about the consequence of pissing off our religious leaders, but to show us how even religious leaders are susceptible to bitterness, anger, insecurity, and pain. How any of us can allow our feelings to blind us to our deep, abiding, and above all holy calling to love, and to help.
And once we’ve done that, it becomes so comically easy to turn our failures into victories with just a few quick little misrepresentations; a few correlations sold as immutable, causative relationships. Never mind how many pre-pubescent punks are left bleeding on the ground behind us along the way; so long as we come out looking good, that’s what matters, right?
And the worst part is that it didn’t take that much, did it? Just twist that one word, and suddenly this changes from a dark and disturbing tale of the prophet chillingly yielding to his bitterness and insecurity, to a story about you really shouldn’t piss off God’s chosen representatives or they’ll magically summon bears you.
But we’re called to do better than that. To be better than that.
For all of us, this is a bit of a long fight; a journey we’re not likely to see the end of any time soon. ButI think that’s where I want to leave you thinking this week, if I can:
Where in your life have you found yourself connecting dots that didn’t need to be connected, leaving some folk hurting just so that you could be the good guy?
Where have you let yourself be blinded by your insecurities, seeking to justify yourself rather than reconcile to others?
I don’t know about you, but I can think of a few times I’ve done that while writing this sermon!
But there is hope, even still.
Elisha screwed up here; he refused to help hurting and suffering children because they had attacked him.
But God still uses Elisha as a prophet, the roll to which God had called him in the first place. Elisha is back in the palace laying out prophecy from the very next chapter.
You see, your insecurities don’t make you unworthy.
Your failures don’t make you unworthy.
Your hurt and your pain doesn’t make you unworthy.
The terrible actions you committed, even those don’t make you unworthy.
EVERYONE is worthy, everyone has a place in God’s grand design, and so long as you remain committed to learning, growing, and moving closer to God, working with an open heart and mind, then God’s community will grow through you, and God’s love will live in you.
AMEN
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