THE SULK, FAVORITE WEAPONS OF TYRANTS
King Ahab owned half the country for pity’s sake. Summer houses here, autumn houses there and winter palaces elsewhere. What more could he want? He wanted Naboth’s vineyard! 1 Kings 21:1-4. He saw it, made more than a fair offer for it but Naboth couldn’t part with it, didn’t want to part with it and so he wouldn’t part with it.
And what did the king do? The land baron went home to his palace, to his bed and there he lay in a royal sulk with a huge bottom lip. “Leave me alone. Don’t want any supper!” Nothing he possessed—list what he had why don’t you?—nothing he possessed made him happy; if he couldn’t have that one little piece of property next door he couldn’t enjoy anything he had. The respect of his troops couldn’t keep him out of bed. The praise of the architects and builders who were impressed with his marvellous building achievements couldn’t deliver him from that huge pout. The text tells us he lies with his face to the wall—poor thing, bad ole Naboth won’t sell him his garden so nothing else matters. “Yes, yes, I’m blessed beyond imagining but what good are the blessings? What does it matter that a host of people please me and want to continue to please me? What they do and think isn’t enough to keep me from being unhappy. Wah..wah...I want...” And did his thumb slip past his jutting bottom lip into his whimpering mouth?
We don’t begrudge Ahab his wanting Naboth’s vineyard but because he can’t get it he runs home to his bed and lies there pouting with his face to the wall—in a palace?
If a tragedy occurred to one of my dearest I’d be gutted even though there'd be much that remained as other sources of rejoicing. If you have five children you truly love and in some tragedy of some kind—whether in death or some other way—you lose one, your pain is not to be trifled with; it’s too deep for that! It doesn’t help a lot when good friends remind you that you still have plenty to be thankful for. Five beloved children minus one doesn’t = plenty. Do you think this is the kind of thing I’m thinking about when I talk about Ahab? No, that’s not what I have in mind. We mustn’t hurry people out of their grief even though in wise love we’ll do our best to help them toward better emotional health.
No, I’m thinking of that super-sensitivity that sees every refusal as a personal insult; that childish tendency to childish tantrums, with or without the visible signs of tantrum; that juvenile attitude that uses the pout as the lever to move a home or a church out of a happy path. I’m talking about that make-up that has to have everything its own way or the nearest and dearest will pay! I’m talking about a heart that mustn’t be confronted or a week-long silent treatment begins. There’s no physical violence but the dread that some families live in lest they say the wrong thing or don’t say the right thing often feels worse than physical abuse.
C.S Lewis said you can only commit murder a relatively few times but you can cripple and emotionally wound ceaselessly, and all around you, with that sullen, grieving, dampening spirit that soaks into everyone within reach.
And you’ll have noticed that it’s the persons that give most to these tyrants that suffer most from them. Strangers and acquaintances would walk away from them but their loved ones day after day bend over backwards to please them and day after day have to endure the peevishness and pouting.
In homes the family members walk around whispering and suppressing simple ordinary activities in case they disturb the sulking monarch. Televisions must be turned down too low for comfort, doors must be closed gently, and nobody is to laugh in case his /her majesty thinks his /her colossal sulk is going unnoticed or not taken seriously enough.
In congregations these tyrants must be visited week after week and reassured sickeningly often that their views are taken with the utmost seriousness even if the congregational flow can’t be turned out of it channels for them.
In God’s name, grow up and get over it!
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment