Lectionary Scripture – Isaiah 7:10-16 NRSV
Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying, “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.” Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.”
“God with Us”
Ever felt you’d rather trust in a sure thing than something vague, hazy, ill-defined? Would you rather have what you’re accustomed to than taking a risk? By and large, that’s the context and dilemma in the above scripture and for his part Ahaz preferred the sure thing, especially since it meant he could stick with life in the form he had manipulatively obtained, fashioned, and maintained.
Yet even as distant and estranged from God as this made Ahaz, God continued efforts to reach the man’s soul -- primarily through the Prophet Isaiah. Through this prophet, God offered protection from impending doom for Ahaz’s kingdom. Through the prophet, Ahaz had opportunity to receive a “sign” that God would keep faith -- and not just any sign but whatever sign Ahaz chose.
Problem is that Ahaz wanted mostly to satisfy his carnal desires. An opportunity therefore to be closer to God had all the appeal of being force-fed the food he hated most. So for a price, Ahaz decided instead to sell out to one of history’s megalomaniacs, Tilgath-Pileser III, and let his country become a province of the Assyrian Empire. For Ahaz, the rationale might have gone like this: “Better to be ruler of your own little dung heap than risk and chance everything on God.”
Perhaps Ahaz knew what he was talking about since Tilgath-Pileser passed over Judah after tribute payment, going on from there to conquer the North Kingdom of Israel. Ahaz’s decision may have been expedient in the moment, more likely it was self-serving. In any case, his people never forgave him for failing to take a stand against Tilgath-Pileser – even his own son, Hezekiah, came to revile him. As a result, when Hezekiah came to power, Ahaz was never allowed burial with his kingly predecessors. Hezekiah also cleansed Judah and the Temple in Jerusalem of his father’s influences, evils, idols, and transgressions. In time, Biblical writers extended to Hezekiah a legacy of being a great and good king.
Taking the story of Ahaz at face value, it’s quite intriguing that anyone would pass up God’s offer of a sign and protection. And let’s remember that the option for the sign was any kind of sign Ahaz wanted or needed that would assure him God was with him and the people. Strange as it may seem, Ahaz opted out of the opportunity. Likely he did so as a life of having things the way he wanted held far more appeal than the challenges, risks, and unknowns of being a warrior-king.
If we stop and think about it however, people opt out all the time to be closer with God. The reasons are varied of course, but sticking with the kind of reason an individual like Ahaz might have, I'm reminded of clergy visits I made a few years ago to a county jail inmate. As the visits progressed over the months of the young man's incarceration, he periodically mentioned that when he got out of jail he planned to return to the community where he grew up. Currently it was the community where his parents also lived. He felt conflicted however about the plan as he no longer cared for the cultural, political, and religious conservatism of his parents and the faith community he would be expected to participate in.
Eventually, I suggested that he consider staying in our community where his criminality had occurred. I encouraged him to use the opportunity to make amends with the community through serving and volunteering in ways meaningful to the community. In essence, it would be a journey toward healing for him. It would provide opportunity to know a much different God from the judgmental God of his youth. During our pastoral counseling about this possibility, there were times not unlike those Isaiah had with Ahaz – that is times when it seemed that my words fell on a king’s deaf ears for certainly this person had been a king in his own sphere before he fell victim to criminality resulting from his manipulations of others – persons he used to satiate his carnal whims.
Yet through the prayers we shared and the talks we had about faith and the nature of God, something seemed to shift in this person. Many times the Spirit of God came so powerfully into our visits that God’s presence was simply undeniable. By the end of the young man’s incarceration, he made the decision to stay in our community and start his life over again. My role, per his request and his own words was “call me on my shit” if I thought at any point he was straying from the faith journey he wanted to begin.
One would hope for a better outcome than what resulted since the person made progress for a few months after leaving jail. Eventually however he fell back into isolating himself and isolating his live-in girlfriend. Once again, he began manipulating others into the care and feeding of his appetites and idols. My efforts, like Isaiah’s with Ahaz, fell again on deaf ears.
Finally things came to the necessity of confronting the person about his return to sociopathy and emotional manipulation of others. It followed shortly after a verbal altercation he had with the girlfriend who stood by him through all the jail time and legal matters leading up to, through, and after his incarceration. The issue in particular was his cheating on her and seeking sex with women he met over the Internet.
When the young man and I sat down to talk, he filled the air with excuses and avoidances of responsibility – a trait and tactic intrinsic to any manipulator, criminal and non-criminal alike. Using such things to gain control of the conversation/situation, he then stooped to telling lies about things I simply knew were untrue. Before long I interrupted and said, “Stop, just stop.” I then reminded him of what he asked me in jail to do for him after he got out. Readily he acknowledged but then said, “I want you to know though how vulnerably I’m feeling.” To which I replied, “Well that’s probably a good thing if you’re still serious about turning your life around.” I then said that the only thing I wanted to hear next from him was a yes or no to a simple question. Reluctantly the young man agreed. I then asked, “Have you participated in anything not compatible with the journey you committed yourself to in jail?” He then launched into another round of obfuscation and so again I said, "Stop, it's a simple yes or no question.” Struggling uncomfortably, he finally said, “Yes.”
The moment of honesty seemed to lead productively to other conversation, such as the need to end the social isolation he’d set up for himself and his girl-friend and that they regularly participate in the life of a spiritual community meaningful to him. Eventually he decided that a Twelve Step Recovery group would be good for him as that kind of group experience in jail had been meaningful. I offered to help identify a possible group through friends I knew in Recovery. With the offer accepted, we prayed together, then hugged and I went on my way to contact my Recovery friends.
Not surprisingly, I learned later that the moment of honesty was never genuine. It was simply a tool of the manipulator to end an uncomfortable conversation and move me out of his presence. Guess one could say I had been “Ahazzed”. Soon after that encounter, I heard that the young man left the community and he hasn’t been back, at least to my knowledge. I’m sure however that there has been a trail of victims behind him ever since, both psychologically and emotionally.
Sadly a trail of victims and tears are typically the case with any manipulator whether we encounter them in the workplace, community, family, or even in our faith community. What it means essentially is that for some manipulators, there can never be a genuine “God with us” moment no matter how repentant or remorseful they might seem to be. It also means that “God with us” moments will come much harder for their victims who because of their vulnerability and the harm experienced will wonder how God could ever let them suffer at the hands of such persons.
Spending the day yesterday in a seminar about “emotional manipulators”, I thoroughly valued the material covered by the psychologist-author. He affirmed for me things I had always suspected about such persons as he shared developments from recent scientific study – including research into their highly covert thought processes, behavioral practices, and victim strategizing. Clearly layers upon layers of planning, subtlety, and anticipation take place – all for the purpose of bringing people into a space and sphere of control that provides the manipulator with life on the terms they want it.
As I reflected on the manipulators that I and friends and family have encountered in the past few years along with the harm they have caused, I sensed the restorative presence of Immanuel. “God with Us” came to me during several times during the training assuring me of a rising tide of awareness where fewer and fewer wolves in sheep’s clothing will get away with the things they do. “God with Us” also affirmed to me a skill set I’ve long suspected as necessary for the task, i.e. skills wherein we learn how to quickly modify, confront, bend, and even break the very rules manipulators use against us in order to make us their victims. The clarity of that “God with Us” moment became even more evident as participants in the packed seminar willingly shared stories of manipulators they suffered through in the workplace, the family, the community, and even in their faith communities.
There’s a common thread running through all of this which is that contemporary living has generated an over-abundance of emotionally vulnerable space – space that growing numbers of manipulators exploit for their own needs. The means to counter it can only be found in the company of psychologically healthy persons and the kind of creative community that comes to life through such persons. As the psychologist put it yesterday, manipulators hate creativity and they seek its defeat and distance their victims from creativity as far as possible in ways that are phenomenally subtle and covert. Sometimes their strategy is as simple as being neglectful. Manipulators do such things because a creative mind is an independent mind and independent minds can’t be controlled and control is what the manipulator wants.
As I listened to those words, a vision unfolded once again for me – a vision of a faith community rich in creativity and resourcefulness, a vision of faith community independent in spirit down to even the least most seemingly insignificant person, a faith community rich therefore in “God with us” moments, a faith community thus able to recognize manipulators of any kind, a faith community of tough-love insistent upon manipulators attending to the healing they need, a faith community readily able to show repeat manipulators the door so they and their evil can head on down the road.
Such a vision may seem hazy or ill-defined or hard to give a try. It’s far from what many of us may be accustomed to or what we’ve grown up with -- but experiences and growing awareness like that which I encountered in yesterday’s seminar are for me a sign from God – a sign of hope, a sign that we’re learning and a sign of promise that in and through these “God with us” moments, evil will be overcome. For me, I see now a generation that’s coming – a generation wherein children while still quite young will know how to refuse evil and choose the good. And even before this, manipulators and their evil will have deserted the land.
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