Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, October 11, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I have a tough time with Joshua. The rest of this passage is all about how God is calling Joshua to take up the mantle of leadership from Moses and not just lead people into the promised land, but conquer it through any means necessary. God is directing Joshua to displace the people who already live on the land, in many cases wiping them out wholesale. Considering the unforgivable way Christians did the same thing in the Americas, also in the name of God, I don’t think we can gloss over this tradition in our scripture.
Historically the region the Israelites entered was not conquered in swaths as it is portrayed in the Bible. In fact, the Hebrew people trickled into Canaan, settling among the natives relatively peaceably, often intermarrying and adopting local customs. For an Israelite nation in exile recording their history, this would never do. Their story was their identity as God’s people—the only people who knew God, who followed God’s righteous laws, who did not worship nature gods or engage in other pagan practices. To record (even if they had recollection or records of it) that their ancestors assimilated gradually into Canaan after leaving Egypt could have caused an identity crisis. Thus the grand stories of war heroes driving out the unrighteous sinners and claiming the land as a God-given gift.
Scripture is all about the invitation to dig deeper, learn more, and grapple with the question of who God is and who we are in relationship to God. The God of my understanding does not advocate or condone genocide. Period. So the question for us is how our identity as Christians is a call to be an extension of God’s love and justice for all people without exception, rather than an excuse to see ourselves as exceptional.
How do I see my identity as a Christian informing my actions in the world?
