[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during November 2020]
In a rare moment of extravagance recently I downloaded another book for my Kindle collection. The book is “Hit-man Anders and the Meaning of it All”, written by Jonas Jonasson, and makes for a bit of light relief during a difficult period. The principal characters are Per, a receptionist at an hotel of the sort where the guests rarely stay all night; Johanna, an impoverished, backslidden priest and Anders, who has skills in persuasion of a physical nature. These are the good guys!
It transpires that Anders is rather good in his chosen line of work and has plenty of contracts from hoodlums who are required to pay for his services in advance; this causes problems when Anders ‘finds Jesus’ in mid-contract, having already received, and spent, the payment. The story relates how the hoodlums manage to eliminate each other, and the three ‘heroes’ escape with the money and start a new church.
The book is fiction and I am not sure whether the author is being cynical about religion or whether he is trying to introduce the concept of a faith to a secular audience who may not have encountered it before. He uses a number of Biblical quotations, frequently out of context, and the church at the end is certainly not a Baptist one, but overall the story is sympathetic to the idea of a life-changing encounter.
We can find people like this in the Bible. Rahab was the manager of a house of ill-repute but God allowed her to play a major part in the fall of Jericho and in the later history of Israel.
In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? [James ch2 v 25]
Eli was rather better as a high priest than he was as a father. His sons brought the role of priests into disrepute, to the point where the people were reluctant to bring their sacrifices to the Temple yet he raised Samuel to become an outstanding man of God.
The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground. [1 Samuel 3 v1, 19]
God had a hit-man too. In 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles we can read accounts of the activities of Jehu, the furious driver whom God used to purge Israel of the evil of Ahab and Jezebel.
The Lord said to Jehu, ‘Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes … your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.’ [2 Kings ch10 v30]
So what is the relevance of all this to us today? The story of Pers, Johanna and Anders may be fictitious but the accounts of Rahab, Eli and Jehu show that God does have a role for even those whom society might dismiss.
Does that sound encouraging?
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Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © Steve Humphreys