Fighting with Creative Generosity

Oasis is currently in a series exploring the armour of God, and as part of that Alice shared an encouragement from 2 Kings 6 about the reality of the spiritual battle around us. I’ve been pondering that story recently, and particularly, the unusual way that it ends!

The background to the story is that the Arameans have been raiding Israel, but keep finding their plans thwarted. Rather than having been infiltrated by a spy though, Israel is one step ahead because Elisha is prophetically hearing from God about where the Arameans are setting their ambushes, and sharing this with the King of Israel.

In response, the Arameans send an army to capture Elisha; surrounding his town and preparing to carry him away. Elisha’s servant panics, but Elisha prays that God might open his eyes to see the reality of the spiritual battle going on around them, and he is given a vision of the sky full of the armies of heaven. The opposite then happens to the Arameans — their eyes are temporarily blinded so that they cannot see and capture Elisha.

Elisha then uses this to lead the Arameans away from his town, and deliver them into the hand of the King of Israel. The Israelites stand on the cusp of victory over their enemies…but what happens next?

When the king of Israel saw them, he shouted to Elisha, “My father, should I kill them? Should I kill them?”

“Of course not!” Elisha replied. “Do we kill prisoners of war? Give them food and drink and send them home again to their master.”

So the king made a great feast for them and then sent them home to their master. After that, the Aramean raiders stayed away from the land of Israel.
- 2 Kings 6:21–23

It’s an incredible ending, as what might have ended up as a slaughter instead becomes a banquet.

And I’ve been struck as I’ve reflected on it how, when God’s people work together in unity, supernatural, creative wisdom comes which can bring peace even in the most complex situations.

For much of Israel’s history, the Kings and the Prophets of the day were at loggerheads with one another. There are good kings and bad kings, good prophets and bad prophets, but almost always, there is a rivalry between the two which leads to division and pain for everyone. In this story though, there is respect from the King to the Prophet (shown by the use of the honouring term “my father”), and support from the Prophet to the King (in advising about the Aramean’s ambushes). A place of relationship enables them to come to one another with big questions (“Should I kill them?”), hold one another to account (“Of course not!), spur one another on (where Elisha asks for only food and drink to be provided, the King provides a “great feast”), and work together creatively to bring about a moment of unexpected mercy.

To delve even more deeply into the Biblical story, the Arameans being in the “hand” of the King, but him resisting the temptation to “take” them, echoes back to the account of Genesis 3. There, humanity reaches out their hands to take the forbidden fruit…and death, brokenness and sin follow. But here, God’s people truly work together, enabling them to write a different story; a story of life, reconciliation and peace. It paints a picture of how the new community of God’s people, the church, is empowered by the Holy Spirit to work together to rewrite the stories in our own contexts; bringing life, reconciliation and peace to a world which is still in such desperate need of it.

The reality is that the Arameans hadn’t done anything worthy of receiving mercy. They didn’t earn it through repentance or contrition. And yet, as they sit and receive a banquet of mercy, they couldn’t help but be transformed by it — not returning again to raid the land of Israel. A radical act of creative generosity opens a route to peace that couldn’t have been foreseen, and that stands out starkly amongst many of the Old Testament stories of human failure and brokenness.

This is also the same creativity generosity that carries Jesus to the cross. Having spoken in the Sermon on the Mount about creative ways to stand against violence and oppression, and laid out a meal before even the one who would betray him, he gives the ultimate demonstration by laying down his life. In that act, radical mercy becomes the invitation for the whole world to receive; mercy which paves the way for peace within ourselves, peace between ourselves and God, and peace between ourselves and others.

Perhaps, this week, the call for you to take up the armour of God and stand firm amidst the spiritual battles raging around comes in one of these three ways:

• Resting anew in the radical mercy that Jesus has won for you on the cross — a mercy which means you now get to live knowing freedom from shame and striving.
• Pressing into unity within the church community by giving yourself again to deepening relationships, encouraging others, and working for the good of the whole.
• Considering what acts of creative generosity God might be calling you to in your day-to-day interactions with others — acts which can leave ‘footprints of peace’ in all kinds of different contexts.

This week, the call for each of us is to fight with creative generosity, because the God who prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 23:5), invites not just us to come to the feast, but everyone.