Presented the Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 03 October 2021, by Captain Michael Ramsay [1]
I think this is a very significant passage. A prophet, a person of God, is used mightily by God to do amazing things (like we have been here) [2]. He was even used to shrivel up the king’s hand and then restore it! God told this prophet that then he was supposed to go straight home without stopping. The king, the government, they wanted the prophet to stay and have dinner with them.[3] The prophet said ‘no’. He was faithful to God in the face of the Government.
Part way home, an older prophet tells the younger prophet that God has told him that he is supposed to stop and have dinner with him. The younger prophet, who had just successfully stood up to the government and refused to be delayed in returning home, now defers to the senior prophet and does the opposite of what God wants him to do. He follows a man of God instead of following God – because of this, the younger prophet suffers the consequences. In this case, he is killed by a lion [4].
This is important: The message of this story isn’t about the senior prophet. Even if he was lying, he was still used by God. This story isn’t about a bad prophet who lies. The story does not say that the senior prophet was bad at all. This story is about a young prophet who, instead of doing what God tells him, does what a man of God tells him and so is killed by a lion.
We serve in an hierarchical organization. I have great respect for people who are in my upline. Our AC is very competent. She knows a lot. Our DC and his wife are both amazing officers. They are two of the best preachers in The Salvation Army world. We served together in BC years ago; we then served together on the prairies; and then in Toronto and now in BC again. Jamie was instrumental in bringing Susan and I here to Port Alberni. I have a lot of respect for he and Anne and I have nothing bad to say about either of them. Our current Personnel Secretary, we also served with in BC and the Prairie Division as well as in Toronto. His wife, Lynn was a major support to my wife and I during some very significant times in our lives. I have nothing bad to say about them. God used the Braunds and the Armstrongs in our lives and in our ministries. They are amazing people.
The younger prophet in this story respected the senior prophet; however, in his case he knew in his heart what God wanted him to do and he didn’t do it.
The Salvation Army plans to implement a policy that troubles me greatly whereby people who are unable to be vaccinated will no longer be able to be a part of our community: they can no longer work or volunteer with us. This vaccine mandate seems to go against what I believe the Lord is speaking to me. I don’t believe that whoever proposed this policy is necessarily disobeying God, but I do believe God is telling me not to have any part of it – maybe at the risk of being killed by a literal or a metaphorical lion. I need your prayers as all of us Officers try to figure out what to do about this vaccine mandate that troubles so many of us.
The vaccine mandate objectifies people: anyone can come to church, the store, and the soup kitchen to spend money or be waited upon, but only some people are deemed worthy enough to actually participate in our community. The policy will require our employees and volunteers to be injected with two doses of one of the government-approved vaccines by November 14, 2021. If they are not injected, they can be removed from the premises, they can be placed on unpaid leave of absence, they can be in essence fired without even receiving severance pay (because they will technically still be employees).
Clients, as well, will be removed from our team here. One of the strengths of The Salvation Army is that those of us at our lowest points are able to find a place where we belong and where we can contribute. The proposed mandate states that conscientious objectors to the vaccine, people with legitimate health concerns, and people with mental health barriers that interfere with their ability to be injected with government approved drugs will be longer be able to be part of our community. They will be free to drink coffee across the table from us, but they will not be permitted to serve the coffee or clean up someone’s spill for them. We can do things to them but not with them. We will thereby objectify them.
We just had orange shirt day in our country. This Thursday we heard many horror stories of people who were told they were no longer invited to be a contributing part of society.
I am double vaccinated. I am because I work with vulnerable people, many of whom cannot or will not be vaccinated for many different reasons.
I, like every Officer across this country I am sure, am praying and thinking about this a lot. I have no condemnation for THQ. If they are doing something wrong that is between them and God, if not then all is good for them. I am concerned about my obedience to God. If I implement the proposed vaccine mandate, am I disobeying God the same way the younger prophet did in our story today? Am I liable to be eaten by a real or metaphorical lion? I don’t want to disobey God.
This is my Officer Covenant that I signed with God 15 years ago this June. It reminds me that I promised, among other things, “to care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love the unlovable and befriend those who have no friends.” Who has less friends these days than those who hold minority opinions about vaccinations?
I am struggling. I want to obey my senior officers, but I don’t believe I can remove those from our community who cannot be vaccinated. They are, in many cases, those who have no friends. Those that work for me are under my care. Can I deprive someone who is under my care access to a community of Christ?
I had a close friend in Toronto who died of AIDS. The discrimination that he suffered due to his health should be in the memories of any of us who lived through the AIDS scare. Our society was terrified. People with HIV/AIDS, a contagious health condition, lost so much, including their jobs, their volunteer work, and their ability to participate in society. Maybe we have now forgotten what it was like. People with HIV serve all over this country today; maybe even here in this ministry unit; we do not ask for proof of their taking medication. We are not even allowed to ask about their medical status. How can we now be asked to discriminate against even healthy people who do not want to share their medical history with us and/or do not wish to be injected with government approved drugs?
I do not believe that I can morally remove someone’s employment, volunteer work, ability to be part of a team simply because they make a health decision that might be disagreeable to some, or even to most. By removing someone from their job for making different medical choices than my own, I would be doing to them what was done to my friend years ago.
In Winnipeg, I volunteered alongside a senior gentleman in prison ministry at Stony Mountain Penitentiary. The reason he was involved in prison ministry was that during WWII, he was a conscientious objector. They locked him in that very same jail because his values and beliefs were different than the majority of people – and he suffered in the ways that people who are in jail suffer!
I do not believe I can discriminate against people who conscientiously object to the vaccine. To force someone to go against their deeply held convictions or to lose their employment, and ability to contribute as part of a team because they stand by a deeply held conviction that might be disagreeable to some, or even to most, I don’t believe I can do that.
We have an employee who was double vaccinated. She has lost her sense of smell and her sense of taste. In tears she told me that if she had the choice again to be vaccinated or not, she would not under any circumstance. We have another employee who’s relative was previously fit, healthy, and active, who is now a paraplegic due to the vaccine. We have staff and employees who are not willing to take that risk. Who am I to take away their livelihood, their inclusion in our team here, because they are unwilling to risk their lives?
We have many members of our team here who are on the margins of society; we have people who are coming out of addiction; we have friends with mental health issues; we have friends with deeply held convictions; we have many people who we have been walking alongside. Our friends have come from just receiving our services, to volunteering as they are able, some to employment, and all to being fully contributing members of our community here. I cannot tell our friends that they are no longer welcome to contribute alongside us helping others in need. I cannot tell them they are no longer part of us, can I?
I have no condemnation for those who disagree with me. I also have no condemnation for those above me in the hierarchy. I do, however, feel I have a duty to protect those I am responsible for in our structure to include the outcast, to include the excluded.
My Officers’ Covenant is very important to me. This covenant that I made with God requires me to ‘love the unlovable’. The vaccine mandate will remove from our community people who need you, people who need me, and people who need Christ. Like many other Officers across this country, right now I do not believe that I can be faithful to God and the oath I took to Him and at the same time support the vaccine mandate.
I don’t know what is going to happen. Maybe God will permit me to turn away the people THQ wants me to turn away. Maybe God will change THQ’s minds before the policy is fully implemented; but as it stands, I feel that if I stay with the mandate, even at DHQ’s insistence, rather than go with God’s leading, I will need to be on the lookout for metaphorical, if not literal lions.
It is my hope that whatever choices any of us make about anything - and they may be different than others' choices - that we always do so without hesitation and under the direction and guidance of our Lord.
Let us pray.
[1] See Captain Michael Ramsay, "1 Kings 13: Lion for Prophet" for a more in-depth analysis of this pericope, (Sheepspeak.com, The Salvation Army, 25 November 2012) Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/11/1-kings-13-lion-for-prophet.html
[2] R. D. Patterson and Hermann J. Austel, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:1 Kings/Notes to First Kings/First Kings 13 Notes/First Kings Note 13:1, Book Version: 4.0.2: If Josephus's suggestion (Antiq. VIII, 240-41 [ix.1]) that the prophet's name was Yadon is accepted, he may perhaps be connected with the Iddo mentioned as a chronicler of the events of Abijah's day (2 Chronicles 13:22).
[3] Donald J. Wiseman, 1 and 2 Kings: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1993 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 9), S. 158: If the man of God were to make an agreement or show fellowship (‘eat bread’, vv. 7, 18) with the king, that would have been tantamount to a withdrawal of judgment. The king’s motive could have been ‘to link himself in fellowship with him as a form of insurance’ (Robinson, p. 161; cf. Noth, p. 298), and so to seek for the prophet’s endorsement of his new royal position. The ban on the return route might serve to avoid further contact with a cursed place and people.
[4] Cf. Choon-Leong Seow. The First and Second Book of Kings, (NIB III: Abigdon Press, Nashville, 1999), 108.
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