Word for the Week: Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
Ahab had said to Obadiah, ‘Go through the land to all the springs and valleys. Maybe we shall find some grass to keep the horses and mules alive...’
1 Kings 18:5
For more than two years the sun beat down from a cloudless sky. The crops withered and died; the ponds and streams dried up. Famine gripped the land. One little household, we read, was miraculously saved from starvation by the direct action of God. But what of the rest of the people? Scavenging, probably, for leaves and roots.
And what of Ahab? Was he opening his royal storehouses, and organising a distribution of relief supplies? Or repenting of his own sin, which had been the cause of the drought in the first place? No, he was concerned for the survival of his animals.
Secure in his insulation from suffering – the insulation often enjoyed by the rich – Ahab appears to have been indifferent to the suffering of his people. His steward, Obadiah, however, although insulated like his master from the effects of the famine, at great personal risk (and no doubt personal expense) had hidden a hundred of the Lord’s prophets and supplied them with food and water.
It doesn’t take long for us to bring to mind countries today whose rulers are as callous as Ahab about their citizens’ hardships – or have actually brought these hardships on them, by their paranoia and greed. We can’t ride like knights in shining armour to rescue all the world’s oppressed and deprived people from the depravity of their rulers. But, like Obadiah, we can do something.
Unlike Obadiah, we run no risks if we raise a political clamour for the cancellation of third world debt, reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, and a level playing field in world trade. Nor if we stand up for the rights of persecuted Christians in our own country and all over the world. For that, of course, is the contemporary equivalent of Obadiah’s action. His overriding concern was for the prophets of the Lord – for those who remained true to God in the heart of a corrupt and hostile society.
Our brothers and sisters in many countries who live in constant danger rely on us for our prayers and our public support. (For more information see www.csw.org.uk and www.barnabasfund.org.)
Helen Parry
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