In the liturgical calendar of the Christian community, there is always that strange moment when Eastertide comes to an end. After 90 days of living Lent and Easter, we are thrown back into what is known (perhaps misleadingly) as ‘Ordinary Time’. The readings continue where we left off 90 days before. This year we find the prophet Elijah who has the arduous task of trying to bring back on the right path king Ahab, who has lost the plot in the vocation he received the lead the people of God.
Ahab marries Jezebel, the latter managing to convince the king to abandon the traditions of his forefathers. While it might be easy and perhaps convenient to put all the blame on Jezebel, it is Ahab who emerges as a man who regresses to childish behaviours and, therefore, is ready to suspend his will to get what he wants. Nowhere is this more evident than in the tragic narrative of how Ahab gets hold of Nabot’s ancestral vineyard. Saddened that Nabot refuses to hand him over his vineyard, Ahab enters into a depressive mood waiting for Jezebel to find a solution for him. She gets Nabot killed and hands over the vineyard to her husband. Ahab conveniently does not protest about the means by which the vineyard ended up in his hands, and is happy to declare it his property.
This short story is an eloquent narrative about limits. Ahab is faced by a limit to his desire, a vineyard that not even money can acquire. We would be lying if this were not also our experience. Being confronted by desires that cannot be acquiesced is a universal human experience. Such moments are often reality checks that have the tendency to make us gloomy; sometimes they trigger in us sulking and passive aggressiveness, other times, they drive us restless. Lacking a moral compass and a formed will, Ahab delegates everything to Jezebel and like a spoilt child receives that which was not his to take.
Ahab’s story is also our personal and societal story. Very rarely do we allow ourselves to stay within our limits; we are compelled to believe that in some way or another we can and should overcome them. While it is useful and even important to maintain a strong motivation to improve oneself and one’s present situation, it can be equally harmful to us and to others (see Nabot’s fate at the hands of a greedy royal couple) to make-believe that limits have no place in our lives.
After Nabot’s death, Ahab is confronted by the prophet Elijah. He repents (perhaps more out of fear of the consequences than what he was threatened with), and God tells Elijah that finally Ahab has humbled himself before Him.
Humility seems to have been the missing ingredient in this tragic story. Ahab lacked the necessary humility (the word ‘humus’ etymologically meaning ground, earth) since he was not grounded enough in reality but sought to or let others create a word of fantasy where he could have everything he wished for.
Life confronts us, sometimes even harshly, with certain limits. Our characters emerge and are formed in those instances where we decide how to live them. Whether we let our humanity be enriched or impoverished is the fruit of such decisions.
Fr Alexander Zammit is a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul.