Awet Andemicael and Adam Eitel discuss shame, redemption, and rehabilitation in Joel 2:23-32. The text is appointed for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 25, in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
They Shall Never Again Be Put to Shame (Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost)
Voiceover Voice:
They will never again be put to shame for having trusted in me. For having been called my people.
Helena Martin:
This is Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study. Join us each week as two Yale Divinity School professors look at an upcoming text from the Revised Common Lectionary.
This episode, we have Awet Andemicael, Associate Dean for Marquand Chapel and Lecturer in Theology, and Adam Eitel, Assistant Professor of Ethics.
They’re discussing Joel 2:23-32, which is appointed for Track 1 of the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 25, in Year C. The text is read for you by student Aidan Stoddart.
Aidan Stoddart:
[Joel 2:23-32]
O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early rain and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, that I sent against you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.
Adam Eitel:
Well, something that’s stood out in this passage that hasn’t always stood out to me, it’s the word shame. We see it twice, starting in verse 26, “and my people shall never again be put to shame.” And then once again, in verse 27, “and my people shall never again be put to shame.” I know of an old book. It’s a bit of a classic in contemporary philosophy by Bernard Williams on shame in Ancient Greco, Roman culture. I know enough about it though to know that shame here and the Hebrew term behind it is importantly different than what’s meant there by shame. And what we mean by shame is probably different. But I’m wondering now, what do you have any sense for what is being described here in this verse? Why is it so important that the author has to emphasize once and then again, that the people of God will never be put to shame?
Awet Andemicael:
It’s a good question. I’m sort of going back and forth in my mind, between what would’ve been the context of the people of Israel. Having gone through so much in the history that’s recounted in the Hebrew Bible that, you know, Joel, the prophet Joel, is referring to. And even if we’re thinking as from a contemporary perspective, the way the global Jewish communities through more recent and up to present history, have gone through so much and have been made to suffer in so many ways. And thinking about the ways in which this idea of God bringing forth a restoration and, kind of, how do I say it? I guess I think about the being put to shame here along the lines of, having their trust in God confirmed.
So that if trust in me, you will never be put to shame. But then when you trust in God for a particular outcome, you trust that God will be faithful to God’s people. And then a mishap happens, or utter catastrophe happens. It prompts the theodicy you know, of the attempt to try and understand how it is that this could be. That God could be just, and yet this horrible thing could happen. And I guess I’m thinking along those lines, in this particular context, I guess I’m reading this less about, personal shame as in I’m ashamed of what I’ve done or I’m experiencing shame, but more that they will never again be put to shame for having trusted in me for having been, called my people.
But in fact the name of Israel, the people of Israel, the nation that is beloved to God, nation kind of broad. I don’t mean sort of political, just kind of that this people and this cultural group that God set apart for a particular purpose would never be put to shame because the fact that they are chosen would be, and that their purpose for being chosen would be, for the glory of the world, for the benefit of the world. That all of this would be made clear and would be vindicated in an ultimate way. I guess that’s how I think about what it means, especially if this is never again be put to shame. It has a sort of eschatological implication. Which is the whole passage does obviously. Yeah, that that’s how I would read that particular.
Adam Eitel:
I think that’s really illuminating. It’s helpful. As I was listening to you, I was just thinking more about the notion of shame. You know, it entails the kind of exposure. I think of it connoting being subject to public mockery, scorn, rebuke. It doesn’t necessarily entail having done something wrong, but it, but there’s a kind of exposure, a kind of vulnerability, a kind of being laid bare. And here, God is saying to this people that, and in this moment that you’ve, I think really helpfully described, there will be a day where you will not be put to shame. Where the possibility of that social reality, that political reality, but the very real and intensely personal anguish that emerges out of it will be extinguished. It will be itself brought to an end. And what I’m impressed by, is just as I’m continuing to look here at the passage, is not even what it’s the repetition of this line, “my people should never be put to shame”, but what comes between it.
Awet Andemicael:
Yeah.
Adam Eitel:
“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, who has dealt wonderfully with you.” And in this context of, of satisfaction of fullness, of wonderous gratitude, the shame of what has come before, or the possibility of being put to shame will be eclipsed. It will be permanently eclipsed. And then the second thing, “and you shall know that I’m in the midst of Israel and that I, the Lord am your God, and there is no other.”
On the one hand, the context for the end of shame is on the one hand, a kind of fullness, a kind of gratitude for what God has done. But it’s not just that it’s also a full awareness of not just what God has done, but of God’s perfect presence in the midst of the people. It, you know, what are you, what are you, what is, so there are wonders things have happened, but how wonders is it that God is in the midst of Israel, is there. It, you know, it kind of harks back in my mind which has been formed by ancient and medieval exegesis, it to me, it harks back a bit to the garden where we see God walking in the cool of day with the first human beings. And all of this is sort of torn asunder. Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden. They’re no longer enjoying these midday strolls. I don’t know what time of day it’s meant to be, but it’s in the cool of the day, isn’t it?
Awet Andemicael:
In the cool of the day. So it must be.
Adam Eitel:
Yeah. But there’s this kind of…
Awet Andemicael:
Yeah. It’s not midday. I mean the little time I spend the Middle East, I can say the midday is not the cool of the day.
Adam Eitel:
It’s not midday, right? No, it’s not. Yeah, that’s the daytime of, I forget which song calls it, the noonday devil. But yeah, that’s right. It’s the cool of the day and there’s this kind of reunion, this kind of, well, to reference here an answer we were talking about a while ago, maybe a recapitulation of something that’s been broken that’s now put back together. And now I’ll hand it over to you to see what you think about this. But isn’t that what Adam and Eve experienced first and foremost following their transgression is shame? They cover themselves.
Awet Andemicael:
Yeah, it’s really interesting for me. I’ll say two things that come to mind in connection with what you’re saying is that even though I started out talking about kind of the broader connection of this passage, to at least my understanding of this passage connected to the broader history of the people of Israel. Taking on a more individual or personal spiritualized level, it definitely does connect to, not so much repentance for sin although that’s part of it, but I’m definitely thinking about ways in which the presence of God, the living presence of God, is connected to the plenty and the satisfaction. The fullness of – kind of the fulfillment.
So there’s the fulfillment of our needs, as you said in verse 26 and the presence of God, the living presence of God in 27. And those two seemed to be really linked, both kind of leaning back toward what comes earlier in the passage of God making right and repaying us for all the ways in which things had not quite lined up before. The ways in which, I mean, I can just say personally and just for a lot of people I know, when you’ve gone through a time in your life or could be a long stretch, could be your whole, whole adult life for some of us, but you know, many ways in which you stand at a moment in your life and you look back and you say, “what have I done with myself? You know, I thought I was gonna be in this place and I don’t know what happened. I’m not even close to where I thought I should be.” Or I think about times when I didn’t make good choices, or I made choices that made sense at the time. I look back and say, “was that really the right thing to do?” And you just feel like you’ve lost a whole chunk of your life. Sometimes you know with good intentions, sometimes just with bad choices. And the idea that it’s possible at any point in your life. I mean, again, taking this in a more, maybe, applied in a broader sense not in the sort of historical sense, but this idea that God is, and I know a lot of people read it, read this passage this way, that God is able to kind of redeem the time that has passed. Even if we feel like we’ve wasted it, it’s gone. So, it’s not just that God forgives our sin, but God can somehow kind of rehabilitate our lives to help us see a meaning and a purpose and a value to us and to our lives that’s hard for us to discern when we’re so caught up with the ways in which the locus has destroyed all of the things that we intended. All of our hopes, all of our dreams, all of our ideas of who we thought we were, or we should be.
And then you stand at this point, you say, “things did not work out the, the way I thought they were going to work out.” And it’s so easy to fall into despair. But the idea that God is able to, that God even says in this context, and I will admit that I have claimed this for my life in many contexts, that God promises – some of us can take this as a promise that God will repay us for the years that the locus has eaten. That God is able to restore our sense of who we are. And that it’s not just a sense of, okay, you lost money and then God repaid, or, you know, you lost an opportunity, and not along those lines, but just in sense of the meaning and value of who we are.
But the way God does that is by the living presence of God in our lives. That for God to be in the midst of who we are in the midst of our assembly. And then for that then to connect to what comes right afterwards.
Adam Eitel:
The Spirit on all flesh.
Awet Andemicael:
Exactly that, and then what does it mean to have the living presence of God in the midst of the people, the community is the Holy Spirit, again reading this from a Christian perspective, that is poured out on all flesh. And I just, I so appreciate that Joel and the, as I would say, the Holy Spirit inspiring Joe, had him specifically point out your sons and your daughters, your old men, the old and the young, sons and daughters, slaves as well as people who are presumably not, you know, described as slaves. So, you’ve got gender diversity, you’ve got age diversity, especially in a culture where the elders were revered and the young, not so much you know. And then the class differentials would be taken of that, that God is so encompassing. And so, there’s no situation of life that can separate us from being ones whom God desires to pour a God spirit on.
So, the idea that the presence of God is for us today at work through that living presence, that is how the restoration comes. That is how the new life, the new possibilities come. To me that’s just an extraordinary way that the passage is put together.
Adam Eitel:
Beautiful.
Awet Andemicael:
Reading it from kind of a contemporary Christian perspective.
Helena Martin:
Thanks for listening. And thank you, Professors Andemicael and Eitel, for looking at Joel with
us.
For a transcript of this episode and lots more Bible study resources, visit YaleBibleStudy.org.
And follow us on Twitter: @BibleYale.
Chapter, Verse, and Season is a production of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale
Divinity School. It’s produced by: Creator and Managing Editor, Joel Baden; Production
Manager, Kelly Morrissey; Associate Producer, Aidan Stoddart; and I’m your Host and
Executive Producer, Helena Martin. Mixing on today’s episode, and our theme music, are by
Calvin Linderman.
We’ll be back with another conversation from Chapter, Verse, and Season.
Book of the Bible:
Joel
Guests
Text
New Revised Standard Version Bible
Copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Credits
Host and Executive Producer: Helena Martin
Production Manager: Kelly Morrissey
Creator and Managing Editor: Joel Baden
Assistant Producer: Aidan Stoddart
Music: Calvin Linderman
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