Saturday, March 14

Scripture: But the people of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Jebusites live with the people of Judah in Jerusalem to this day. (Joshua 15:63).

Observation: Sprinkled throughout the Book of Joshua are peoples that the Israelites could not conquer. For example, the Jebusites inhabited much of what became the domain of the tribe of Judah, and for the most part, the people of Judah were able to drive out the Jebusites from their native land. But Judah’s victory over the Jebusites was not total. The city of Jerusalem (yes, that Jerusalem) first belonged to the Jebusites, and Judah could not take the city as their own, presumably because Jerusalem was and remains located at the top of a mountain, Mt. Zion, and the Jebusites were able to fortify the city from invaders on the ground who literally had an uphill battle. It will be David (yes, that David) who will finally take Jerusalem from the Jebusites (see 2 Samuel 5), but that didn’t occur until several generations and hundreds of years after Judah took possession of the land around Jerusalem. Therefore, the people of Judah, and the people of other tribes who did not have total success in driving out the native peoples of the Promised Land, for many generations had to accept the reality of defeat. Yes, defeat. The people of Israel were defeated by the Jebusites and other peoples who were able to defend their cities and land, resulting in Gentile populations that were sprinkled across the Promised Land and who lived in truce with the Israelites.

Application: The Book of Joshua accepts defeat as normal, value-neutral, and part of life. Joshua might look on defeat differently if the vast majority of Israel’s battles ended in loss; that is, the authors of Joshua might speak of defeat with grief, sadness, bitterness, even anger if Joshua’s campaign in the Promised Land had not been an overwhelming success. Even still, the people of Israel were not entirely successful. They knew the pain of defeat, and when they had to take a few losses on the chin, the Book of Joshua does not cast blame or shame or in any way make a value judgement against defeat, calling it “bad” or anyone’s fault. Joshua accepts defeat as part of the human experience, simple as that. We shouldn’t overlook the wisdom here. Defeat doesn’t have to be a character flaw or a moral failure, no more than success is proof that the winner is a fundamentally better person. Defeat can be normal, neither good or bad, something that just… happens, and that’s okay.

Prayer:

Losing hurts. I’d say “losing stinks” but smell is the wrong sense; losing is something I feel. Losing is lemon juice squirted on a papercut. Losing is slamming my finger in a car door. Losing is aiming for a nail and the hammer hammering my thumb instead. Losing is unloading the thirty-pound tank of natural gas for my grill after I picked it up at the grocery store and watching it slip out of my grip and descend in slow motion straight for the earth except my big toe is in the way and of course I’m wearing sandals and I can already hear my toe screaming in agony. Losing hurts because losing is failure and all failure is personal: watching my baseball team lose, watching my child learn a new subject and lose, setting goals at work and watching myself lose, having a general idea of the kind of parent, spouse, and professional I should be and yet again watching myself lose- none of it is “just business” or “just a game,” it’s all personal because it’s all defeat and all defeat is pain. This one thing I pray for today: to accept the pain of defeat as normal, neither a sign of weakness or the sign someone else is strong; to be open-handed with my defeat, ready to receive it and ready to let it go; to apply distance between the defeat and the self so I may embrace both as normal; to gaze on my defeat as gift – yes, Lord, this too – the gift of being permitted another chance, another day, another shot at love, another breath; that I may brave temporary defeat with permanent hope with a grateful heart; for the resilience to endure defeat as You did when, for three days, you suffered the pain of defeat and came out of the grave stronger than before; somehow this is all the same request, because You know when I try to settle on one thing, I fail. Onward we go: amen.