Ill-Gotten Gains

How many women in this congregation are wearing makeup? How many of you actually feel rather undressed if you go out without your lipstick? My mother, who turned 104 in September, used to be so dependent on makeup she even wore lipstick and eye liner on hiking trips. I don’t often wear makeup myself, but I do on Sundays, to preach, because it’s part of dressing up.

Did you know that at one time a woman who wore cosmetics at all would have been called a “Jezebel”? Or, more likely, a “painted Jezebel”? It was a pretty major insult, too. If you wore paint on your face, you were a wicked, scheming hussy - trying to tempt men away from the stern road of duty. But it’s funny that Jezebel should be remembered for painting her face, because that may have been her finest hour. She was an old woman by then, her husband had been dead for fifteen years, and the general who had just killed her son was coming to kill her and take over the kingdom. But she didn’t run. Jezebel dressed up and faced him bravely. And I admire courage, don’t you? Even in a villain.

Let me explain.

You see, Jezebel was a Phoenician princess, and when she married King Ahab of Israel, she was bound and determined to rule as a Phoenician, not as an Israelite. And during her twenty-year tenure as Queen of Israel she did just that. Ahab was a good military leader, no question about it, Israel was the strongest power in the area back then, but when it came to domestic affairs he didn’t have a whole lot of say. So when Jezebel embarked on her persecution of the prophets of YHWH, Ahab pretty much stayed out of her way and let her do it. Of course, he probably didn’t care much, either, because the northern kingdom never was particularly interested in maintaining right worship. They built their own unauthorized temple after they split off from the southern kingdom of Judah after Solomon’s death about 100 years before. I suppose you could say they practiced religious freedom - you could worship whatever god you wanted - fertility gods, thunder gods, moon goddesses, whoever you thought might give you what you wanted. But Jezebel wasn’t satisfied when Ahab built her an altar to Ba'al, and set up poles for worshiping Asherah, the goddess of fertility. Nope. She wanted more. I don’t know what her motivations were - whether it was religious fervor, political ambition, or just sheer bloody-mindedness - but I imagine something like this. Listen to Jezebel tell it.

It was really a dreadful comedown when my father Eshbaal gave me to Ahab of Israel, but I understood, because although we Sidonians were very rich we were too small to have any military strength, and it was either knuckle under to Israel or buy into a share of their clout. But it was the most provincial little backwater imaginable! So I decided that, if I was going to live there, I’d just have to make it my duty to enlighten those backward, ignorant hill people and bring them the benefits of the very finest modern Phoenician art and culture. You see, we Phoenicians were the merchants and explorers of the world. Our ships and sailors brought back goods and ideas from all parts of the world, and we always heard everything new, and had everything new, before anyone else did. I was simply determined that during Ahab’s and my reign Israel would become even more splendid and up-to-date than Sidon. Ahab’s capital Samaria had a lot of potential. It was brand new, though; Ahab’s father Omri had built it only a generation before, and it was still pretty raw and unfinished. It was just made for a woman of my talents to transform, and I was absolutely determined that I, Queen Jezebel, would turn it into a showpiece that would be talked about from Memphis to Babylon.

The very first thing we had to do, of course, was get the gods on our side. Would you believe it, there wasn’t a single temple to Ba’al in the entire city? And there wasn’t even one sacred grove on the slopes of Mt. Ebal. What the goddess Asherah thought I have no idea, but I myself was simply shocked. I just couldn’t believe it. Apparently a lot of those country bumpkins still worshiped some sour-faced old-fashioned god named YHWH (I ask you - what kind of a name is that?) or as some people called him “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Anyway, he disapproved of everything I wanted to do, and his priests did nothing but make trouble. There was a wild-eyed scruffy disreputable sort of fellow running around who actually thought he could give orders to King Ahab and me! His name was Elijah. He didn’t come into town very often, though, so mostly we just ignored him. After all, what did ignorant back-country peasant superstitions have to do with us?