Don't put your trust in kings

Isaiah 39:1-41:16

Ephesians 1:1-23

Psalm 66:1-20

Proverbs 23:25-28

I've got to say that I haven't really expected anyone to be reading this, never mind making suggestions but after a complaint from someone I will start putting the Bible readings in a list at the start of the posts.

I've just finished reading Tony Blair's autobiography and it is quite a whirlwind of material. I came away from it thinking he was 2 parts brilliant, 1 part scary, 1 part deluded and 2 parts sincere.

What disturbed me most were the days when he wrote about dealing with about 10 urgent issues all at the one go. How anyone could keep up with the job of being a modern Prime Minister, President or Taoiseach I do not know.

What's that got to do with the Bible readings? Rather a lot actually. The king in today's reading from Isaiah is called Hezekiah.  He was one of the few genuinely good kings of Israel. He cared for God's law, he looked after the poor and needy, he stood up for his country and his people against Assyrian attempts at imperial control.

But even his good story ends with a moment of real stupidity. The Bible is one of the first books in the world to depict even great national heroes as they really were warts and all and at the end of Hezekiah's otherwise good reign he does something really dim by letting envoys from "distant" Babylon come look round all the treasures of Jerusalem.

A generation later, these "distant" people would remember what they saw and come with a massive army to take it forcibly from the people of Judah. The Bible reminds us time and again that there is no such thing as a perfect leader, no-one is infallible. No-one gets it right all the time.

Maybe we expect too much of politicians and church leaders (although in Ireland some basic competence would be nice) even the best careers can end in disgrace and even the greatest and best of the great and the good can get it stunning wrong sometimes. As the reading in Ephesians reminds us, only Christ is the perfect king, the rest of us are just poor copies.