Godly Taunts
When the Lord has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: “How you are fallen from heaven! How you are cut down to the ground!” – Isaiah 14:3-4, 12 (NRSV)
It isn’t, “You’re ugly.” It isn’t, “You’re stupid,” nor is it, “You’re a corrupt narcissist, and your day has finally come!” It is far simpler than that. “You have become like us.” That’s the taunt God supplies the ancient Israelites in today’s text from Isaiah. “Hey, so-called king! All that power failed to make you anything more than one more creature who will die and then be covered over with earth.”
As far as taunts go, it lacks the seasoning a more vengeful person might savor. If I had been in the writers’ room when God was brainstorming this particular taunt, this response to years of systemic and violent oppression, I would have thrown in some more personal swears, or at least one comment about the king’s comb-over. Instead, God shares a truth that might be helpful to any person who’s lingered too long in the story of their own self-importance.
In that way, kings aren’t all that unique. They’re just people—like any of us—who power can seduce. Any of us can make a whole identity out of our privileges or skills. We can get caught in the temptation to build a whole persona out of the ways we’ve been royally screwed over. Whether we think we’re a king of the world or perhaps the monarch of worst-case scenarios, God reminds us all: really, you’re just another person.
God’s taunt goes a bit beyond today’s excerpt. Apparently, the king will also be cursed with the destruction of all of his sons. I assume the writers’ room ran out of coffee.
Nevertheless, God’s taunt is a reminder to the Would-Be-King inside each of us that we can come on down from our high horses and just be.
Prayer
God of taunts and truths, help us remember that we are mortal, imperfect, and loved—just like everyone else.
About the AuthorTony Coleman is Pastor at First Congregational UCC in Memphis, TN.