A thread on the text the lectionary didn’t have you read this morning (1): It is unfortunate that the the lectionary, having taken us through the Books of the Kings, deviates for the feast of Simon and Jude so that most people won’t read the story of Josiah’s reforms.

(2) They are the culmination of the tale. He tried so hard. But, he failed. The heroic efforts of one man were not enough to stop an oncoming tragedy of grief and failure, of generations of systemic drift and bad leadership.

(3) It’s only as the text lists off the shrines to other gods he eradicates that you realise just how deeply enmeshed Judah and Israel were in the religions of the surrounding cultures, that there never really was a ‘pure’ nation who worshiped the one God.

(4) That the temple itself was syncretistic in its practices. The Passover was never properly celebrated. The shrines Josiah destroys go back to Solomon’s days. Solomon, the great and successful king who built the temple also built a shrine to Astarte.

(5) There are no heroes here... no purity... no perfection. And maybe that’s the point. The books of Samuel and Kings subtlety deconstruct the very idea. Samuel warns the people, when they ask for a monarchy, that this will end badly, but they ask anyway.

(6) Samuel is horrifically vindicated as the generations unfold. Even a ‘good’ monarch like Josiah cannot alter the course for very long. Ultimately, he dies in battle at the hand of the Egyptians.

(7) The very people whom Israel’s liberation from starts this story, are the ones to end this brief flare of hope.

(8) Of course, we know it’s not over, the story will continue in subterranean ways. We will be painfully cured of hopes for a resolution by human endeavour, and the normal practices of political and even religious power.

(9) A child of David, one from the same family as Josiah, will bring a completely different kind of Kingship. But that is to rush ahead.