Law and Order
The bigger a community becomes and the more varied its members, the more complex its rules, regulations and (most of all) its traditions, customs, courtesies and unwritten codes of behaviour become. Children first encounter it when they go to play with friends and find a whole new list of do’s and don’ts; likewise tourists visiting foreign lands, settled communities when tourists arrive, and business and commerce with foreign contracts and immigrant labour.
In Zechariah’s case it has been suggested that the tensions may be due to those who had stayed behind in Palestine refusing to relinquish land to those returning from Babylon. Perhaps it was but overall Zechariah appeals to all sides to show respect and concern for others and integrity in all their dealings.
The flying scroll may reflect this. Its length (almost 30 feet) is not unusual. Its breadth (15 feet) is phenomenal. Most scrolls were no more than a foot. If we assume that its content has to do with behaviour (right and wrong) then its size suggests an enormity and a variety of offences. Ten commandments and two clay tablets may have been sufficient for Moses and a wilderness community, but in the newly emerging community, with established residents, returnees and first-time immigrants, any discussion of law and order was far from simple. Think of law and order problems in communities facing similar changes (say) in mediaeval times, or the Reformation, or even your own childhood.
So what are we to make of the ‘flying’ scroll? Flying suggests uncertainty, variation, fluctuation. A world subject to wind and weather. Very different from anything like the tablets of stone or ‘the law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not’. Imagine the feelings of those for whom little had changed in 1,000 years and now feel as if the whole world seems to be collapsing round them.
In that situation hope or encouragement are not easy to come by. But if the poem helps us to appreciate our own situation it might also help us to begin to think how we could handle it and what message we may take to heart and pass on to others.