Wednesday, March 25

Scripture: So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one. (Judges 20:11).

Observation: The Israelites haven’t been “united as one” since the conquest of the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua. Once Joshua died, everything fell apart. The judges, as successful as they were in marshalling troops for battle, were not unifying figures for the entire nation, and once their campaigns against neighboring nations were completed, the sense of cohesion they were able establish for the sake of winning the battle vanished as soon as the battle was over. The Book of Judges is a brief history of the deterioration of unity in Israel as a result of a fundamental problem: there was “no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The book ends with disunity taken to the extreme. There was a civil war in Israel. Ten tribes marched against one tribe, Benjamin, after the Benjaminites in the city of Gibeah raped and murdered a woman who was a concubine of a Levite who had stopped in Gibeah for the night on his way home. The whole tale is sad and horrific. The people of Gibeah refused to show hospitality to the Levite and his concubine and made them spend the night outdoors, until one of the villagers took them in. The men of Gibeah pounded on the door and demanded the Levite come out, but the Levite gave his concubine to the men instead, and when the Levite opened the door in the morning, there was his concubine beaten and dead on the threshold. The Levite returned home and sent word to all the other tribes of Israel, all except Benjamin, that the Benjaminites had committed a horrific crime against one of their own nation and that called for the destruction of Gibeah. Over four hundred thousand Israelites ended up marching against Gibeah, where the fighting men of the tribe of Benjamin were waiting for them. Tens of thousands of people died. The coalition of ten tribes took heavy losses but ultimately won the war. Benjamin was almost wiped off the earth. The sad irony of the story is, Israel has never been so united since the time of Joshua and will not be this united again until the next civil war, when it’s King Saul versus King David.

Application: The Book of Judges ends with counterfeit unity. Counterfeit unity is when people feel a sense of cohesion and common purpose because they are united against another group. This is the false sense of unity of one group of people being defined by their opposition to another group. If a state of disunity exists when people are separated into “us” and “them,” then counterfeit unity exists when people are united by a sense of “us” versus “them”; the identity of the group is based on an implicit agreement that we are who we are because we are not them. All sorts of divisions and violence start this way. Civil wars start this way. Political polarization starts this way. Battles within the body of Christ start this way. Readers of the Book of Judges can be sure that counterfeit unity is indeed counterfeit and not how God intends for human beings to live together because the tale of the civil war ends abruptly with this sentence, the last words of the book: “In these days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:25). Without a leader showing the people what they are for, rather than what they are against, things fall apart. Are there times when God’s people have to be against things? Of course. God calls us throughout Scripture to be againstsin, evil, injustice, oppression, and cruelty, and some of the most noble parts of history include people coming together and rising up against tyrants and evil social systems and counterfeit kings. But Judges ends with a warning of what happens when human beings define themselves as being part of the group that is against, versus, in opposition to, and better than another group of people: what happens is unimaginable pain. We need a leader of God’s own choosing who will unite us around what we are for, and as a result, show us how to work against what God would work against if God Himself were king.

Prayer:

Exhausted. That’s what I feel as I watch the social fabric dry rot. I’m not as angry as I am exhausted. I’m tired of the constant ubiquitous unrelenting pulling apart of neighbor from neighbor. I have a hunch You feel the same way. Didn’t You hang with arms spread wide and palms facing out to show the world the deep longing of the Divine that we may all be one? The policies and politics and positions that set neighbor against neighbor, I confess, I don’t understand and wish we could overcome for the sake of Your flesh and blood who literally died so we might seriously live. I regret - yes, that’s the word – I regret that I am part of a fundamental problem of my species: we tend toward deifying that which divides, and so, help me to kneel in body and spirit at the foot of the cross, the emblem of Your love for all, and help me to gather in body and spirit all in my reach to know the Love that flung the stars, and help me and all in my species to ground ourselves in the Love that we are for. Onward we go: amen.