vengeance

There’s a lot I don’t understand about prayer. I was reminded of that this morning when I read the end of Samson’s story, in Judges 16. The Bible contains some odd prayers, and one of them is the one Samson prayed, in Judges 16:28.


“Then Samson prayed to the Lord, ‘Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.’”


Samson is one of the more troubling judges of Israel. He never seemed like he was obeying God; in fact, he seemed to go out of his way to flout God’s prohibitions for his people. He willingly touched the dead lion and served some of the honey from the carcass to his mom and dad. He partied with Israel’s enemies and consorted with their women. He married outside the faith. His actions seem governed mostly by his appetites and his rage.


Even so, his humiliation, maiming  and death aren’t easy to read about. Those things didn’t change Samson much, though. In the end, when he turned to God, he prayed not for God’s will to be done but for vengeance.


God answered that prayer. Why? If I prayed to God for the power to avenge myself on an enemy, I wouldn’t expect God to listen. I’d advise against it if anyone asked me. Vengeance isn’t something you pray for. You pray for the strength to love your enemies, not hate them. Vengeance belongs to God.


Except that may be why God gave Samson what he asked for. God was taking vengeance on his own enemies, and Samson was the deliverer of that vengeance. In that way, Samson’s prayer, self-centered though it was, may have been a prayer for God’s will to be done.


Can God use even the misguided prayers of a wayward son to work out his plans? This story suggests that he can. In the end, maybe Samson’s recognition of God’s sovereignty was all that was needed. No matter how twisted his motivations or how wrong-hearted his desires were, he knew only God could grant them.


I wish I understood prayer better, because maybe I’d be motivated to do more of it. But then, maybe if I did more of it I’d understand it better.

get her

This morning, I’m wondering at how God uses the most ordinary of human things to do his work.

If I were planning on how to get rid of the detested Philistines who had occupied Israel and had all the power of Almighty God, I don’t think I would have looked at the array of choices open to me and thought, “Hey, I know! I’m going to use that tendency that young men have to be stupid about women! That’ll work!”

But that’s what God did. The story starts in the first four verses of Judges 14, and it goes like this: “Samson went down to Timnah and saw there a young Philistine woman. When he returned, he said to his father and mother, ‘I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.’
“His father and mother replied, ‘Isn't there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?’
“But Samson said to his father, ‘Get her for me. She's the right one for me.’ (His parents did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.)”

Samson the Nazirite, set aside from birth for God’s service, will make a fool of himself chasing a Philistine woman, and from that beginning God will use him to wreak havoc with and eventually free his people from the hated occupiers.

It amazes me. God could and did use rivers of blood and parted waters and a tempest of fire and brimstone; he even drowned the whole world. He can do all of that and more. But in this case, he cause Samson to want the wrong woman, because, as scripture tells us, he was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines.

Sometimes God chooses the most normal parts of human nature to work his purposes. I’m reminded that with God very few circumstances are about just one thing. What was passion and true love to Samson was a catastrophe to his faithful parents, but it was a salvation tactic used by God.

I have to be careful not to assume I know how God will work, and through whom. I think I miss a lot of what God does because it doesn’t look like God to me. But if verse 4 of Judges 14, that parenthetical explanation of what God was up to, wasn’t in scripture I would have missed God’s hand in this part of Samson’s story too.

So what does God at work look like? I think probably not any one thing, but maybe everything human. He used pagan kings like Nebuchadnezzar and Roman officials like Pilate to do his will, and in this case he used a young man’s lust. There isn’t anything he can’t use. So why do I assume I know what he will do?

If I watch more, and with a more open mind, I wonder what wonders of God I might see. 

equipping

We all have our favorite Bible stories. One of my top ones is the story of Gideon, which I read again this morning in Judges 6 through 8. I love this story because it has so many interesting plot twists, and because it reveals so much about how God saves.

One of those fascinating twists happens early in the story, in Judges 6:11-12 “The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.’”

Israel needs a savior, and the angel of the Lord goes to one of the youngest sons of one of the smallest families of one of the least tribes in all of Israel. This is a man who’s already given up – just look at what he says to the angel in the following verses. That’s why he’s doing a lousy job of threshing his wheat, not in an airy high place where the wind will get rid of the chaff, but in a low hole in the ground where he can hide. Right then, hiding was more important that making the most of his crop. Gideon thinks God no longer acts on behalf of Israel, and he doesn’t think he can do anything about it.

Eventually, though, with just 300 men Gideon defeats the Mideanites who have oppressed Israel for years. Actually, Gideon and his 300 men stand safely on the ridgeline and watch God run the hordes of invaders out of the country. By the end of Judges 8, Gideon is the respected ruler of his people, and dies an old man after a long and good life.

Here’s what always impresses me: Hiding in that hole, threshing his wheat, Gideon was as far from a mighty warrior as you could imagine, but still the angel named him as one. Israel needed a mighty warrior, God called a very unlikely candidate to the job, and then God made Gideon into exactly what he and Israel needed.

That’s what we Christians, with our insider lingo, call “equipping.” One of the great reassurances I find in Gideon’s story is that when God calls me, he equips me to do anything I need to do. I might see all the reasons I shouldn’t be the one, but if God invites me to join him in his work, he already plans to give me everything I will need to successfully do my part.

I love that process of calling and then equipping, because the way it works itself out in this world is that most of the time God saves us from our troubles by sending us rescuers that are, well, us. That’s what the church is all about. That’s what missions and service are all about. It’s all just a bunch of average Joes and Janes with all our weaknesses and inconsistency faithfully trying to do what God expects. And when we do that, look at what we accomplish: wounded hearts are healed, enslaved sinners are freed, hungry mouths and souls are fed, evil is defeated. Every day the church remains faithful in this world, wonderful things happen. Because God equips those he calls, and he calls his church every day.

It shames me for all the times God has shown me where he is working and I have declined that invitation to join him. It shames me for all the times one of those wounded hearts or enslaved sinners or hungry souls has crossed my path and I let them go.

But mostly, it inspires me to watch carefully for those people and invitations and then jump excitedly into the adventure that following God truly is. The opportunities are everywhere, and story of Gideon promises that the equipping will be just as abundant.

Shamgar

There’s an old saying: “There’s nothing new under the sun.” It shows up in Ecclesiastes, but I have no way of knowing whether it originated there. But we all say it because it really does seem as though history repeats itself.

Judges kind of proves the point. Israel sins, God hands them over to a pagan nation for judgment, Israel cries out, God sends a deliverer. Here’s a perfect example, from Judges 3:31:  “After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.”

Ehud was the guy who stabbed the fat Philistine with the short sword. Shamgar came after him, killed his six hundred Philistines, and faded into obscurity. Everything we know about Shamgar is in this one verse; he was just a place-holder between Othniel and Ehud, who came before him, and Deborah, who came after. All of them had the same job, although the rest got a little more ink than Shamgar.

It all seems pretty futile, doesn’t it? Why did God put up with it? Why did he bother sending all those deliverers?

Another saying is that those who don’t study history are doomed to relive it. I think that saying is relevant to the purpose of this book of Judges in the Old Testament, with its boringly repetitious plot and seeming lack of progress in the story line. Judges describes human nature, with its tendency toward worldly things and its forgetfulness about God’s grace.

So I study it. I know that I could very easily be one of those Christians doomed to relive the basic plot line of Judges over and over again. I can learn from my own pain, or I can try to learn by reading of the pain of Israel.

The Old Testament lets us walk beside God’s people as they learned to know God. There’s a lot to learn about God and my relationship with him in Judges.

Bokim

Judges 2:1-5 “The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, ‘I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, “I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.” Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? And I have also said, “I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.”’
“When the angel of the Lord had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud, and they called that place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the Lord.”


Gilgal was the first place that the Israelites camped in their new land. Now, after a period of fighting, they’ve penetrated into Canaan, encountered a number of the tribes they were supposed to get rid of, and already compromised their mission.


And then, God’s angel, there to speak for him, travels the land from their first stop to a place called Bokim to make the following pronouncement: In spite of all God’s faithfulness to you, you have already decided not to obey him. And then, the challenging question. Why?


The people repented, but they wouldn’t change. That makes me ask, what was the point of Bokim? It seems so fruitless, both for God and his people. God reminds them of their failings, they feel bad, but nothing changes. Gilgal was all about God’s faithfulness. Gilgal was the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end. Bokim seems futile.


I wonder if I have my own Bokim. Or maybe I’ve had many of them. Were there times in my life when God confronted me with my own unfaithfulness and I felt horrible, but nothing changed? You bet there were. I can think of more than one. So what right do I have to judge Israel because of their behavior in Judges?

Thank God for his grace! Thank God that he loves me, he bought me, he pursues me, he never gives up on me. Thank God that nothing about my salvation depends on my own miserable, selfish tendency to do the easy thing, to go along to get along, to compromise rather than stand firm. Thank God!


Judges is one of the more depressing books in the Bible – it’s all about the inability of the Israelites to follow God. But it’s also about God’s faithfulness anyway. So I guess that’s not depressing. In the context of my life, it’s encouraging.

inquire

I don’t pray enough. I know I don’t; in fact, I’ve often thought that if I prayed about all the things I should pray about, it would take hours. How dumb is that! I recognize all kinds of things that require prayer, but just don’t take the time.

That makes me like the foolish Israelites I read about this morning in Joshua 9. They were fooled by the Gibeoniates, a tribe of Hivites that they were supposed to eliminate from the land. The crafty Gibeonites packed moldy bread and old wineskins for their short journey from a nearby town to treat with Israel, because they knew Joshua and his army could crush them like a bug.

Here’s how it played out, after Joshua questioned them, in Joshua 9:9-15 “They answered: ‘Your servants have come from a very distant country because of the fame of the Lord your God. For we have heard reports of him :all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan—Sihon king of Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth. And our elders and all those living in our country said to us, “Take provisions for your journey; go and meet them and say to them, ‘We are your servants; make a treaty with us.’” This bread of ours was warm when we packed it at home on the day we left to come to you. But now see how dry and moldy it is. And these wineskins that we filled were new, but see how cracked they are. And our clothes and sandals are worn out by the very long journey.’
The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord. Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath.”

See, Joshua and the Israelites made the same mistake I do. Even though they knew better, they didn’t ask God. They didn’t seek his guidance before making this treaty, so they wound up swearing an oath on the name of the Lord that would require them not to carry out God’s instructions. They actually swore to God they wouldn’t do what God wanted them to do!

That seems foolish, but it reminds me how easily people with good intentions and trust in other people can be taken in by this world. Things like tolerance sound so good that I can easily forget they actually want me to tolerate what God calls wickedness. Charities can tug at my heartstrings to get money that will actually be used for questionable things. People on all sides of the Syrian conflict use images of children to manipulate my opinions. Fake news is a thing now. How do I know what’s real? How do I know who I can trust?

That’s why I need to do what Joshua didn’t: I need to inquire of the Lord. Him I can trust completely. If I don’t turn to him, I’m going to get so much of this wrong, causing who knows how much harm?

This requires an urgency in prayer that I too often lack. I want to do better; will I?

guilt

I have a problem with the idea of group guilt. I don’t like it when other people have something against me just because my kind – white people, soldiers, bosses – have somehow wronged them in the past. It doesn’t seem fair to me.

This morning, though, that idea is being challenged. I read the story of Achan’s sin and the resulting defeat of the Israelite army at Ai. The nub of the problem is here, in Joshua 7:1 “But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things; Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord 's anger burned against Israel.”

The Lord’s anger kept burning until Achan was publicly found out and put to death. Until that time, all of Israel suffered.

So I must be wrong. If God would hold the entire nation accountable for the sin of one man, then there is something to the idea of group guilt. But I still can’t see exactly what.

Part of it probably has to do with accountability. We’re expected to help each other fight sin, and to challenge each other when we seem to compromise God’s values.

In this case, it probably also has to do with the fact that the things Achan took were supposed to be devoted to God. Achan stole God’s stuff. That’s serious; combined with the fact that right beforehand God had told the Israelites what he expected, this becomes an act of defiance that must be addressed.

I still don’t get why so many other Israelites had to die because of Achan’s sin. It’s not like they were in on it, or even knew. All those mourning families and an entire discouraged nation, all because of one man. Nevertheless, God’s anger burned against all of Israel.

One thing is obvious: God’s sense of justice is so absolute and so pure that I won’t always understand it. But that doesn’t mean God is wrong, or in any way unjust; it simply means God’s ways are so far beyond me. It comes once again to trust, trust that God is good and will do what is right. I don’t have to get it to accept it; I just have to trust God.