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Calvary Unplugged, The Men of Judges: The Benjaminite Bachelors

Monday, August 26, 2013 Posted by Shiowei

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Calvary Unplugged, The Men of Judges: The Benjaminite Bachelors

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Judges 19

Rev. Allyson Robinson

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So…what in God’s name are we supposed to do with that?

I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I’ve been thinking about and studying the text of Judges 19 all summer long, and reading it and re-reading it and re-re-reading it. And after all that I have to tell you, honestly, I have no idea what this story is supposed to be telling us, or why it’s even here. Why any of them are here, for that matter.

(And I feel compelled to say that my ignorance comes through no fault of the gifted and inspired people who’ve been guiding our community as we’ve considered these difficult texts. I’ve learned so much from each of them, and grown so much, too. In fact, most of what you’ll hear from me today really comes from my reflection on their ideas about the stories of Gideon, Samson, Barack, Jephthah, and Sisera. And so, Amy, Rachel, Trey, Andi, Susan, Pastor Amy – you have my gratitude.)

No, my ignorance here is my own fault, I think. Truth is, despite the fact that I hold an advanced degree in theology from an accredited seminary (one with a reputation for critical reflection and embracing the scriptures in a thoughtful, holistic way); despite having spent over a decade in the pulpit and preaching through the Lectionary cycle over and over again; despite having read through the entire Bible as spiritual practice many times; I never really even thought about this story of the Benjaminite Bachelors until just a few months ago.

And I have a feeling I’m not alone. How many of you have read this text before? How many have heard this story before now? How many have heard a sermon or a Sunday school lesson on it? Well, that makes me feel a little better, I suppose – but actually, it only adds to the difficulties raised by this story. Because now we have to ask ourselves not only what this story means and why it’s even in our Bible, but why we never talk about it. I mean, it’s as though we have this unspoken mutual agreement not to teach this text, not to read it, not to acknowledge it’s even there. Like a covenant of silence – “the first rule of Judges 19 is that you don’t talk about Judges 19.”

Or a conspiracy. Ooo. That’s good, actually. The Judges 19 Conspiracy. The Conspiracy of Silence. Sounds like a Dan Brown novel, doesn’t it? “This fall, from the best-selling author of The DaVinci Code comes the tale of a conspiracy millennia old – an insidious plot to hide the truth about the ancient Hebrew Bible and guide the Christian church toward the fulfillment of a dark purpose. And you’re just a pawn in the game for the forces behind…The Judges 19 Conspiracy.

You’d totally buy that book, wouldn’t you? And not because you appreciate the literary finesse of Dan Brown or admire his subtlety as a wordsmith. (That was a joke, people.) You’d buy it because we like conspiracy theories – love them, in fact. In a world that is complex, chaotic, and often impenetrably so for all but a handful of the most powerful, we like stories that make us feel like we understand the forces that move the world, even when those stories are fictional. So think DaVinci Code and National Treasure, The Roswell UFO Incident and Area 51, 9/11 Truthers and the U.N. plot to take over America.

Now, there are two elements to any good conspiracy: there’s why, and then there’s who. Why is the agenda. It’s that “dark purpose” that if we knew someone was up to it, we’d try to stop them. Who is the antagonist. It’s the Masons, the Illuminati; it’s the shadow government, it’s (with curious frequency) the Church. It’s the cabal secretly plotting to subvert the right way of doing things, the agreed upon process, the legal requirement. To hide the truth from us until it’s too late to do anything about it.

And so, If there really were a conspiracy to hide Judges 19 and the rest of these stories, to silence these voices, why? And who? Who would want to do that, and to what ends? Well, I have a theory…and it starts with the New Testament.

Compare this story with those New Testament stories with which we’re more familiar, the ones we all know and love to tell. What makes Judges 19, and so many of the stories we’ve looked at this summer, different from the rest? It’s tempting to believe it’s the graphic violence. The story of the Benjaminite Bachelors is, in the parlance of the entertainment industry today, torture porn. Stunning neglect, gang rape, the desecration of a corpse, It would fit in just fine as a prequel to the Saw series of movies that have proven so profitable over the last decade. Maybe someone’s trying to hide all that violence. But then we have to remind ourselves that our most beloved story, the story we say is at the center of all scripture, is the story of one man’s violent, bloody torture and gruesome execution. We Christians call the driving of rusty nails through a man’s hands and the offering of vinegar when he begs for water “good news,” so it’s probably not the R-rated character of Judges 19 that has caused it to get shoved down Orwell’s memory hole.

There is, however, one notable difference between the Levite protagonist of Judges 19 – and the leading men of all the Judges stories we’ve read this summer from Gideon and Samson to Sisera – and the man at the center of the crucifixion story. It’s that the men of Judges are, by and large, abject moral failures, while Jesus is perfection, the epitome of moral success.

It’s really fascinating when you stop and think about it. Our spiritual forebears, the society that called itself Israel, included in its official national narrative (its Hall of Fame, if you will) people who were such utter, dismal failures as these. And not just these, right? Jacob, David, even Noah. The Old Testament is often shocking in its transparency about these people. I mean, who are the New Testament parallels? Who are the failures of the distinctively Christian texts, the church’s official narrative or Hall of Fame? Can you name any? There’s Judas…and there’s…well, that’s pretty much it. It’s not that nobody else makes any mistakes or does anything wrong in the New Testament, it’s just that they always end up redeeming themselves and doing it big time. Peter denies Christ, but then preaches Christ to thousands. Thomas doubts, but the becomes the personification of belief. Paul goes from hater to hero. It’s as if we can’t acknowledge our failures unless there is some glorious robe of success to cover them up with.

And it’s not like they weren’t there, the failures of the early church. You know they were; they had to be. Pastors that were arrogant, deacons that grabbed power, leaders that sinned sexually, churches that fell apart or fell away or hurt the people they were meant to help. It’s that somewhere along the line those stories were removed, censored, expunged from the text . And the stories of Peter and Thomas and Paul we elevated and reshaped until their weaknesses disappear in the light of their righteousness, their wisdom, their courage; and their lives we edited so that their failures shrink into insignificance in the shadow of their shining success at being Christian.

Over time, the church – and surprise, it’s the church that’s behind this conspiracy – over time, the church invented with a whole new class of people – they called them “saints,” borrowing from an Old Testament word for the beloved community –  that they pretended had no weaknesses or failures. They created an art form out of the erasure of their faults – hagiography, the writing of the stories of the saints. Not biography, but fictionalized accounts that turned real people into spiritual superheroes, lies they all pretended were true until they became true, or the functional equivalent thereof.  And it affected their theology, and their spirituality, and their spiritual community, and the communities around them they were meant to influence for God and good and truth, not for fiction. That’s why the word “saint” in non-Christian culture came to mean “somebody who is morally better than anyone else,” and still does today.

And – are you ready for the big reveal? – you’re still doing it today. That’s right, you. YOU and I are the ones behind the Judges 19 conspiracy. We have inherited the agenda of the perfectionist cabal to erase the stories of failure from our history. You and I have conspired to present to the world a Christian people who are always good and true and upright and perfect. For all our talk of forgiveness and humility, you and I treat our real sin as if it were incompatible with real Christianity. We’ve adopted an unbiblical theology that “grades” sin, that’s quick to excuse our own faults as inconsequential and just as quick to magnify the faults of others as disqualifying.

And in order to protect our conspiracy we ignore the failures that our Hebrew ancestors felt should and must be included in their stories. And we ignore the failures of Christianity, either by whitewashing events like the Crusades or distancing ourselves from other churches we feel are failing to live up to their calling or leaders when they fall from grace. (That statement itself, “fall from grace,” and the uncritical way we throw it around, should tell us something. Is our theological concept of grace is really something that can be lost so easily?)

You know, sometimes I wonder if by calling ourselves “a different kind of Baptist,” we’re not giving in a little to what has become an instinctual urge to protect the conspiracy. “We’re not what they are. Where they’ve failed, we succeed.”

The problem, of course, is that by keeping our failure stories secret – by joining in the centuries-old conspiracy to forget our failures right out of existence – we hurt ourselves, our movement, and our world. We doom ourselves to repeat the same mistakes our forbears made, over and over again ad infinitum. We author for ourselves and the world a lived theology of sin and forgiveness that isn’t just in error, but is diametrically opposed to the way God actually views it. We harm one another and ourselves by placing the burden of unrealistic expectations on one another and the whole world. And we poison our witness, slur our message, and bring shame upon the gospel – because all our pretending is exactly why the world calls us hypocrites. They know the truth, and they know what God has said, and they know we’re faking it it. They see how out of balance this conspiracy of silence makes us, and increasingly, they pity us for it. And so does God.

You see, that’s why these stories are here: to keep our theology balanced. To teach us that no matter how profound and hurtful and even horrifying our failures are, we’re still part of the family, we still belong to beloved community, our stories are still worth telling and remembering. To show us that forgiveness is real and, in fact, automatic – and that that doesn’t cheapen grace, as some have said, but only makes it more precious. And, ultimately, these stories abide in the text to call us to face up to our own failures – that like the Levite in our text, we ourselves have broken bodies and have spilt blood – and that GOD IS OKAY WITH US.

“O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be.

Let THY goodness…bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

Here’s my heart, Lord. Take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.”

Bulletin