Judges - Micah - Judges 17

“In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did as he pleased.” A statement similar but not identical to “In those days there was no king in Israel, and the people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  How easy it is for us to dismiss both of these statements in the church today. We, for the most part, do not identify ourselves with the ancient Israelites and we do not need a king, for we have Lord Jesus. And yet.

And yet, this story of Micah and the Levite hits a little too close to home doesn’t it? We have to rationalize how we are not like the characters in this story in order to create a barrier around any identification with them. Surly, we do not do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. Surly, we worship correctly.

Micah is the son of an unnamed woman. He took eleven hundred shekels of silver from her and then returned them, an act for which he was rewarded by being allowed to keep the shekels and turn them into smithed images for his house of God. The stolen silver had become the center of his worship practices. He drafted one of his sons into being the priest of his temple, until a Levite came along. Micah immediately took interest – a priest from the tribe of priests to be his very own priest. Micah invited him to come and live with him and tend after his own house of God for ten shekels of silver a year. And Micah knew that he would prosper, because the Levite became his priest. Some scholars believe that at least eight of the Ten Commandments are broken in this short story, including dishonoring a parent, coveting, and taking the Lord’s name in vain, among others. There is a lack of knowledge about what truly pleases the Lord, and the writer of Judges makes no qualms about interjecting his own thoughts, this form of worship was not correct, not worthy of God. 

Often we have hard time in the church deciding what qualifies as “right” so we create a list of what is “wrong”, defining who God desires us to be and what worship should be by the negative, what worship is not and who we most certainly should not be. This story seems to be built on the principles of what we do not want our own worship to be – stolen money leading to building one’s own temple and finding a priest for hire, all with the hopes of leading to prosperity because of meticulous devotion.

How in the world did we get here? This is what the rest of the Book of Judges has been leading up to. The people have forgotten God. The people have become confused about what matters. The people are looking all around them to define what they want and need. 

We may be able to firmly say that our worship doesn’t look like Micah’s, but I think this story invites us to go deeper. 

First, why do we worship? For Micah, he thought that he could worship in order to win God’s favor. But that isn’t the point. We don’t worship for what we can get out of it, we worship because God is God and is worthy of our praise. 

We worship to proclaim that the person we value the most in our lives is God, and that no one else will ever compare to him. In fact, we value our relationship with him so much that we desire to follow him, to commune with him. That’s a pretty powerful statement that when we worship. 

Micah wasn’t clear in his own mind who was worthy of worship. In fact, it would seem that in a way he was making himself the center of worship - doing it for his own gains. 

Why do we worship? Maybe it isn’t about wanting to make God do something for us. But have you ever said, “well I just didn’t get anything out of that worship service?” It isn’t about what you get out of it, friends. It’s about what we put into it. It’s about whether we come in prepared to worship the one who is worthy of all praise. 

And when we practice putting God first here, we are more able to carry that out into the world, because we worship God when we put him first in our lives. We should worship God every day.

Second, where are you at in worship? Now I don’t mean where are we physically. Nor do I mean to say that you need to be in a church building to worship God. I mean, where are you at in your heart? For Micah, his heart was wandering and as a result, his worship was a reflection of that. 

There is an old worship song that says, “I’m coming back to the heart of worship and its all about you. Its all about you, Jesus.” 

Have we been praying throughout the week that our heart be open to worship God? Have we prayed this morning, thanking God in anticipation for what God is going to do in this place? Because I truly believe when we lay our hearts on the line before God that transformation can take place. Transformation of the world. Transformation of us. But we have to be willing to hand our hearts over. 

Third, how do we share this experience we have with God? How do we share what God means to us? How God has transformed us? For Micah, he started pulling people in to his scheme, but never really had a good reason, other than himself. First he named his son to be a priest. Then he gets a Levite off of the road.

For us, we still go out, but it isn’t about us. It is about God’s Kingdom. We are to share what God has done in our lives because we believe that God is moving in the hearts of others as well. We want them to be part of this amazing thing that God is doing. But sometimes that means setting aside our own fears to say, come and see what my God has done. 

Why do we worship? Where are you in worship? How do we share worship? I think these are the vital questions. 

But notice what question I did not ask - how do you worship? Its not about what type of music we have. Or our order of worship. Or how the church down the road is similar or different from us. Its about why we do what we do and where our heart is at.

We may have different circumstances but our world is just as confusing as that in Judges 17. And we still do what we please. We still can get confused when we make worship about what we get out of its instead of what we give unto God. Let us return to the heart of worship, friends, making it something that lifts up high God’s name in worship from the heart. 

Judges: Deborah - Judges 4: 1-9

At the start of this sermon series I noted that there is only one passage of scripture from Judges that finds itself in the lectionary  - and this is it, friends. Deborah. Yet, how many of us know Deborah’s story. How many of us have heard Judges 4 read in our churches? Not many. See the Revised Common Lectionary gives preachers four passages to select from each Sunday, and it becomes really easy to avoid Deborah’s story.

It is only chapter 4 of Judges and we already find ourselves back in the cycle that we discussed last week. The Judge, or leader, Ehud, has died. The people strayed from the Lord, so God relieved them into the hands of the Canaanites. Times were not good. Finally, the people realized that they lacked hearing from God, that they were once again in need of saving, and they cried out to God. And God raised up for them Deborah. 

Deborah was known as many things - the wife of Lappidoth, a prophetess, and yes, a judge. She would make herself available to the people of Israelites as she sat under a particular tree, day after day, and the people would come to her. But she also didn’t just wait for folks to come to her, she also summoned them when she had something to say. 

One day she called for a man named Barak and told him that God had chosen him to be the one who would defeat the Canaanite armies. And he bulked. We’ve been there right? God lays out this amazing vision for what God is capable of doing and we back up a little. Are you sure you mean me, Lord? Is this really the right time? Have you seen how fallible I am? I think you meant someone else. 

But instead of wearing his insecurities on his sleeve, Barak tried to be cunning. He said that he would go, but only if Deborah would go with him. He expected her to say no. A woman’s place wasn’t in the battlefield. Or if she said yes, hopefully her husband would reign her in, and he would say no. Only that isn’t what happens. Deborah gave a great declaration that “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Barak was disgraced and his plan had backfired. 

The story of Deborah and Barak is a powerful one. Yet, how often do we remember Deborah’s name and how often do we remember Barak’s? Here is this woman leader in Israel who the author doesn’t even know what to do with. Think about it - often when a male Judge is spoken of, or even another leader like Barak, all that is said is who they are related to. Whose family tree they are deeply tied into. But Deborah? The author or Judges have no idea what to do with Deborah, so instead she is described in this multifaceted way, which was just unusual. Who is she? Well first and foremost, she is a prophetess. A female prophet who was highly regarded at bringing the word of the Lord, when people least wanted to hear it, but needed it the most. She is also a wife. She has a husband who we just don’t know much about. But she is also a judge. Someone who served as a leader in a time of crisis and upheaval. 

Friends, we too, are multifaceted people. We may not be Deborah, but we are (say your name). You and you for such a time as this. The real question is where we are drawing our identity from. In a culture that told Deborah she should be one thing, she defied that in order to be who God called her to be. To the point where it confounded the poor author of Judges. Who are you called to be? And are you living into it today?

It is only because Deborah knew who she was and what her purpose from God was that she was able to both summon Barak with the prophecy and respond to him with authority when he tries to shrink away from the call that God had upon his life. Deborah’s words were not gentle, but they were true. In an honor-shame society, Deborah’s words from God would have landed a true blow of shame to Barak. He was about to be bested by a woman.

Fast forward past the part of scripture that we read today further into chapter 4. Folks who don’t know this story often assume that it is Deborah who killed Sisera. But that isn’t the case. Barak may not have known it at the time, but that wasn’t Deborah’s place in the story at all. Instead, that came through Jael - another person we don’t talk about enough in scripture. At a time when Sisera should have been with his army, he snuck off, and was killed with a tent peg to the temple of his head by Jael, thus doing what Barak was afraid to do and seizing the moment. 

Now am I saying that we should go out and kill our enemies in this manner? Certainly not. It was a different time in which the setting of Judges take place. But I am still fascinated by Barak and Deborah. One who knew what God called her to do and lived into it, and one who tried to avoid it at all costs. I keep wondering who we identify with in this story? And maybe, friends, it changes day by day. 

Are we the Deborah’s of this world. If you go on to read chapter 5 of Judges, it retells this story but in the form of a song or a poem. There Deborah was described as “most blessed of women”. Who are some other people who are described that way? Mary. When she carried the Christ child no matter what other people may say about her or what she was risking in terms of her own reputation and safety. And Hannah. Who argued with a priest who thought she was drunk, when really she was seeking the favor and face of the Lord. She won that argument and went on to carry Samuel, who would anoint King David. 

Being the most blessed in Biblical times did not mean that you were the most popular. Or that other people agreed with you or understood it. But it did mean that you fiercely followed the Lord, no matter what, and did extradonary things for the Lord. 

On the other hand you have Barak who received a pretty straight-froward word from the Lord, as communicated by Deborah, who by that point in time already had a reputation of being known as a prophet with wise counsel and leadership. If we are honest, her message to Barak was so clear that Barak shouldn’t have really been able to say anything but “okay, I’ll follow the Lord.” But instead, he tried to use Deborah as an excuse and a shield. For his lackluster obedience, he was brought to shame. 

Some days we are like that as well, friends. Telling the God who called us that we aren’t really willing to go. Or God needs to meet our conditions in order to illicit our obedience. And is that not a shame for us as well if we consider ourselves to be followers of Jesus Christ? 

Every single day we have a choice - are we going to be faithful to the call of God today or not? I have said more times than I can possible count that at the end of the day I am accountable to God. And if God has called then I have to follow. Friends, what is your answer going to be when God calls you? Will you like like Deborah or like Barak? Amen. 

“Judges: The Rise and Fall of Judges" Judges 2: 6-23

I was a freshman in college the first time I read the Bible the whole way through. When people tell me that they are going to read the Bible from cover to cover, I tell them that people often give up around Numbers because it just seems to be a list of, well, numbers. People, dimensions, but to keep going, because it will pick up.

But as I get older, I often wonder if that isn’t the word of encouragement I should be giving. Instead, maybe folks a warning of what’s going to come just a few chapters later in the book of Judges. Because nothing can prepare you for it. 

And perhaps that is our own fault as a church. We rarely hear sermons preached from the book of Judges. There is only one passage from Judges in the three year cycle of scripture readings - the Revised Common Lectionary and that is the story of Debra. Sometimes we hear a few other stories, like Gideon or Samson, but they are often divorced from the context of what is happening in the book as a whole.

So for the next few weeks, I want to take time to dig into some of the stories from Judges. Maybe some that you have heard before. Maybe some that you are not familiar with at all. But this comes with a warning. Judges is a hard book. But if we honest, the world that we live in today is hard as well. So maybe we are in need of a book like Judges to be opened up before us as a reminder. 

The book of Judges starts out in a difficult place. The Israelites failed to conquer the land of Canaan. Things were looking pretty good at first, but by the middle of the chapter each tribe was listed followed by the statement “did not drive out”. It was not looking good for the Israelites. In fact, in many ways it looked like they had simply given up.

What happened? When you read the book of Joshua, that which comes right before the book of Judges, it looked like the people of Israel were settling into the Promise Land. Well two things took place, almost simultaneously. The first is that Joshua and his generation is dead. Joshua was the leader who followed Moses and took up the mantle to lead the people out of Exodus and into the promise land. Joshua was known as a man of faith. In fact, when others doubted that they could conquer the peoples in the lands around them, Caleb and Joshua stood alone trusting in the promise of the Lord. 

But the people didn’t have the same faith as Joshua so upon is death a second thing took place in abundance, the people of Israel went astray. God at the beginning of chapter two, right before the verse that we read today, is reminding the people that it was him who brought the people out of the land of Egypt. It was God who promised to never break covenant with the people of Israel. But they were told to not make covenants with the people of the lands, and here they were cozying up with the Canaanites. And God said that this would be their snare. 

And that snare came in the form of starting to worship other gods. We’ve been working our way through the minor prophets in Bible Study, which start with Hosea. Now Hosea has an interesting call of God upon his own life, but the message itself that he is bringing is not unique. The people have failed to live in the covenant, a covenant akin to a betrothal and marriage covenant, with God. They instead have strayed and have become unfaithful by worshipping other Gods.

That going astray didn’t start with the people Hosea was talking to. In fact, we’ve seen several examples of the Israelites going astray in the handful of books prior to Judges. But here, in Judges its becoming prevelant. Its becoming a way of life. In fact its becoming a whole cycle.

Judges as a title refers tot he people that God raised up to deliver the people of Israel when they found themselves facing an enemy. This was prior to the time of Kings. The Israelites found themselves in a cycle again and again and again that went something like this:

The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of God, so the Lord handed them over to an enemy. They cried out to God and the Lord relented and raised up for them a judge, or a deliverer, who went out to defeat the enemy. And then the land had rest (at least for the deliverer’s life time). 

But then there was always a next step in the cycle. The people would stay again! As soon as they forgot how God had delivered them. As soon as they forgot that it was God that defeated their enemy, they went right back to their former ways - worshipping other gods. 

Why in the world were the people of God, the chosen people!, behaving in this manner. 

First, this generation did not know the Lord. At least not in the same way that Joshua, or Moses, or their previous leaders had known God. See for too long under the leadership of those individuals, they trusted on the leader to be the mouth piece for God. Fast forward to the time of the minor prophets, like Hosea, and they were trusting the priests and the prophets to be the mouthpiece from God. But they themselves didn’t have that solid relationship with the ultimate deliverer, the Lord God.

We have a gentleman in this parish who always says that someone else can’t have your relationship with God for you. Now folks can pray for you. And for many of us, we came to know Christ because the seeds were planted by folks down on their knees praying for us. But in order to have a relationship with God we have to know God for ourselves. Not know facts about God. Not known stories from the Bible. Know God. 

Not only do the Israelites at this time not know God because they’ve relied on other people to be the conduit instead of seeking God for themselves, they also are going astray with the freedom that God has given them. We find at the beginning of the book of Genesis that human beings are given free will. In a perfect world, what are we to be doing with our free will? Choosing to love God. Choosing to worship God. But all too often, people choose sin over obedience, and to love other gods instead of the God. 

When you combine the Israelites wandering hearts with a lack of a grounding relationship with a Holy God, is it any wonder that they are chasing after other Gods?

Friends, can we see ourselves, see our world, in chapter two of the book of Judges? How many folks do we know that don’t have a relationship with God? Never had their heart changed or in Methodist terms their “heart strangely warmed”? Now, we need to be careful here, because it is not up to us to judge other people’s relationship with God, but we can certainly ask if they have a relationship with the lover of their soul. And if they answer is no, we can help shepherd people from a place of head knowledge to a place of heart knowledge. 

And one of the ways that we can do that is joining the generations who have come before us, back on our knees, praying for folks. Praying for a change to come. Praying for a generation to come and know the Lord. 

Friends, it is time to stop chasing after everything around us, and instead, renew our relationship with the Holy God, living by faith, and breaking the cycles of violence and pain that swirl around us. It is time to cry out again and then not go back. It is time. Are we ready? Amen. 

“The Christian Wallet: The Joy of Simplicity” Matthew 6: 19-21

If you picked up the devotional for last week you would have noticed that the first four days were about work - our work for Christ in the world, what it means to be a laborer in God’s vineyard, but then you got to Friday, and what was the topic about? Rest. Sabbath rest. Because the truth is work and rest are connected. 

In Genesis 2:2 we are told that after God created everything - the sky, the waters, the stars, the animals, human beings - God rested. On the seventh day after God finished the work that he had done, God rested. 

We live in a culture that honestly, does not know how to rest well. The two greatest markers of success defined by the world around us are 1.) what do you have? And 2.) How busy are you? If you have something nicer than your neighbor and your calendar is so full that you have to turn people away, then you must be important. 

But that isn’t what is important in God’s economy at all. For God it’s not about how busy you are, because God is the God of relationship. God’s very self is a relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. God is in relationship with us. And God created us for relationships as well. But there has to be time to nourish those relationships. 

Enter the idea of rest. A lot of time we talk about Sabbath as a day set apart to worship God. And that is 100 percent true. In Exodus 20 we find these words, “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.” On that Sabbath day we are to rest in the Lord. 

But when we think that Sabbath is simply about going to church, and that is what we equate with worshipping God, then we can make the Sabbath like any other day as well. I’ll go worship in the morning, but then from the afternoon on, I’ll try to fit in everything else I couldn’t get done Monday through Saturday. 

I’ve shared before that we are so confused about rest and Sabbath that we often bat back and forth between extremes. Sometimes we can make Sabbath too legalistic, a list of thou shall and thou shall nots. The image of Laura in Little House on the Prairie comes to mind, with how much she deleted Sundays because she wasn’t allowed to play, all she could do was sit quietly and listen to the Bible being read. On the other extreme is the idea that the Sabbath exists for whatever we want to do, so long as we don’t consider it “work” for our job.

I think the true meaning of Sabbath lies more in the middle.

In the Gospel of Mark (2:27) Jesus tells his disciples “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath” In other words, God didn’t need to rest, but God modeled what rest is for us, because we do need it. We need a place to have margin in our lives to breathe and to breathe deeply. 

Knowing that God created us for relationships, I think if we are honest, that’s what the Sabbath exists for. First and foremost, it exists for our relationship with God. It gives us intentional time to worship God. Now should this be the only time throughout the week that we focus on God? Absolutely not. But worship can be a place where we learn to focus on our attention on God throughout the week as well. 

But Sabbath is also made for our relationships with other people. Many of you have told me of the times when you used to go and visit with family on Sundays, driving from one family members house to another. Or of the Sundays you would spend with the neighbors on the porch. Why do these memories come up time after time? Because they are something that we treasure. And for some of us they are something that we deeply miss in this world. 

As we have moved into treating Saturday and Sunday like any other day, what happens is that Saturday, this day that we used to have to catch up on the things we didn’t get done during the week, like errands, bleeds into Sunday, and pushes out the margin in our lives that we need for vital relationships. Time with ourself. Time with God. Time with others. And when we don’t have that time set aside on the Sabbath, it becomes that much harder to retool ourselves to claim that time throughout the week as well. 

Our scripture lesson from Matthew is speaking about just that today, is it not? Jesus is telling us to consider what we truly treasure, what is really important to us. Is it getting as much as we can in this world in terms of material things and being as full in our calendars as we can be? Not really. Its the most important things, the things that give us life our very self, our relationships.

Friends, I have yet to sit by the bedside of someone who was dying who said, “Gee, I wish I would have put in more hours at work”, but I’ve sat at far too many bedsides of those who said, “I wish I would have spent more time with my family.”

The question is are we so dedicated to the idea of what matters most that we are willing to change and simplify our lives? Are we really invested in relationships as God is invested in relationships, or do we give it lip services but not any of the work?

Whenever I do premarital counseling, I will talk to the couple about what it means to be invested in the hard work of marriage. We talk about how to love one another even when you disagree. And how to make time for one another in life. Because the truth is, too many folks who come in preparing for marriage think all of that comes easily. When really it requires work. 

It also requires work to be in relationship with God. Like some engaged couples who think of course you will make time for your spouse, we think that about God, until one day we sit down and realize its been a really long time since we simply spent time with the God who created us and loves us. 

So how do we shift our mindset from one of consumption and busyness to one of relationships? First, we need to realize that we are stewards not owners of that which we have. Every single thing and dollar and penny we have right now, is really God’s. We are just the caretakers of it. So we need to do the long, deep thinking that comes with being a steward. What would honor God best in how I use this? How can I use that which God has blessed me with in a way that values what God values? This is not the way of thinking that we often grew up with in the world, and it may be hard at first. But as we live more and more into being a steward we start to see the blessings God has given us as a way to bless others.

Second, we need to look around our lives and ask ourselves what we are most grateful for in our lives. Is it the things that we have? Or is the people? Is it that new thing? Or is it our relationship with God? And after we have considered what we are most thankful for, we can then move on to howe we can live into that gratitude more fully in the world. 

Friends, for far too long we have bought into the lie that we are in relationship with the things that we have. It is time to reclaim the value and place of the true relationships in our lives - those that we treasure the most. Amen.