Why is the world the way that it is? Why is there such hatred and
violence? Why is there injustice and racism? The Bible’s answer to these kinds
of questions is sin. The most common understanding of sin is that it is
breaking God’s law. That is one way that the Bible describes what sin but
not the only way that the Bible talks about sin. Read Judges
17:1-13
This section of
Judges is often ignored because everything up to this point has been really
interesting. The book of Judges offers a brief history of Israel as they come
into Canaan the Promised Land. The book also functions as an “apologetic” for
the monarchy in general and David in particular. In the first 16 chapters of
the book we have these fantastic stories. The people would slide into sin and
when they did they soon became enslaved by some foreign power. The people would
cry out to God to be rescued and saved. In response God would send a judge to
save the people. A judge was a savior. In chapters 1-16 God sends a judge to
save his people 12 times. Once the judge arrived they often called the people
to repent of their ways and then lead in the liberation of the people from
their oppressors. Some of the judges were people like Deborah a women warrior/general,
Gideon and Samson. The first 16
chapters are full of these great dramatic stories. In chapters 17-21 the
stories we are given are not as dramatic and there are no judges that come.
There is no salvation that comes. We are left with two ending stories found in
chapters 17-18 and the other 19-21.
What is going on
in Judges 17? If you are going to give this story a title is would be something
like Mom, Micah and the Levite. First, you have Micah stealing from his mom. He
takes her money and when he hears her utter a curse against the robber then he
gives the money back. He is not very good or very bad. How good can you be to
steal from your own mom? How bad can you be to give it back?
Then his mom
cheats on God. When she gets her money back she says I am going to give it all
to the Lord. She says “I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord for my son
to make an image overlaid with silver. I will give it back to you.” Yet when it
comes time she only gives 200 shekels and uses that to makes two images out of
silver. She takes her silver images and puts them in her son’s chapel where he
worshiped God. This is in complete contradiction to everything in the 10
Commandments and the law. So far we have Micah cheating on his mom and mom cheating
God.
Then along comes a
Levite. Well Micah and his mom decide that they are going to have their own
shrine. During this time there was a Tabernacle. It was the place where you could
go to worshiped God. There was a place that Micah and Mom could go to worship
God. Yet they want their own worship place and they want their own ephod. When
they see the Levite approaching Micah and his Mom think they have the
opportunity to become legit. They could have their own genuine priest. Well
Micah offers the Levite a sum of money, clothing and place to stay if he will
be their family priest. The Levite agrees and all seems well.
Except in chapter
18 a group of Danite men come along. They are trying to find a place to live.
They tell the Levite to come with them and they will pay him more. The Levite
priest agrees to the terms from the Danite men. As they leave they take the
silver images that Micah and his mom have in their own personal worship center.
Micah gives chase to the Danites demanding that they return his silver images
and personal priest. The Danites tell him to go home or they will hurt Micah so
he goes home. That is how the story ends. Then in chapters 19-21, at the end of
the book of Judges, we are completely unprepared for what happens. There is a
gang rape of a woman that leads to a civil war among the tribes of Israel. The
civil war is so bad that whole villages are leveled. Men, women and babies are
killed. In the midst of all this violence and injustice there is not a single judges
to be found. No salvation. No hero to save the day. No rescue from God. What is
going on?
I am not the only
one to point out that there are no judges to be found in chapters 17-21. Every
other part of the book is about God’s salvation. Perhaps what the author is
showing us and therefore God is showing us is what we look like without
salvation. This is who we are in our natural state without God’s salvation. Right
away Judges 17 shows us some things that might just surprise us. Current
culture and many Christians have some stereotypes about what the Bible teaches
about sin and evil. The story of Judges 17 goes right against all of it.
What do you really
think that sin does to you in its advanced state? Most people believe that most
of us are kind regular people who make mistakes (sin) from time to time. When
we think of people who are really bad or diabolically evil we place them into a
different state then just regular people. Hannah Arendt attended
the trial of Adolf
Eichmann. Hannah Arendt had survived the Holocaust. Adolf Eichmann was the
German officer in charge of all the logistics of transporting massive numbers
of Jews (and others) to concentration camps where they would be murdered.
Eichmann was put on trial in 1961 and Hannah Arendt was in attendance.
After observing Eichmann during the trial she wrote an
essay called the Banality
of evil. Banal is a word that means common. Arendt’s conclusion was that
Eichmann was not a diabolical evil monster.
She observed that Eichmann was a boring little man who spoke in clichés.
He had no insights into life and possessed little sense of humor. He was a run
of the mill guy who desired to be important and desired to have people like
him. She suggested that Eichmann was not a monster. Instead he was just like
all the rest of us. He was boring, superficial and shallow. Arendt’s essay
stirred up controversy. Opponents suggested that anyone who could do what
Eichmann did is not like the rest of the human race.
Arendt got it partly right and partly wrong according
to the Bible. She said that because Eichmann was shallow and common that it
lead him to simply follow orders and do evil. The Bible says it is evil that
leads you to be common. The most advanced characteristic of sin in the human
heart is not to make us diabolical evil monsters but boring. CS Lewis said is
this way: We think that evil is
liberating but the real mark of hell is a sleepless unsmiling concentration
upon the self. We must understand hell as a place where everyone is concerned
about his or her own dignity. It the place where everyone has a grievance and
where everyone lives in the deadly seriousness of envy and self-importance.[1]
What CS Lewis figured out and Hannah Arendt observed
is what Judges 17 is attempting to tell us.
Sin makes you boring because all you are ever worry about is how you are
doing. How you look. How things are affecting you. There is always an insistent
grievance because you are always feeling sorry for yourself. Sin makes you
mediocre. The most advanced state of sin is nothing more boring than the person
who is all wrapped up in how they look. Sin makes you this very uninteresting,
unprincipled, shallow and boring person. This story tells us that the first
thing that sin does is not make you bad it makes you boring.
This story in
Judges 17 also tells us what sin leads us to do towards God. Most people would
think that sin in an advanced state would turn a person into an atheist. In
this story we are told that Micah’s mother dedicates two images made of silver
to the Lord. Boy that is terrible idea. Is she unaware of the first
commandment? Thou shall not worship any other gods. Why would she worship
another god? The answer is that she is not worshiping another god.
There are plenty of gods named in the book of judges.
The Canaanites had Baal and Ashura. The Philistines had Dagon. Micah’s mom does
not say she is dedicating her images to Baal or Dagon. What she has done is not
worship another god she is worshiping a reduced god. She has resized God and
place Him into her images. This is a god that you can put in your purse. This
is a god that you can take places with you. This is a god that is tame and
manageable. This is the heart of sin. A little, manageable tame god will give
you a little and manageable person. The point of the end of the book of Judges
is that banal, common people consumed in the sin of a “sleepless concentration
on self” makes you capable of terrible things eventually.
The essence of sin is when we reduce God to our level.
Ps. 50: 21 brings up this issue: “These things you have done, and I have been
silent; you thought that I was one
like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.” We think God is like us and can be bought. Many people come to church, they read their
Bible, they drop some bad habits as a way to buy off God. If I am doing these
good things that please God than surly he answer my prayers or fix my
situation. We think God owes us something. Micah was so happy when he got a
Levite to be his priest. He thought it was his chance to make what he was doing
legit. Micah thought that he could buy God off by following certain rules. Highly
religious people, who are sure that God has to be good to you and answer your
prayers, all you have created a god that you can put in your pocket and pull
out whenever you are in need. By the way there is nothing more boring than a
smug self-righteous person. They are the worst because a little god makes
little people.
We think God is like us because we think that God is
no wiser then ourselves. Know why were are so freaked out all the time? Because
things are not going right. We wonder why bad things happen because after all we
believe in a God. We can’t think of a good reason that this or that has
happened then we often conclude that there must not be one. If you believe that
God is big enough to have caused events to occur then certainly God is big
enough to have some reason that is beyond our understanding. There will never
be freedom in your heart until you admit that God is unmeasurably, infinitely
wiser than us all and we have absolutely no idea what he is up to.
The book of Judges ends by telling us the reason for
all this happening is because there was no king. What the author is saying is
that there is no savior. There was no hero to show up and set things right and
save the day. Perhaps something better than a judge a king might save the day
and set things right. Yet even the best of the kings fail. We need good king.
Throughout the Old Testament God says no any image
being made of himself or any other god. Is God only an abstract idea? After all
we humans want something that we can see, taste, touch and smell. Colossians
1:15 reads “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn over all creation.” God says you want something you can see? Then let me give you someone who loves, weeps
and eats with you. At the same time someone who is greater than you can image.
Not smaller but greater. When you have a God that becomes small then you have a
bigger God then you could ever imagine. Which by the way no other religion
claims. A God who is big enough to come down to our size. When you have a God
that can do that then you have a God that is your ultimate savior.
[1] CS
Lewis The Screwtape Letters (New York
MacMillan, 1961) p. ix
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