Judges 9--The Word of Prophecy, Part 1

Examination and Reflection on Judges 9:1-21. You'll want to read the passage first or at least have it open with you as you read this two part reflection. (My reflection is based on the ESV translation.)

Verses 1-7

Abimelech is the son of a concubine, so he is really the least fit man to rule. He is the one, of Jerubbaal’s sons, who has least “right” to be in charge, and is not even closely connected with the family. But he appeals to the people of Shechem, who, as the previous chapter informs us, are not really appreciate of Gideons’ house at all and basically says to them, because I am your relative—closer to you and not as foreign as the rest of Gideon’s sons—you should let me have the power and be king instead of them ruling in whatever fashion they rule. So, basically he wants to use their own desire for power to manipulate them into accepting them as king. It is pure self-interest and they conveniently forget everything that Gideon’s house has done for them. They should have been loyal to all the sons of Gideon, but instead because “he is our brother” (v. 3) they want to empower Abimelech and so empower themselves. Pure power mongering, no justice here. The slaughter of the children of Gideon (Jerubbaal) is simply treacherous.

Consider the prophetic voice as shown in verses 7-20, but showcased in v. 7. What he says is interesting: listen to me that God may listen to you. This suggests that unless we listen to God, he will not listen to us . . . which makes sense of course, because unless our speech toward him is informed by what he wants to reveal and share with us. How else will it be anything other than babbling and vain conversations because on our own, we don't actually know how to talk to God?

Here is the parable of kingship (verses 8-15). There are trees—which are the leaders of Shechem. The place where Jotham is standing is significant—Mt. Gerizim is only mentioned four times in the Bible (unless it has another name, too). And it is first mentioned as the place where the Deuteronomic blessings are given—Mt. Ebal is where the Deuteronomic curses are given. The only times in the Scripture where Mt Gerizim is even mentioned is Deut 11:29; 27: 12; Josh 8:33, and here in Judges 9:7. In each time subsequent to the first (other than this time in Judges) it is mentioned that Mt. Gerizim is the place where blessing is proclaimed to the people—if they follow and obey everything that is in the covenant. But the people of Shechem have already broken the covenant by being Baal-worshippers. They have also just broken a covenant with the sons of Gideon by killing them all. Now they are about to implicitly break the covenant with God by rejecting him as king and anointing someone else over him. But still, God is so merciful that he sends his prophet of sorts and he is standing on the mountain of blessing, not the mountain of cursing. I think one should be surprised that Jotham isn’t standing on Mt. Ebal!

Back to the rest of the parable—so they go to the olive tree, the fig tree, and the vine—all of which are symbols of Israel throughout the old testament, probably in this case symbols of legitimacy. All the legitimate rulers of Israel who were appointed by God—including Gideon and his sons refused the kingship and it was a good thing for them to do. There are two reasons generally why the olive tree, the fig, and the vine refuse—because it would mean leaving the good things they have in order to have power over men, which they think is a raw deal. There is this term "hold sway" which I should like to research in the original language. and there is a contrast of abundance, sweetness, good fruit, a thing that cheers--basically the picture is abandoning all the good blessings that pleases both God and men to do something that pleases nobody, but increases somebody in power and prestige.

Finally, there is the character of the bramble who is illegitimate. A bramble is useless for doing much of anything except for being kindling in a fire: in other words, brambles are a nuisance and all they do is cause trouble, which at the end of the day, when the story is said and done, is all that Abimelech has managed to accomplish. The bramble is worthless enough—and has no joy, inheritance, etc, has nothing to lose, so of course it accepts what would otherwise be a raw deal for any other self-respecting person . . . or plant . . . .

Here is the chango-presto –it doesn’t seem like Abimelech actually says the last third of verse 15. Here's the diagologue of the bramble in the last part of Jotham's parable: "If in good faith you are anointing me kin gover you, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon." Jotham puts this in the mouth of the bramble so the word of rebuke may be uttered to the people of Shechem. That word is not a word of judgment until the people disobey (just as the law and covenant is not a word of judgment until the people abandon and betray it). “Let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.” This is all the bramble is actually good for, although Jotham does leave it open as a possibility that the people may truly want to take refuge in its shade. So, it is just possible that the leaders of Shechem have perfectly good motives for making Abimelech king . . . but Jotham doesn't think so.

It is interesting that Jotham calls the leaders of Shechem the cedars of Lebanon. At first, this may seem like an unqualified, good description . . . except for the fact that tall things in the Bible are often metaphors for proud things, which is probably what is going on here. The cedars of Lebanon are majestic and beautiful, and powerful, but also proud. I wonder if this image also suggests that they too, unlike the bramble, have a lot to lose--but they are so proud that they are apt to be stupid, like the bramble, and regardless of their majesty can be destroyed in the same fire as the bramble. It also seems like it is a shame that the cedars of Lebanon would submit to the brambles. It is probably also significant that there is a shift in nomenclature only in v. 15--elsewhere these cedars are simply called trees. Trees are no doubt better than a bramble, but here there is a name shift--perhaps these are simply trees who are only "the cedars of Lebanon" in their own eyes. The change in nomenclature alone accentuates the pride motif at the climax of the parable, and perhaps also reveals that this name is chosen for dramatic or ironic (sarcastic) purposes.

This is known as the prophetic “whammy”. The technique is, "Let me tell you all the ways I think you suck, but if I am wrong, go ahead on." The irony is at least trebled by Jotham giving the “if” that seems pretty darn sarcastic to me. They know well and good what they’ve done, but Jotham is giving them room to recognize it in themselves, confess, repent, and change, or just go ahead on in their path to destruction.

It is sad and ironic that Jotham talks about the people rejoicing in Abimelech (v. 19) —that is what one could have done in a legit ruler—especially one with the heroic background of Gideon’s family. But now they can’t, and their families and all the people of Shechem will only have ruinous sorrow to inherit for generations to come. Joy is exactly what they forfeited.

This is the word of prophecy turned to judgment that God honors, because it sets the stage for the rest of the ninth chapter. The fire of greed and ambition and envy engulfs all three parties. The following story of Abimelech’s downfall gives rise to the verse of Scripture, "'Vengeance is mine,' says the Lord, 'I alone will repay.'" God always honors his word, and in this case, perfect retribution arises from the prophetic word.

Gamechangers: IDIC—Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

IDIC: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, the motto of the Vulcan Science Academy, and one of the tenets of the Vulcan philosopher Surak (who’s something between Buddha and Jesus to the Vulcans, but heavy on the Buddha side of the equation).  IDIC to me is brilliant because it isn’t so much about cultural or ethical pluralism or relatively, but more about the sheer, massive diversity in the universe.  It is the universe, the physical, the biological, the astronomical, the chemical that is infinitely diverse.  (Or, perhaps, that we hope is infinitely diverse—though one could say of the Star Trek universe with all of its forays into multiple universes, etc., that the IDIC has in fact been demonstrated to be an accurate statement about reality.)  It is this ontological reality and diversity—all of the physics, the biology, the astronomy, the chemistry--that gives rise to all different races and beings that populate the universe.  And there are certainly different ways of existing—carbon-based life isn’t the only way to go.  But the ontological reality grounds the claims of the IDIC and keeps it from being superficial.

I remember going to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History not too long ago and looking at all the dinosaurs, some of the stuff they have from before the time of dinosaurs, and the more contemporary (relatively speaking) ice age exhibit.  My feelings were of intense relief and gratitude and eventually joy.   I was really happy and quite thrilled to death that the earth had once, both in the distant past and in the not-so-distant past, been entirely different than it is today.  One of the most important tenets of Christian theology is the contingency of the world.  The world does not have to exist.  The world does not have to exist the way it currently exists.  We don't know what really does exist in all the vast-flung regions of interstellar space, and we don't know what has existed in the past, and we don't know what has existed in the future, and this is good.  Belief in contingency creates the spirit of exploration.  God created the universe out of his own fullness and infinite creativity, and we can't guess what will be in the universe anymore we can guess the life and character of God aside from his revelation of it to us.  If there’s infinite diversity in infinite combinations, it exists as created mirror of God’s own plentitude.  (It’s all in Aquinas, folks.)  

That's why I love the IDIC.  I think it's hopeful and I think it's true, and I think keeping a firm grip on the contingency of all things is one of the ways (and one of the best ways for me personally) to keep a firm on wonder, and thence, gratitude.  In a different way, I also love the kind of pluralism I see in Trek, and especially in DS9 because it seeks to be true to that diversity, and if Christianity isn't the answer, that's not a terrible way to go.

DS9 showcases this more than the other series because that series--more than any other one--is genuinely interested in religion and faith and not giving pat answers and explanations to the mysteries thereof.  But in that series, we see the Bajoran faith depicted more than any other.  They believe in the Prophets, their own celestial guardians, who occasionally send them messengers and help in various forms through the Orbs.  In other words, DS9 takes for granted that the Prophets exist and there is some part of Bajoran religion that is genuinely true.  In the first few episodes its fairly obvious that there's some scorn from the mostly secular Federation about the notion that these "wormhole aliens" might actually be of genuine religious significance.  Throughout the series, it seems somewhat unlikely that the Prophets desire to be worshiped, but genuinely true that they are beings not quite limited by the temporal order who are genuinely interested in helping and intervening in Bajoran life.  Not too bad.  They aren't all-powerful, but they are certainly beneficent.

But the Bajoran way isn't the only way.  The Ferengi "Divine Treasury" (Ferengi heaven) is an object of real concern and apparently a real object, as is the Klingon Sto-vo-kor.  Worf, a Klingon, is unable to grieve the death of his wife Jadzia (even though she's Trill, not Klingon) because she was murdered and thus unable to enter Sto-vo-kor.  In a 7th season story arc Worf is assisted by three non-Klingons to help complete a quest to get Jadzia into Sto-vo-kor.  And the characters all risk their lives to do it, either out of their own personal faith (as in Worf's case), or out of loyalty and love for Worf or Jadzia.

Many of the human characters spend their time puzzling at or shaking their heads at the faiths of their non-human companions, but the series itself takes that faith seriously.  Faith requires real effort and sacrifice and has real demands on people's lives.  The differences in cultures often causes problems wherein characters have to decide whether to be true to their own tradition, or their personal code of honor, or do what seems "sensible" to other characters.  Oftentimes there are clashes between civilizations, and oftentimes friendships, but the civilizations do not surrender either their diversity or their integrity to form that friendship (though it is sometimes a question whether cross-species friendship implies a loss of cultural or personal identity).  There are many hard decisions and sometimes characters (especially Worf or other Klingon characters) do things that human beings would find repellent.  One could say of the pluralism is Star Trek--"There is more than one right way, but any good way is difficult to find, and many people choose bad paths regardless of their culture's philosophy."  In other words, there may be cultural pluralism and some degree of cultural relativism, but there's not moral relativism and "anything goes" is not a feasible answer to any problem.

I need to wrap this up.  But I suppose what I would like to say is that I wish politicians and teenagers alike would think about this kind of pluralism as they try to juggle multiculturalism in the public life.  Everyone needs a tradition to help guide them to discover how to be a person of integrity, even if we decide that there are multiple ways to reach that integrity or that there are things that good people can decide to disagree on.  But to have no tradition, to have no guide, to have no reference point, to have no real deep abiding notion of integrity, humanity, or honor is just disastrous for everyone and creates a polis which is incapable of doing what is difficult in order to do what is right.  If I were going to fight any idea in the public sphere right now, I would put all my energies into fighting the notion that it is easy to do what is right, to create something good, and to solve any problems that concern whole communities.

Gamechangers, a Series

 You can think of this post as a preview.  Or perhaps a "teaser" in the sense that television writers use the word.  Or maybe even "spoilers" in the Whovian sense.  I want to write a series of posts on people, thinkers, creative artists, games, books, tv shows, movies, etc., who have functioned as "Gamechangers" for me.  Someone or something who has convinced me that the game of life (I don't mean it in a cynical way) ought to be played in a way other than I had expected.  Someone, or a thing or an idea that walked into my life and taught me something both substantial and surprising.  I do not pretend to objectivity here: I have no desire to write about the "best" or the brightest, though I imagine some of the objects of my scrutiny will be objects with universal appeal.  I am interested in writing the subjective story, though: why so and so changed my perspective--not how so and so has changed the world's perspective.

 A partial list of Gamechangers
C. S. Lewis: Master of the Mind
Walker Percy: On the Moviegoer and Lost in the Cosmos
Fantasy Writers and Religion: Mercedes Lackey and Sharon Shinn
L. E. Modsett: the Male Feminist Fantasy Author
The Nicomachean Ethics: A Good Question is Hard to Find
Thomas Aquinas and Moral Psychology
The Legend of Zelda, or "I don't play video games, I play Zelda"
Orson Scott Card and the Militaristic Universe
Star Trek and the Utopian Future
IDIC: an Attractive Vision of Pluralism (or, True Pluralism)

 As you can see, some of these things are more or less serious, and much of my concern or reason for a given choice is about how the thing or person formed my imagination as much as other aspects of my person.
 

Enneagram Side Quest Continued: Type Misidentification, 5s and 8s

    For a rather longish period of my life--from discovering the Enneagram in 11th grade until my senior year of high school I misidentified as an 8.  If you go to one popular Enneagram website (specifically, here) they have an entire section of their website devoted to type misidentification.  There are particular types that tend to confuse themselves with one another or have trouble discerning which types they are.  9s and 4s, I think, are types that have a tendency to misidentify, and women in general have a tendency to misidentify as 2s.
  I don't think it is very common for a 5 to misidentify as a 8.  Part of my trouble was that most descriptions of 5s assume introversion (although it is normally acknowledged that it is not essential for 5s to be introverted or extroverted), and I am not introverted.  The other part of the trouble was that high school was a particularly good time for me and I found myself over-identifying with my "arrow of integration".  (If you are an Enneagram newbie, "arrows of integration" is a descriptive term Enneagram theorists use to describe the pattern of natural direction of growth that "personalities" take.  If an 8 is a 5's arrow of integration, that means a healthy 5 who is learning and growing an "integrating", that is moving in the right direction in terms of identity-formation, will begin to acquire and take on the characteristics of a healthy 8.  There are also "arrows of disintegration"--meaning the habits and patterns of personality that people take on under stress or failing to deal well with stress.  5s take on the negative patterns or behaviors of 7s).
   There are worse things than over-identifying with one's "arrow of integration"--over-identifying with the good qualities one takes on when moving in a healthy direction.  Certainly there are worse things.  However, it was still unhelpful and proved to be a barrier to self-understanding.  This worked itself out in two ways primarily.  Firstly, I had a hard time coming to terms with the contemplative part of my personality.  It is only so possible for someone who is under the age of 18 to be contemplative.  Harder still for an extrovert to discover that one has inner depths or life at all, especially when I was certainly not prone to be caught up by feelings (NT all the way).  It took me until my first year of college to discover I had anything like a soul--a real inner life with thoughts and feelings that were more than just a response to my external environment.  It took me three or four years after that to discover that the contemplative life was something of a calling for me.  I have always been someone entranced by the complexities and beauties of the external world.  It was difficult to allow myself to be called away to invest in the internal world, a mirror image of God himself.
  Conceiving of myself primarily as a "doer" (as 8s are) rather than a "thinker" (as 5s most certainly are) meant pressuring myself to activity to the point of exhaustion in the name of self-development and self-actualization. I still remember the moment it occurred to me that I might be a 5 and not an 8.  It came at a moment when I knew I was doing something wrong in terms of self-actualization, but it took quite some time to move from "maybe not an 8" to "definitely a 5".
   There is something incredibly important that motivates both 5s and 8s: the desire to have power.  The way they go about the acquisition of power is very different.  One Enneagram book I read (I think it was The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective) adroitly put it: "5s believe that knowledge is power.  8s believe that power is power."  One of the chief struggles I have had is giving up the desire to know exhaustively and therefore be in control.  God was also merciful to me very early in my life in showing me that I had a choice: I could use my knowledge and insight and discernment into human personality into manipulating people into believing me and trusting me so that I could have power over them or lead in the way I wanted to.  Or, I could refuse the path of power and manipulation and choose one of service and life in the Spirit of God instead.  One was a path of dead works in which I could build a little kingdom that corresponded to my desires and visions of the way I thought things should be in the church or the world . . . it would only have been a little kingdom that would have crumbled eventually . . . but I could have tried to invest in that path.  Instead I chose the path of self-denial and trying to find out what it meant to obey the Spirit and actualize his will rather than my own.  A tricky business fraught with risk and failure . . . but ultimately it is one built with the precious metals of love and joy and peace rather that anxiety, self-will and egotistical self-determination.  But I digress.
  The other thing that really convinced me I was a 5 was a cursory read through the section on 5s in The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective .  I remember going to a bookstore (Borders, alas) on some afternoon, and reading through the chapter on 5s and saying, "This has nothing to do with me!  I must not be a 5."  I was very annoyed and walked away from it disappointed for its lack of insight.  Then I went back the next week and read the same chapter and said, "Oh, darn, this is me exactly."  I suppose sometimes it takes a while for the scales to fall from one's eyes.
    The central conviction for me at that time concerned avarice or greed.  5s always want more.  Not more money, usually--which can be confusing since that is the kind of greed that we speak of (superficially perhaps) most often.  But 5s rarely have "enough" in terms of time and knowledge and silence and space to themselves--and they think if they have more they will be able to get it right or that things will be better.  That is a part of my personality that grips me less these days, but it used to be central and driving and sometimes paralyzing.
  There is probably one other reason why I misidentified as a 5: generally speaking, our culture is hypersensitive to any sort of assertiveness or inner strength possessed by women.  If you are a "strong" woman, you must also be a "domineering" one, and if you are a natural leader, you must also be one who struggles with be controlling, manipulative, etc.  Or so much of our society is inclined to think.  I believe I was inclined to think of myself as much more aggressive and assertive than I was naturally simply because I had some natural aggression and assertiveness.  I also have a fair bit of natural courage (in the Aristotelian sense of "natural"), which I come by honestly: both of my parents, but especially my mother, have unusual amounts of courage and ability to resist what other people are doing to do what they believe to be right or just.  There were probably also some natural obstacles in my childhood that exaggerated the 8ish traits in myself.  8s are inclined to overcome challenges, but some of us get good at overcoming challenges simply because we have to and it "masquerades" so to speak as 8ish qualities.  In my case, "masquerade" is probably too harsh of a word because of how 5 characteristics and 8 characteristics are interconnected.
  I would welcome any type misidentification stories you might have.  Recently, a friend of mine realized or reasserted that he better identified with 9 than 1.  (Those INTP 9s boggle my mind!)  I can't wait to see what kind of insights he will have due to that shift.  I had hard time understanding one of my ISTJ friends until I realized she was a 1 and not a 6.