Judges series – “The Lord raised up deliverers”
Ehud / Judges 3:12-30 // Matthew 20:1-16
OT 25A / Season of Pentecost
18 September 2011
Many of us spent our Saturday nights in the early 1970s watching TV’s “All In The Family.” Although my brother and I were too young to get much of the political satire, that didn’t mean we didn’t enjoy the show. Far from it. There was usually at least one moment in each show for us … when Archie would “go upstairs” – Edith would make some passing reference to him in absentia … and then, the next thing you’d hear was a
Ah yes … the ever popular toilet humor … howlingly funny to every twelve year old boy out there … or those whose funny bones haven’t grown beyond that point.
Certainly that is a level at which we can engage with this story of Ehud and Eglon today … the second in our seasonal exploration of the book of Judges … and one, quite frankly, I’ll bet very few of you knew was in the Bible.
Pastor Lou Flessner – who was the admissions director at Luther Northwestern Seminary when we began there in the early 1990s – and who preached (in seminary chapel) the only sermon I’ve ever heard – before or since – on this text … he referred to it as “one golden opportunity to show confirmation youth that the Bible is cool.”
Certainly that’s one way to engage this text … as the Biblical equivalent of Archie Bunker’s toilet flushing. Big fat Eglon … his name literally means “heifer” … Eglon “goes upstairs” to “relieve himself” (har har har) and cunning Ehud (that is literally what his name means) tricks everyone into leaving him alone with the king … at the appropriate moment, Ehud stabs fatso in the gut and he makes a run for it … the servants get embarrassed at how long it’s taking Eglon … finally they go in and find their king dead, but Ehud’s long gone, getting his army ready for a big battle which they win.
Believe me, after the years of confirmation retreats I’ve been on … Scout campouts … youth trips … and the, er, humor I’ve endured and, yes, participated in … this is a story which can really connect with boys on their level! Boys of … all ages.
I think it’s a fine example of how we can see that the Bible was written to engage many different people in their own place and time. Some stories, like last week’s introduction to the book of Judges, are obviously deep theology. On the surface at least, this story isn’t … what we hear initially is a rough-and-tumble gym locker room kind of story which was intentionally written to poke fun at the Israelites’ close neighbors, the Moabites … and give them a little chuckle when they heard this, as you recall from last week … these stories in Judges were likely first compiled during the time of the Israelites’ exile in Babylon.
This is an earthy story for earthy people. And we all know that some people are just more, well, earthy than others … most of the time, it’s the boys, but you will find an occasional girl who can belch the alphabet along with the best of us … I happen to know several.
And there’s nothing particularly unholy about earthiness … witness Martin Luther … the dear sainted founder of this faith tradition … even Luther enjoyed a good line or three of “potty humor.” Here are some examples of that from Luther’s Works:
And yet they call themselves “nobles.” Nobles indeed! The excrement of the eagle can boast that it comes from the eagle’s body even though it stinks and is useless; and so these men can also be of the nobility.15 We Germans are and remain Germans, that is, swine and senseless beasts.
“I mark well where (my opponents) came from; the lazy, idle lords and princes emptied (them) from their bowels.”
Shall we frivolously despise this might, blessing, power, and fruit (of proclaiming God’s Word) — especially we who would be pastors and preachers? If so, we deserve not only to be refused food but also to be chased out by dogs and pelted with dung.
(The last quote – from the Large Catechism – my preaching professor at seminary, Sheldon Tostengard, said of it … “Well, at least he didn’t say that bad preachers should be chased out by dung and pelted with dogs.”)
But … but … I would argue … there is another level at which we can engage this text, beyond Archie Bunker, if you will.
And it has everything to do with another number 1 and number 2 – God’s top two, if you will – fairness, and justice.
We’re first tipped off to this by a brief textual note … that Ehud was a left-handed man. Maybe that word sailed right past you … but it would not have for the original hearers of this story … people who knew that “Benjamin” – the tribe of Israel from which Ehud was said to come – “Benjamin” literally means “son of the right hand.”
Right hand – left hand. How many lefties do we have in the room?
You of all people know the meaning behind the meaning of “right hand” and “left hand” … the “right hand of God” is the place of honor, favor, co-reigning even … we confess Jesus to sit “at the right hand of the Father.”
So what of the left hand of God?
The Latin word for “left hand” tells it all … “sinistra” … as in, sinister. Yeah, you lefties, you are sinister … something must be wrong with you … thus all the mothers throughout history who have confused their children, finding that they were developing left handed, who made them be right handed instead.
But discrimination against you continues far beyond the theological word. It’s always been a right handed world. You lefties know what I’m talking about. My friend Kent – the pastor at Grace Point Church in Tukwila – when we were in grade school together in Portland, Kent was one of the “lefties” and so whenever we had cutting out projects to work on, Kent needed to find “the left handed scissors” … of which, in our entire 700-student elementary school, there was seemingly only a few pairs … which all happened to be in crabby Miss Holiday’s room. Kent still shudders when he remembers having to go knock on Miss Holiday’s door, to ask her for a pair of left-handed scissors … a request she always seemed to resent.
Ehud was a left-handed man in a right handed tribe in a right handed world. Certainly not one you would guess God would have in mind to lead a revolution and overthrow of a government. And yet, Ehud was the one God chose to do his work and will.
Cunning Ehud came up with a cunning plan to get to King Eglon, the occupying Moabite king. He fashioned a short dagger and fastened it on his right side, and then went to see the king.
This allowed Ehud to sneak it by the Moabite Department of Homeland Security … those servants of Eglon knew Ehud to be a left-handed man so they only patted him down on the left side … why on earth would he carry anything on the right side?
Precisely.
So Ehud and his delegation of fellow Israelites presented their tribute to King Eglon and went back home … all except for Ehud … who turned back at the “sculptured stones” (which likely were idols – false gods – which the Moabites worshipped, and encouraged their vassals the Israelites to do the same) … Ehud turned back and said he had a private message … actually, literally, a “thing” for the king. Greedy Eglon probably thought it to be some kind of a bribe … and so Ehud got his private audience with the king – a king whose name meant “heifer” but perhaps “pig” would be a closer meaning … note that Eglon thought so little of Ehud and his people that he received him while he was literally “on the throne.”
Ah – but Eglon got his in the end – Ehud not only sacrificed the unholy heifer Eglon, but then he led the charge against those Moabite oppressors, and won – and, as the text says, “the land had rest for eighty years.”
God once again worked through one, who people would likely say “wasn’t up to the task” – here, the sinister, left-handed son of Benjamin was the one God chose to deliver his people. God’s fairness, God’s justice, coming to the world through one we would least expect.
And, curiously, that’s the same message we get from our appointed Gospel text for the day. God’s fairness, God’s justice works out differently than we would mete it out … in God’s reign, there is no “place” given to disciples … whether you’ve been on the discipleship walk for fifty years or fifteen minutes … whether you’ve worshipped and served every week of your life or just started today … a “Lifelong Lutheran,” “thirty year plus church member,” or you just came through the doors this morning … it doesn’t matter in God’s eyes.
God’s fairness, God’s justice, is different than ours … through God’s eyes, we are all alike, all the same;
… all sinners, all saved through his unconditional love and forgiveness, no preference given to age, length of service, degree or pedigree assigned.
Even no difference between right handers or lefties.
It’s a word, a way which brings offense. It offends our sensibilities of how things should be. I’ve been here longer … I have more status … yes, everyone has an equal voice but “some voices are more equal than others,” … that’s the way we think, and do, in this life.
Certainly in daily life that’s the case … at work, at school, on teams, clubs, community organizations … length of time spent in “active service” brings benefits.
And the church – as part of the world -- is no exception. We might laugh at the story about the first time worshipper who gets glared at for coming into church and “taking someone else’s pew” (thanks be to God we don’t have pews here!) but the larger truth behind that old joke is truly painful as we see it play out, again and again.
The text convicts us.
Especially this verse … “Are you envious because I am generous?” the landowner asks of the angry workers. Literally, what he says is “Is your eye evil because I am good?”
Robert Smith writes in his Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel,
“It is simply a fact that people regularly understand and appreciate God’s strange [calculation] of grace as applied to themselves but fear and resent seeing it applied to others.”
Oof. That word comes like a knife to the gut.
When we discount God’s goodness to all … through our sinful human way of excluding … excluding the poor, the powerless, minorities, newcomers, those with less knowledge about our customs and ways … when we treat these with scorn, these who are also God’s beloved children …
… when we build ourselves up while tearing others down … begrudging them, not wanting them to have life the way God intends it for all … full, rich, and abundant … enjoying God’s great generosity for all …
… when we do that, are we not making something bad out of what is truly good … the rich, bountiful love of God for everyone?
It’s a lesson which Eglon had to learn the hard way … certainly … the theological “point” of that story was to “poke some fun” while bringing good news in the midst of a bad place and time for the Israelites …
… and the Gospel’s word … less violent, but just as directed in its meaning, came to a church which even in the first century of this era was experiencing division between the Jewish Christians (who had been around longer) and the newer Gentile converts … the word here, no less pointed at “oppressors” (those who would begrudge others the goodness of God’s free, welcoming, gracious love) and those who were being “oppressed.”
And that word which both readings bring … that word is BEWARE … beware having an “evil eye” toward God’s goodness … beware seeing what is truly good, and pure, and right, as anything other than that …
Just as in last week’s Gospel text on forgiveness and mercy… we are called … called in Jesus’ name to be just as free in our giving to others that which God has so freely, generously, lovingly, given to us … the Word of forgiveness, life, and salvation which has rescued us … we are charged to pass it right along … without any taint or stain, prejudice or qualification of our own added …
… and in that freely received, freely given word … freely passed along, freely lived along to all without judgment or begrudgement …
… to the right handed and the left …
… to those who showed up at the crack of dawn to work and those who came at five minutes to five in the afternoon …
… in living that Word, we will show the judging, grading, segregating, separating world, another way … the way of Christ … the way of the Cross … the way of mercy, and grace, truth and love and light …
The way in which the world WILL turn … turn from the ugly separation, labeling, name calling we lay on it …
… and turn … and oh yes, IT WILL TURN …
… turn to Christ, his Cross, his life, his Way …
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
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