I know you’ve all heard me quote the brilliant Jewish novelist, Elie Wiesel, on many occasions. The famed author of Night and Jewish philanthropist once said, “Some stories are true that never happened.” He didn’t mean, of course, that we should chuck our healthy skepticism out the window when people tell us things. What he meant was that stories are often more powerful than arguments because they get us far enough away from the “trees” of details in our situations that we can actually see the “forest” of general principles in our decision-making process.
In a similar way, the former Notre Dame ethics professor and prolific writer, Alasdair MacIntyre, once wrote: “In all those cultures, Greek, medieval or Renaissance, where moral thinking and action is structured according to some version of the scheme that I have called classical, the chief means of moral education is the telling of stories.”
So, it shouldn’t surprise us that even the Bible would use
a fable to illustrate a timeless truth we need to see. I don’t want you reading Judges 9:8-15 and saying to yourselves, “Trees don’t talk. This can’t happen. I’m not going to believe anything else in the Bible because of this silly story.” That would be stupid. Jotham uses a fable in Judges 9 so that he can make his point without being killed. The full impact of the story doesn’t come through until he explains it in Judges 9:16-20. Then, you see that he isn’t really talking about trees. He’s talking about potential leaders. And this cautionary tale applies, sadly, even in terms of church leadership.
You’ve all heard the saying, “Power corrupts.” You may even have heard its corollary, written by Lord Acton (a 19th century British politician): "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." Or, as Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Such wisdom is so correct that it is no wonder that Jesus demonstrated to His disciples that the One who would be “great” needed to begin by being a servant. It is only this servant attitude that can transform us from humans who abuse power to citizens of heaven who use power as God intends.
Last week, we considered Gideon—a servant of God who was so obedient to God that he earned the name “Baal is ticked off at him.” Okay, it really means that “Baal contends with him,” but you get the idea. Here is a leader who, completely dependent upon God, routs a much larger army through stealthy positioning unveiled by praise. Then, as part of the clean-up effort where he followed through on the God-given victory, he apparently took on both of the kings of Midian (Zebah and Zalmunna) in single combat and killed both of them. He celebrated by looting the bling off their camels’ necks (Judges 8:21).
Naturally, this martial feat so impressed the people of Israel that they decided (Judges 8:22) that Gideon/Jerubbaal had sufficient military might to protect them from any further Midianite incursions. So, they asked Gideon to not only be their king but to establish a dynasty. Notice that the people had lost perspective on the victory. During the initial battle, they had proclaimed that it was the sword of the LORD and of Gideon that provided their deliverance. Now, they want the leader they can see, not the leader they’ve been taught about and have to trust in faith, that evidence of things not seen.
Fortunately, Gideon knew better. He took a “Sherman.” We hear about the “Sherman” nearly every presidential election season. The very popular General William Tecumseh Sherman was asked about his presidential aspirations and he nipped any speculation in the bud right from the start when he said, “If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.” Gideon put it just as succinctly in Judges 8:23 when he said that neither he nor his son would rule over the Israelites. Why? He explains at the end of the verse. Israel already had a king because God was their king.
The most dangerous thing any leader can do is forget that God is in charge. However, even a great hero like Gideon can make a mistake. He decides that he must “Carpe diem!” (“Seize the day!”) and get something out of the situation, striking while the iron is hot as it were. So, he does what most religious leaders do, he takes an offering. And, he doesn’t want them to take his request as meaningless, so he sets a goal for this offering—1,700 shekels of gold in addition to the spoils he had already taken from the two kings in single combat. And what is his intent with regard to this offering?
He makes it into an ephod! Now, usually these were garments that were enhanced by precious metals and stones that were to be worn by priests of high authority. The high priest of Israel had an ephod that was worn in conjunction with a breastplate where he could store the “Urim and Thummim,” the dice or lots used for divining God’s commands. In pagan religion, ephods were sometimes placed on the idols themselves. In fact, in the feminine form of the noun, we see ephod described by Isaiah in Isaiah 30:22 as being idols made from molten metal.
And, in fact, Judges 8:27 tells us that Gideon took the spoils of this God-given victory and made an ephod. And guess what? People started worshiping it—even people in Gideon’s own household. I don’t know how it looks to you, but to me it looks as if Gideon was on a dangerous ego trip. He was smart enough to recognize that God was in charge, but he created this ephod so that people wouldn’t forget that HE was God’s representative. He knew better than to compete with God for the throne of Israel, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to gain all he could from his association with the Lord.
This is a huge danger to any servant of the Lord. We sometimes find ourselves basking in adulation that should be directed at God and lose our sense of who we are. We sometimes find ourselves taking credit for what God has done. Or, conversely, taking the blame for what God hasn’t done when God isn’t ready to do in our congregations what we think God should be doing. We forget that God knows best. More probably, we are so self-centered that we conveniently suppress the knowledge that God knows best and we either lift ourselves up or we beat ourselves up.
Let me confess something here. I used to hate going to Pastors’ Breakfasts or Luncheons because it seemed like there was always undue stress on bragging guised in false humility. The brother in the community where the entire population was growing would say, “God’s really doing a great work in our church because we had x number of new members join last week.” And in that same meeting would be the brother working in the inner city church where “white flight” was depleting his membership. What was he supposed to say, “God’s really doing a great work in our church because we only lose x number of old members last week?” Or that brother who served as pastor in the upscale neighborhood could say, “God really blessed us with an x thousand dollar budget increase this year” while the pastor of the poor blue collar congregation probably sat there thinking “God really blessed us because they didn’t have to cut my salary this year.” But what the first pastor in each situation was really saying was, “God’s able to work with me—what’s the matter with you?” At least, that was what I often felt when everything was measured in numbers and God never called me to a big church (probably because I would have turned it into a little church—especially when I was younger and “much smarter”)).
And while I’m talking about dangers for church leaders, notice that Gideon’s misplaced confidence in himself played havoc with his family. If we leaders become so self-centered that we’re claiming God’s authority and power for ourselves, it really messes up our families. Wives can see when we’re really shallow. Children can see when we don’t practice what we preach (and more than once, I’ve had my children preach my sermons back to me—ouch!). I reiterate the last phrase of Judges 8:27 that Gideon’s ephod became a snare to, not only Gideon, but to his household.
And it’s possible for the leaders of God’s people to become too comfortable. Does it surprise any of you that Gideon, this great hero of God, had a lot of wives? In fact, he seems to have been a one-man fertility clinic because we read that he had 70 sons. If 10 is the number for human sufficiency and 7 is the number for the divine and the created order in right relationship, it seems like Gideon had all the sons divinely and humanly possible to have. It’s more than 5x what Jacob/Israel had and the same multiple more than Ishmael had. It’s enough to start a new nation.
In fact, the reality that one of those 70 sons was named “Abimelech” (“My Father is King”) seems to suggest that, somewhere along the line, Gideon’s modest intentions must have been waylaid and the family must have thinking they would lead Israel in perpetuity. The problem, of course, is that Gideon’s ephod and the attitude that could allow him to accept “My Father is King” as a son’s name meant that a potential rivalry between God’s authority and human authority was forming.
As leaders, we need to ensure that we are not building institutions, organizations, structures, or methodologies to perpetuate our authority in lieu of God’s authority—that we don’t get in the way of people’s genuine encounters with God. And if our ego or our comfort (or worse, our desires) takes precedence over God’s will, that’s what’s happening! We become stumbling blocks until we repent and ask forgiveness. Then, praise God, we can experience grace for ourselves, but it doesn’t always repair the damage we’ve done to others.
So, that’s the set-up for our main text. In Judges 9:1-2, Gideon’s son “My Father is King!” calls his mother’s relatives together in Shechem and asks them the question a lot of politicians are asking in this election season. “Do you want big government or do you want someone who listens to you?” Well, that isn’t exactly what he said, but it’s close. He asked if they wanted 70 sons of Gideon to make decisions for them or ONE son who happens to be related to them. What would you guess they would say?
Of course, they say that they want a relative for the same reason that some people think they want a person of a certain race, a certain educational background, a certain geographical region, or a certain political party in office. They want someone who seems familiar to them and, hopefully, is a lot like them.
Nowhere do we see them praying about God’s will and nowhere do we see them examining Abimelech’s qualifications. Rather, they choose the familiar. Frankly, that’s a danger to us in a lot of ways. We have a tendency to want the familiar.
And, just in case you thought the “Preacher” in Ecclesiastes was exaggerating when he said that there was nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9), here’s some more evidence. When someone wants to put a leader in office today, what do they do? They start raising money. And what do they do here? They start raising money. And where do the biggest crimes in politics seem to take place? Living in Illinois you ought to know this, especially considering how many shakedowns or “pay to play” situations play out in our politics? It’s in campaign fund-raising.
In fact, Abimelech uses his campaign funds as questionably as many modern politicians… or is that not-so-modern politicians? He hires ruffians to do the same job that Hitler’s brown shirts did in Nazi Germany, remove any threats to his power base. He’s even worse than the Shakespearean version of Richard III who orders his two nephews killed to secure the throne; Abimelech kills his “brothers” in verse 5. Then, in verse 6 we are told that they assembled together and crowned Abimelech as king in the sacred place we know as Shechem.
Note, though, that they still haven’t asked for direction from God and that Abimelech is unabashedly making a grab for power. But no matter how much one covers one’s tracks, there always seems to be some messy loose-end that gets in one’s way. If you read closely in verse 5, you’ll notice that one of the potential rivals to Abimelech was spared—Jotham (whose name means “He completed,” “He perfected,” or “He matured” with the implication that God completed and matured Jotham).
So, in verse 7, Jotham interrupts the coronation by shouting from the hillside of Mount Gerizim. That probably doesn’t mean anything to most of you, but there are two mountains associated with Shechem: Gerizim and Ebal. Technically, Ebal is taller than Gerizim, but Deuteronomy 11:29 tells us that Ebal was the mountain from which curses were sounded and Gerizim (according to Joshua 8:24) was the mountain from which blessing would be pronounced. You’d think the taller mountain would have been the mountain of blessing, but this is probably another example of God choosing the unexpected. Notice that Jotham appears on the mountain of blessing and promises that if Israel will listen to him (in the sense of doing what is necessary), God might listen to them. This is important because, like many of God’s leaders, Jotham has to deliver a message that his audience really doesn’t want to hear because he’s going to have to tell them that they are wrong.
But the purpose of telling them that they are wrong is neither to gloat over them nor to give them a sense of hopelessness. One of the great dangers when God’s leaders confront sin is that they seem to take pleasure in the details. I once heard a Baptist preacher who was so obsessed with describing how pornographic he believed Michelangelo’s “David” was that I was beginning to worry about him.
Another time, I heard a leader giving a testimony about how sinful he had been before he was saved. He was so detailed that it sounded like he was vicariously reliving his sin as he told about it. But the purpose of speaking against people in rebellion against God is to turn them to the right direction, not to make ourselves look good. Jotham’s purpose is to get them to turn away from Abimelech because Abimelech’s kind of blood-thirsty power-grabbing leads to, as you’ll see if you read on to the end of the chapter (verses 52-54), other blood-thirsty actions.
So, let’s look at Jotham’s fable. The trees gather together to crown a king. Now, if you were going to choose a king or queen, what kind of candidate would you choose? Would it be someone successful? Would it be someone who had already proved himself or herself? Well, even the trees in the fable are that smart. They go to the olive tree.
Why an olive tree? They choose an olive tree because the olive was the crown of their economy. Not only did you cure olives and eat them individually or in salads, but olive oil was the primary cooking oil and even houses were lit by olive oil in the oil lamps. In fact, olive oil was used for medicinal poultices and for ceremonial anointing, as well.
So, if I were going to allegorize this fable, my interpretation would be that our first choice for a leader should be someone who has already been successful in some area. Now, God often surprises us by choosing the most unlikely and most unsuccessful person to be God’s leader, but that doesn’t give us an excuse to avoid accomplishment. I had a professor who used to remind me that the Holy Spirit has an affinity for trained minds. If we can accomplish as much as we can with regard to our potential, just imagine how God can take it beyond the next level!
So, they go to the fig tree. Figs were fairly important to Israel, as well. The fig tree became a symbol for the entire country prior to the New Testament period. Its large leaves provided shade and the fruit itself with its high sugar content meant that it could be eaten (as the tree in the fable says) as a sweet fruit, but the fit could be baked into cakes or dried and stored, as well. And, like the olive oil, it also was used for medicinal purposes (according to II Kings 20:7 and Isaiah 38:21) when it was used as a treatment for boils.
If I were going to allegorize this fable, my interpretation would be that we should look for flexibility in a leader. Just as the figs can be served and preserved in a variety of ways, even so, good leaders need to be flexible and available in a lot of ways. God’s leaders have to be available and not worry about how they appear. I think figs are an ugly fruit, but their result is sweet. God’s leaders don’t have to look like anything special, but they have to be available and bear fruit that meets needs.
Or, how about the vine? Although the vine could offer grapes and juice, the vine specifically expresses its ability to create wine that “maketh glad the heart of God and man” (v.13). Its purpose is both religious for rituals and celebratory for ordinary people. In fact, like the figs and the olives, there is also a medicinal purpose. Timothy was commanded to treat his stomach condition with a daily glass of wine and, even today, some doctors will prescribe a glass of red wine per day in lieu of blood pressure medication. So, even the vine is useful.
If I were going to allegorize this fable, my interpretation would be that we should look for both enthusiasm and complexity in a leader. Enthusiasm is suggested by the idea of cheering the heart of God and humanity in celebration and complexity is suggested by the fact that (as I shared in my sermon on John 15) the best grape vineyards are usually found in difficult, rocky ground. And God’s leaders need to be able to find the refreshing groundwater of God’s presence and the necessary nutrients within the difficult circumstances of life.
Now, do you notice what the Israelites had to settle for? They settled for weeds. Weeds are very ambitious. They grow very fast, but what do they produce? They actually “reduce” instead of “produce.” Jotham is quite correct when he says that they are likely to catch fire. You see, when we settle for leaders who are ambitious instead of leaders who are successful, flexible, enthusiastic, and complex, we endanger our future. We set ourselves up for those fires that can damage our fellowship and our families.
Now, whether you agree with my allegorizing of this scripture or not, I have one observation that I think you’ll agree with. The first three options of the trees were for their royal candidates to be productive. If they were already accomplishing something and already bearing fruit, they would make a better ruler. There will always be those in organizations and even in the church who want to have a title to build their reputation or their resume as opposed to accomplishing the task. I believe those are the bramble bushes or weeds in our midst. Watch out for them.
In the conclusion that I believe God wants me to share for this message, I want to do something strange. I’m going to quote from a management expert, but if I gave you her name right away, you’d ask, “What does she know about management?” This person ran one of the biggest television production studios of its day (later absorbed in Paramount Pictures), was the innovator who first filmed television comedy with multiple cameras (3) before a live studio audience, and was the first female president of a major Hollywood studio. The studio produced the theatrical motion picture Yours, Mine, and Ours (with Henry Fonda) as well as the televisions series: Mannix, Mission: Impossible, Star Trek (The Original Series), and The Untouchables.
Yes, the famous comedy actress, Lucille Ball, was our mysterious consultant and she said that “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do. But more than that, I would say that If you want God’s person for the job, look for the person who already has the passion and the burden for the job! Recognize that the Holy Spirit is already going to have been preparing the leader—most of the time before you even know the need. And with regard to the weeds in our fable, all I can say is to watch out for the person who is too ambitious. Remember, it was a magician named Simon who most seemed interested in what the early apostles were doing. Why? Not for God’s glory, but for his own advantage.
So, let’s take this warning from the Bible to heart. Let’s examine our own motives and be careful when we’re recruiting God’s leaders. Let’s pray that God will add His blessing to our consideration of His Word.
