Sermon Title: Life without a King
Scripture: Judges 19:16-27 (NIV)
Contributed by Jeanne Gaessler
In those days Israel had no king …. In those days Israel had no king. Each man did what he considered to be right. —Judges 19:1; 21:25
Judges 19 through 21 speak loudly. In a painfully unpleasant text not easily ignored, three themes in the life of Israel stand out. Israel’s corruption is deeply and widely embedded throughout the whole nation (ch.19). Israel’s individualistic self-reliance makes the nation vulnerable (ch.20). Israel’s need for a true deliverer is unmistakable (ch.21).
There is a familiar saying, “As the leader goes, so goes the people.” God provided Israel with prophets, priests, and judges but the unnamed Levite in our passage seems to be isolated from healthy leadership. He is displaced in a remote area (19:1). Identified as a Levite, he may have been the area’s assigned priest. However, our passage does not make that clear. Isreal’s priests were anointed from the tribe of Levi, yet not all Levites were anointed as priests. What we can know is that this Levite is descended from a family of priestly leaders, whose role it was to bring the people’s praise, confession, thanksgiving, and need to God through intercession and sacrificial offerings. We may wonder who the community leaders were that listened to the Levite, interceded for him, and built him up. The setting of our text is conspicuously absent of any leader who was available to offer wisdom, or to guide and give correction to the Levite. Instead, we find an over-indulgent father-in-law followed by a host willing to sacrifice their women to the evil forces present in the culture. Between these two encounters, the Levite assures himself and his host, that he has all he needs (v.19), and his host echoes the same delusion (v.20). Nothing could be further from the truth (vv.21-30).
The story continues through Judges, chapter 20 and follows to its escalating and devastating conclusion at the end of chapter 21. We do not want to miss the glimmer of hope tucked into these bad to worse chapters. God’s covenant presence is with Israel (20:27). God keeps near to His people (Ps 139:9-10; Is 41:10), even in the midst of human foolishness, sin, self-deception, and destruction. What grace – what undeserved favor! As we turn the Biblical page from Judges 21 to the Book of Ruth this coming Sunday, we read of foreign nations united by marriage, and that a kinsman redeemer is coming!
Pastor Phil offered two invitations to us at the conclusion of his sermon yesterday. Invitations that orient each person, individually and together in community, into hope. A hope that is true because it finds its object in the risen Christ – not in a flawed collective wisdom, not in the deceptive wisdom of our own eyes, and certainly not in victimhood. Hope is found in Jesus, the ultimate Redeemer. Jesus who is the true way of life (Jn 14:6).
The first is the invitation to each of us to simply “behold” God. Behold the living God! The second invitation is addressed to all of us. “Turn” and confess our need for Jesus, the true deliverer and coming King.
Consider—
╬ What would it look like to behold God the Father and turn to Jesus throughout the hours of your day? How might your day end differently if the day was peppered with prayer and the felt presence of God was welcomed?
╬ Do the above questions create resistance in you? Or do you feel a flicker of longing in your heart? Ask Christ the same questions that you ask God the Father above. Spend time listening to the Spirit’s answer to you. What does that voice sound like? Is it the voice of religious “should”? Is it self-critical? Or is it the life-giving voice of truth and love of Christ, the living Word?
╬ Father, Son and Holy Spirit, open my heart and life to Jesus and His Word with increasing measure (Ps 139). May I trust more in the all-encompassing love of God through Christ the Son, and by the Spirit of Truth. It is in Jesus’ precious name that we pray. Amen.