Good boring leadership

Of course, you know all about Tola, the great leader of Israel, dont you? 

Don't you?

Well his name was Tola and he ruled for 23 years.  He was from a town called Shamir, where he was buried when he died.

There are no accounts of great battles during the time he judged Israel, no great massacres, no conquests, controversies or calamities. Just plain old, boring old running of the country, carrying out justice and adminsitering God's laws.

If only all the Bible's rulers were that boring and that good.  If only our own, present day rulers were as boringly efficient.

Introduction to Gideon

It's funny how some bits of scripture are really well known and some are more or less forgotten.  Everyone remembers that Jews shouldn't eat pigs but few people remember the ban on prawns.  Everyone remembers David but Rehoboam isn't all that well known. Everyone remembers the ban on "lying with a man" but few people remember the ban on mixed fibres in your clothes (maybe the God Hates Fags crew should switch to God hates Polycotton!).

Which brings me to Gideon. One of the big famous bits in the Bible.  The start of his story is really well known but the ending is less so.  You can see why the start is famous from the few verses in today's reading.  I think we all love the idea of the guy plucked from obscurity by an angel to rescue his people from the maurauding invaders.  He certainly doesn't come across as hero material.  Far from tearing down his father's idols publicly he works at night out of fear.  He argues with God and more or less tells him off for negligence (despite the fact that his family own the shrines to Baal and Asherah in town) but in the end, like Moses before him, he finally quits with the excuses and gets on with the job of liberation.

The end of the story is not as good as the beginning. Like many a Middle Eastern dictator before him what starts well ends in fratricidal conflict but maybe we are right to celebrate and remember the successful start rather than the unhappy ending.  I hope in the future if anyone gets round to remembering my life then something of the same selective process might occur and the good will be remembered and the bad bits forgotten.

Proverbs 14 verse 4

We had a new family in church on Sunday and their daughter was VERY noisy. So much so that the mother took her out just as communion started.  The family were embarrassed and said at the end that this was one of the reasons that they hadn't been to church for a long time.  We tried to reassure them that this was OK and that after a few weeks she would settle in.  Hopefully they will be back.

I was thinking of them when I read today's Proverbs reading.  "An empty stable is easily kept clean but there is no profit from an empty stable."  We could keep our church as a pristine temple of pure quiet worship but it would be sterile without children and their noises.  We would be an empty stable, nice and clean but a stable without profit.

The Bible debates with... The Bible

Judges 1:1-2:9

Luke 21:29-22:13

Psalm 90:1-91:16

Proverbs 13:24-25

Much as it's tempting to comment on Adoni Bezek with his 70 kings with no thumbs and big toes (Don't human beings have most amazing imagination when it comes to torture and humiliation!) I think the much more interesting bit in the Old Testament passages to refer to are the two psalms put back to back.

Psalms 90 and 91 show how the Bible sometimes engages in debate with itself over issues such as the suffering of God's people.  Both Psalms start in a similar way with the statement that God is our home or refuge but then they diverge very sharply indeed.  Psalm 90, one of the Psalms of Moses (was being a poet compulsory for being an Israeli leader?) moves on from that statement to present what feels like a very harsh and distant view of God as the one who lives forever but sweeps human beings aside like dry grass in his anger.  Moses speaks with a voice of faith but pleads for God's anger to be lifted.  Maybe this the voice of someone who has put up with wilderness wandering for far too long.

Psalm 91 carries almost the opposite message.  This speaks of the God who rescues us from every trap, every plague, every hopeless looking battle.  In this psalm the impression is given that if only we had the faith of Moses then everything would be OK and we would be always striding boldly onwards in the power of God.

The truth is that both messages speak to different aspects of our walk with Jesus.  Sometimes it feels like Psalm 90, sometimes like Psalm 91.  God is always there whether our sins weigh us down or our victories make us soar.  It shows us the honest nature of the Bible that it reflects both of these realities even though they contradict one another from our perspective.  This offends some people who do not want to see contradiction or debate in the Bible because they have swallowed a Modernist view of inspiration that says that scripture cannot be inspired if it contradicts itself in places.  But life is contradictory!  As it says in Ecclesiastes there is a time for one thing and there is also a time for it's opposite or contradiction even sometimes side by side in two neighbouring Psalms.

One Year Bible

The Proverbs reading today has this line - "A poor person's farm may produce much food but injustice sweeps it away."

I go into schools quite regularly to talk about Fairtrade and try to encourage young people to think about the things they buy.  Invariably some kid will ask a question something along these lines - "Why do people in the Third World always need our money?" Or "Why are they always poor and asking for our help?"

It's a good question. From the perspective of the teenagers that I'm talking to Africa has always had its hand out begging.  What they don't realise is that Africa is one of the richest continents on the planet. It's mineral wealth is staggering.  Think of diamonds in Sierra Leone and South Africa, it's agricultural wealth is incredible. Think of how much food Zimbabwe alone was once able to produce.  Even Ethiopia, a place synonymous with famine, manages to keep Starbucks going year after year with gorgeous coffee.

And so I have to answer them in words very similar to those in the Proverbs reading.  They beg because we steal.  They beg because the injustice of a world trade system that is set up to make the rich richer and the poor working harder drives nations that would otherwise be wealthy in their own right to sell their riches at knock-down prices.

Part of me hates the look of confusion that is often generated when teenagers begin to see how their world is set up but hopefully one or two will be inspired to get angry rather than confused and go out some day and make a difference in this world to fix some of that injustice.

For more info go to -

www.fairtrade.ie

www.flo.org