The Wasteland
(I’m in the middle of a Samson fixation.
To help keep the “rhythm,” I’d sure love it if you would
read Monday’s post, “Rhythm,” if you haven’t already.)
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Parched. Desolate. Impoverished.
Empty. Fallow.
Depleted.
This is barren. This is the wasteland.
This is the woman, standing lifeless in withering field, sunscorched. Hands crack open as she labors to find life among brittle stalks, knowing she will never labor to bring life from her own womb, dry and fruitless as this desolate soil.
This woman is nameless, faceless. Known to us even today only as Samson’s mother.
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Rhythm
(Part 1 of Samson and Me is here.)
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I come back to read Samson’s story for the 91st time, this time finally to put pen to paper and make some sense of it. Ambitious, I am.
Stalled out as well.
One foot slides forward, the other stays put as the drumbeat of the first verse echoes back, and I stand straddling the text. I set aside the online Bible, as much as I love my Biblegateway.com. The feel of worn paper better ignites my heart. I reach for my leatherbound and push fingertips over the words.
Turning pages fails to drown out the drumming while words march in straight lines and the ground rumbles beneath my feet with the rhythm.
The rhythm.
Rhythm (rith′em) n [< Fr. or L..: Fr. rhyme < L. rhythmus < Gr. rhythmos, measure, measured motion < base of rhein, to flow: see stream] 1. a. flow, movement, procedure, etc., characterized by basically regular recurrence of elements or features, as beat, or accent, in alternation with opposite or different elements or features [the rhythm of speech, dancing, the heartbeat, etc.] b) such recurrence; pattern of flow or movement 2. flow or apparent movement of a work of art, literature, drama, etc. through patterns in the timing, spacing, repetition, accenting, etc. of the elements.
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Samson and Me
How long?
How long?
Twenty-one chapters long.
I just looked.
I just flipped to the end of Judges to see how much longer this was going to be. If I’m on chapter 13 now, that leaves eight more. So then what, another four months?
I have a Bible in 90 Days. I started it about a year ago. A 365-day year, not a 90-day year. I gave it up sometime after the first 90 days when I don’t think I was through Genesis yet.
The point was to simply read. Not delve into study or hop off along rabbit trails. The point was to get a cohesive picture of the whole Word.
But I’m not wired that way. I couldn’t do it. Oh, I read alright. But sometimes I have trouble turning the page. And not turning the page often enough makes it impossible to jog along at a twelve-page per day clip. So I went back to my trusty, worn, marked up Thompson Chain.
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Coming Back to the Cost of Worship
It started with a comment on my remix from Jennifer @ Getting Down with Jesus yesterday, reflecting on Abraham’s worshipful anticipation of the sacrifice of his son. She referred to the last part of Genesis 22:4-5:
On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (emphasis added)
And she said this:
Imagine the “worship” that would come before an expected sacrifice of beloved child. I don’t know if I could.
In response, I added:
. . . he traveled three days to get to the place where he would worship. For three days, not even sure of the destination. All the while pondering the sacrifice this worship would call for.
I don’t worship like that. Do you?
This has been nibbling away at some of the duller parts of my heart ever since.
If I were Abraham, I’d have had a mighty hard time telling the servants we were going off to “worship” and we’d be back shortly. I’d have told them something more like I’m going to do the most horrible, excruciating thing I’ve ever had to do. And “we” won’t be back. Just I’ll be back. Alone.
Going off to worship, my eye.
This thing that Abraham did, this was costly worship.
It was not easy and it was not convenient.
It certainly was not his preferred style.
And yet for worship’s sake; no, for the sake of the object of his worship, he traveled three days on foot, shouldering an unbearable load. He stood ready to give all he had.
Just so he could worship.
And I have to say it again. I don’t worship like that. Do you?
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Remix: You Have Not Withheld Your Son
As I point my feet to step away from Jephthah, the thought of such a sacrifice still haunts me just a bit. Well, a lot. I’ve been thinking about Jephthah’s humble, courageous and obedient daughter. I’ve been thinking about what Mrs. Jephthah said when he got home that night. I’ve even been thinking about all the times I commit to something that is all wrongheaded but because I said I was going to do it I drive on relentlessly no matter who gets hurt.
But it keeps coming back to the sacrifice. And as Nancy observed, in this story we can see the reflection of another staggering sacrifice. I was reminded of two soul rending offerings — one that was, and one that almost was — and how they intertwined. I’ve looked at them before, and have cleaned up and blended a couple of posts on Abraham’s almost-sacrifice and the Father’s ultimate sacrifice from last August. (Understanding how we got to here might take reading the last few posts, starting with Honorable Mentions, Jephthah & His Merry Men, and A Deal is a Deal.)
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“Some time later, God tested Abraham.”
With these words, the writer of Genesis begins Chapter 22. “Some time later” comes after God fulfilled a lifetime of promise to Abraham and Sarah, giving to an aged and childless couple the son who would launch the legacy of descendants as numerous as the specks of sand on the beach.
This Isaac was the key to a great nation.
He was the very first bright light in a sky full of stars too numerous to count.
And at the time, he was the only bright light.
Yet, God came to Abraham with intent to test. (Abraham knew nothing of a test. He knew only of his God asking for his obedience.)
God asked Abraham to extinguish his one bright light.
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A Deal is a Deal
Simply let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No.”
A command, yes.
Even a loud call to integrity.
But I find it also to be a word of caution.
When Jesus spoke on a hillside to thousands of rumbling stomachs but even hungrier ears, He urged caution with these oaths and vows and even bargains. Reaching beyond a simple “Yes” or “No,” simply put, “comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37)
And if Jesus had delivered the inaugural address of His public ministry in the days of flannelgraphs or PowerPoint, I wonder if He would have trotted out some colorful pictures of Jephthah standing in the street outside his home celebrating his sweet victory against the Ammonites. With a click of the remote or a quick change-up of the cut-out 2D Jephthah on the flannel board, we would watch his cheering, jubilant expression turn to sheer horror as his daughter burst out the front door to join him in celebration.
I believe Jephthah could well have been on Jesus’ mind when He taught us about vows and bargains and just saying it straight.
To the masses hanging on His every word — freshly spoken for the very first time on that hillside — and also to me, He says the very same thing:
Don’t be like this guy.
Just say “Yes” or just say “No.”
And mean it.
And I wonder. Oh, I wonder.
At the end of the day, is making a deal with God any different than making a deal with the devil?
You read it right. I just went there. So lets get on with it. I have harder questions than that to ask.
(If you haven’t read Judges 11 lately, might take a deep breath right now and open it up. And if you’re just joining, it might help to read here and here to get a little background on all the fuss. Hang in here with me on a long post; I don’t know how to do it any shorter.)
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Jephthah and His Merry Men
Jephthah.
Just typing his name sits wrong with me. Too many Hs.
Saying it sounds a little like spitting. And I have an gag-inducing aversion to saliva.
Yet for the past two weeks or more, Jephthah has been with me daily, following me, teasing me like Judges does, daring me to make sense of his story.
Would that I were like that writer of Hebrews who could simply name him in a list and claim he lacked the time to say more.
But I do have the time. I must have the time. For the longer I look at him, the more I can’t look away.
Folks who think the Book of Revelation is hard haven’t spent nearly enough time in Judges.
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Honorable Mentions
Jephthah is one of the guys that the writer of the Hebrews didn’t have time to write about. There was plenty to say about him. But the writer simply didn’t have time.
Just like he didn’t have time to write about Samson and Barak, and David and Samuel.
And Gideon. Of course, Gideon.
He sits in some good company, Jephthah, there in the cheap seats in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith. (No disrespect toward the honorable mentions here. The place is like the Orpheum: there are no bad seats in the house.)
But to tell his story, well, there just wasn’t time.
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Nothing to Fear
The distress signal came in earlier this evening.
Nobody wants to overreact.
But this was bad.
It was ugly.
She wasn’t sure, but she just didn’t have a good feeling. If it turned out to be what she thought, she’d never sleep again.
Maybe it was nothing.
But what if it were something? The wrong kind of something? The scary kind of something?
The only way to know would be to move stuff out of the way and get a better look with a little more light.
But . . .
But . . .
But . . . if it were really the bad thing, moving stuff and poking around might just wake it up.
And the unspeakable would happen. The horror movie music was already playing in the background.
So the distress signal went out.
The text message buzzed in.
I think I may have found a gargantuan spider.
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Mercy Rule
Win some, lose some.
So goes baseball.
The boys held their own against, well, a better team. They were only down 4-0 in the third inning while the last team to face this same opponent went down by 19 runs in the third inning.
But then came the fourth. Balls instead of strikes. Balls in the outfield. Balls in the infield. Pop flies missed. Ground balls passed. Balls thrown too far. Balls thrown too short. Balls thrown to the left or right of the baseman. Basemen nowhere near the base.
Not their finest moment.
Twelve runs later, they reached the welcome end to a long and painful inning.
And the end of the game.
The young boy in the bleachers in front me, distracted by his own self for most of the game, popped up from his seat as folks started to leave.
“It’s over already?” A quick glance at the scoreboard told him all he needed to know about a game he’d mostly ignored. He paled a little. “Ohhh. The Mercy Rule.”
Ohhh. The Mercy Rule.
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The Conversation