Reckoning with Biblical Violence

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Scriptures: Judges 1-3

• Summary

  Summary: In this series, we will focus in on a specific period in the history of the Hebrew people: the transition from the era of the judges to the period of the kings. In the first message Jeremy provided a historical snapshot of that time period as an attempt to situate this violent set of stories within our Christian faith.

  A Historical Snapshot. Judges were situational leaders during the time period known as the conquest of Canaan (after the Israelites left Egypt and before Israel became a monarchy). The story has a forward-moving trajectory: from Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, to Joseph, to Moses, to the time of Judges. During this time, the 12 tribes of Israel mostly operated as independent city-states and only united when there was a larger threat. The theme of the book of Judges can be something like this: we constantly forget the past and make the same mistakes over and over again. Eventually, the people want to be like other nations around them and want to have a king who would tell them what to do. Why do we sometimes want to be told what to do? Or why do we often turn to the strong man figures in times of crisis?

  What’s our Why. One of the reasons why every year we spend time in the Hebrew Scriptures (you can find a series on Abraham, Jacob, Joseph and Moses in our archives) is that in order to make sense of the biblical story, we need to wrestle with the whole of the biblical story. And since we believe that it is in Jesus we can see the full revelation of God, our wrestling with the difficult and violent stories of our Scriptures disciples us to engage the full story through the lens of Jesus. Our wrestling with those stories in community can do three things for us: 1) help us to better understand the story that leads us to Jesus, 2) help us to grasp the perspectives that Jesus eventually offered us alternatives to, 3)help us to become more aware of the ways in which we are still very fond of attributing our agendas to the divine, and how the endless grace of God who is willing to patiently work with our often limited and flawed perspectives.

  Three Approaches. Bad theology has horrible consequences. For instance, the Canaan conquest stories provided the ideological background to the attempted extinction of the indigenous peoples in North America (as argued by Robert Allen Warrior in his paper “Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians).

  Three ways to understand these violent stories:

  1) “God uses violence to get to God’s ultimate ends. God is God and if God does it, it’s okay.” However, it is not a helpful approach, because it assumes that God WANTS to use violence, but that runs counter to EVERYTHING we see in Jesus. E.g, even when in Lk 22 Jesus tells his disciples to by a sword, he doesn’t intend for them to use it, it is his way not to play the part of a criminal that would be assigned to him. So it does not make sense that God wanted to kill the Canaanites, in the light of Jesus who was willing to die for his enemies.
  2) “Canaanites deserved it for they were uniquely wicked. God didn’t WANT to do this but maybe God HAD to do this.” Again, this doesn’t make sense in light of Jesus who makes sure that no one gets what they deserve. Destruction is where we might end up because of our choices, but this is something that God wants to save us from not condemn us to.
  3) The third approach is to work to understand these texts in their archeological context. The bombastic language of the book of Judges is not unique to Israel. E.g. a Moabite inscription said that Israel was gone to ruin forever, but then Judges 3 tells us that the LORD gave Moab into the hands of Israel and Moab was struck, and no one escaped. In Deut, we have a passage that says “utterly destroy the Jebusites,” but in Judges 1, we read that “to this day the Jebusites live in Jerusalem with the Benjamites.” All this to say that those stories and the violent language did not serve as historical records but as the language for identity formation and nation-building in the ancient world. And we can see the parallels of that today (e.g. how Canadians talk about Americans). That kind of language was also the weapon - to cohere a social group against an enemy.

  Looking Back with New Eyes. However, there are other stories. Over time, as the Hebrew Scriptures develop, we move from the veneration of the warrior identity to care for the fatherless, from the opposition to neighbouring nations to the welcome of the alien and the foreigner. E.g. Leviticus 19:34. The prophets build on the heart of Leviticus, and the Psalmists pick up those motifs as well (E.g. Ps 51). In this series, we want to see how the grace of Jesus allows us to go back to those cringe-worthy violent stories with a set of new eyes, to see how the story evolved and how we move from the fear of the outsider to the welcome of the foreigner, to the inclusion of the gentiles and all the beloved children of God.

• Discussion

  Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions and reflections are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.

  Connect: Check in with each other about your past week. It’s been a heavy one in the community. Is there anything heavy you’re carrying today as well that we should be mindful of? 


  Alternatively, feel free to chat about what you would like to learn from this new series on Judges and Samuel or what you’re curious about.

  Share: Jeremy said that the theme of the book of Judges could be: "we constantly forget our own past and make the same mistakes over and over again.” How true do you think this is in our world today? And what would be some ways to counter that kind of forgetting even in our own lives?

  Also, in this series, we will look at Samuel, the last judge before Israel demanded to become a monarchy just like other nations around them because they did not want to have those situational leaders anymore but wanted to be told what to do.

  These are the questions that Jeremy paused for reflection in the message. What are your thoughts about them?

  “Why do we sometimes want to be told what to do?

  Why do we sometimes want someone to rule over us?

  Why do we so often turn to these strong man figures when we find ourselves in crisis?"

  Reflect: Reflect on the question of why it is important to read the whole of the scriptures and to read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus. 
How has that been helpful for your faith and engagement with Scripture?

  Feel free to reflect on the quote from the sermon, where Jeremy gives his reason as to why we go back to the Hebrew Scriptures and wrestle with those violent stories.

  “My argument is that wrestling with these stories in community, particularly the ones that make us uncomfortable at times, can first, help us to better understand the story that leads us to Jesus.

  It can second, help us to grasp the perspectives that Jesus eventually offered us alternatives to.

  But, in many ways, perhaps most importantly, I think it also helps us to become more aware of the ways in which we are still very fond of attributing our agendas to the divine.

  There’s an old saying that comes from the Talmud:

  ‘We see things not as they are but as we are.’

  The actual quote where this comes from is more literally translated: ‘A man sees only what is suggested by his thoughts.’

  But the intent is still the same, that even within the Jewish tradition there was a recognition that their own stories, sacred and holy as they are, pointed them to God, but were never able or intended to capture the full extent of God.”

  Engage: Out of the three approaches (listed below and in the summary) to engaging the stories of violence in the Hebrew Scriptures, which one are you most familiar with?

  
1) “God can do whatever God wants to do, because is God and it’s ok if God does it”,
  
2) “God had to destroy them because they deserved it,” or
  
3) The language of violence in ancient times reflects the building of national identities.

  What are the implications of each of the approaches? And how do these approaches get reframed if we choose to read the Scriptures thought the lens of Jesus?

  Consider how Robert Allen Warrior's insights challenge us to reflect on how our interpretations of scripture impact indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities.

  Take away: In light of this first message in The Last of Them series, what practices can we adopt to avoid imposing our biases onto God or the stories we read in the Bible? What would help us to remain open to God's true character?

• Prayer

  Prayer for Mothers (from the Liturgy):
  
Loving God, 
  We pray for our mothers today,
  those related by blood and those who chose to be our mothers,
  those who have nurtured us and witnessed the miracle of our becoming.
  We give you thanks for their leadership, resilience, and strength,
  and for all the ways their love has expanded and shaped us. 

  Today, we also stand in solidarity with those who find this day difficult: 
  those who have lost their mothers,
  who are distanced from their mothers,
  and those in the process of healing.

  We lift up those who have suffered in their journey of motherhood,
  those who have lost a child, 
  those who ache and pray to have a child,  
  those who wait and hope and discern what is next.
  May your grace surround and guide them every step of the way. 

  Finally, we pray for all the mothers who are discovering what it means to be a mother in their current season of life:
  those who care for babies and chase toddlers,
  those who navigate relationships with their adult children, 
  those who've welcomed children into their life through adoption, fostering, or blending of families, 
  those who parent as single moms.
  May these seasons be filled with grace
  and incredible opportunities for growth, 
  And may these mothers trust 
that in all they do
  they are held by Your divine love
  
and that they are enough. Amen.

• Liturgy

  CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 143

  MUSIC Curated by Kevin Borst
  Phil Wickham - Praise the Lord
  Worship Circle - Great Is Thy Faithfulness
  Hillsong Worship - Hope of the Ages
  Brooke Ligertwood - Thousand Hallelujahs
  
  Mother’s Day Prayer
  Written by Yelena Pakhomova

  Today is Mother's Day, and as part of our worship, we will take the opportunity to reflect and pray together.

  A contemplative writer, Shannon K Evans, writes that motherhood teaches us the radical generosity of offering what we can for another. And when done in a healthy way, this self-giving is not a loss of self but a vast expansion of it, an embodiment of divine hospitality.

  So today, we want to celebrate all the different paths that lead to this expansive and generous motherhood.

  We are grateful for our mothers and mother figures in our lives.

  But we also acknowledge that for many of us, Mother's Day can be a reminder of the complexity of our stories and how our personal experiences with motherhood are interlaced with both joy and sadness.

  So as we pray today, may we trust that God, our Mother, will always hold us and all of our stories with the utmost care.

  Let us pray:

  Loving God,
  We pray for our mothers today,
  those related by blood and those we've chosen to call "mother,"
  those who have nurtured us and witnessed the miracle of our becoming.
  We give you thanks for their leadership, resilience, and strength, and for all the ways their love has expanded and shaped us.

  Today, we also stand in solidarity with those who find this day difficult:
  those who have lost their mothers,
  who are distanced from their mothers,
  and those in the process of healing.
  We lift up those who have suffered in their journey of motherhood,
  those who have lost a child,
  those who ache and pray to have a child,
  those who wait and hope and discern what is next.
  May your grace surround and guide them every step of the way.

  Finally, we pray for all mothers who are discovering what it means to be a mother in their current season of life:
  those who care for new babies and chase toddlers,
  those who navigate relationships with their adult children,
  those who've welcomed new children into their lives through adoption, fostering, or blending of families,
  those who parent as single mothers.
  May these seasons be filed with grace
  and incredible opportunities for growth,
  And may these mothers trust that in all they do,
  they are held by divine love, and they are enough.

  Amen.