Scripture: Judges 3: 31; 5: 1-9 and Hebrews 12: 1-14
Sermon: Short Stories; Long Obedience
Topics: obedience, judges, shamgar
Preached: February 5, 2006
Rev. Mike Abma
3:31
31 After him came Shamgar son of Anath, who killed six hundred of the Philistines with an ox-goad. He too delivered Israel.
5:1-9
5Then Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying:
2‘When locks are long in Israel,
when the people offer themselves willingly—
bless the Lord!
3‘Hear, O kings; give ear, O princes;
to the Lord I will sing,
I will make melody to the Lord, the God of Israel.
4‘Lord, when you went out from Seir,
when you marched from the region of Edom,
the earth trembled,
and the heavens poured,
the clouds indeed poured water.
5The mountains quaked before the Lord, the One of Sinai,
before the Lord, the God of Israel.
6‘In the days of Shamgar son of Anath,
in the days of Jael, caravans ceased
and travellers kept to the byways.
7The peasantry prospered in Israel,
they grew fat on plunder,*
because you arose, Deborah,
arose as a mother in Israel.
8When new gods were chosen,
then war was in the gates.
Was shield or spear to be seen
among forty thousand in Israel?
9My heart goes out to the commanders of Israel
who offered themselves willingly among the people.
Bless the Lord.
Text notes on 5:7
The NRSV alone seems to go in this direction. Better translations for 5:7 are:
5:6-7 Champions there were none, none left in Israel, until I Deborah arose (Revised English Bible
* The peasantry ceased, they ceased in Israel, until I Deborah arose (New American Standard Bible)
* Village life ceased, it ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose (New King James)
* Village life in Israel ceased, it ceased, until I, Deborah, arose (NIV)
* They stopped living in unwalled towns in Israel, they stopped; until I, Deborah, arose…(Jewish TANACH)
INTRODUCTION – Where did this sermon come from?
How in the world did we arrive at hearing about this obscure judge, Shamgar?
Well, let me tell you:
1. My thoughts first turned to the book of Judges through something Eugene Peterson said in his January Series lecture just over a week ago.[1] Peterson was asked whether there was any part of the Bible that he translated that he actually wished wasn’t included in Scripture. Peterson said translating the end of the book of Judges was for him very difficult. That got me thinking about the book of Judges, a book that is fascinating and frustrating at the same time.
2. Then faint memories of a sermon I heard preached on Shamgar about twenty years ago by our own Dr. Henry DeMoor came to the surface. Truthfully, I cannot remember much about that sermon. But what I do remember is being quite struck by how Henry was able to weave together a whole sermon with just this little thread of a verse on Shamgar. I thought, “If Henry can do it, then I can at least give it a shot?”
BOOK OF JUDGES
So tonight we will look at Shamgar.
Shamgar is the third judge mentioned in the Book of Judges.
There are 12 judges mentioned in the book of Judges — a nice number in Israel.
There have been attempts to show how each of the judges was from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, but this is hard to demonstrate with any accuracy.
The time period of the Judges was longer than we often assume.
It stretched from the conquest of the Promised Land, to Samuel and the beginning of the Monarchy with Saul – a span of over 300 years. Only twelve judges over 300 years.
The book of Judges is a fascinating book but it is also a frustrating book. It is frustrating because it is a book in which
things get worse, not better;
things do not get fixed, they fall apart.
The Book of Judges begins with promises and hope.
But by the end of Judges everything is chaos and civil war.
This downward path is more or less how it goes with the judges as well.
The first judge, Othniel from Judah, acts like a model judge.
But after him, each of the judges that is raised up is more and more odd and more and more flawed. The last judge mentioned in the book of Judges is Samson, in many ways the most flawed of all the judges.
SHAMGAR
So here is Shamgar, the third judge.
Less is said about him than any of the other judges.
We really know very little about who he was.
Some scholars think that, based on his name, he was actually a foreigner, not an Israelite.
Others think that he may have come from the tribe of Simeon, the tribe that bordered the Philistines. I learned this week that the Jewish tradition considers Shamgar a Levite from one of the Levitical towns.
But these are all speculations. We really know very little about who he was.
We know a little more about the time he lived.
We know he lived during the end of Ehud’s 80 years of peace,
and near the beginning of Deborah’s 40 years of peace.
We know he lived during the time when the Philistines were beginning to flex their military muscles.
The Philistines had 5 main cities near the Mediterranean coast.
They were economically prosperous and technologically savvy.
They learned to make iron weapons long before the Israelites.
The Philistines would be a pain to Israel for centuries.
Their style of warfare was hit-and-run — they raided and plundered Israelite territory
and then retreated back to the safety of their walled cities.
The result was that, at the time of Shamgar, people lived in fear.
Trade dried up because caravans were afraid to use the roads.
When people needed to travel, they only dared to take the back roads.
And village life ceased – by village, it means any non-walled town or city. People did not trust living in unwalled villages. You needed a wall to protect you from the raids.
Fear blanketed the area.
Few dared to stand up against the oppressors.
Few dared to speak for justice.
Few dared to put their lives on the line to defend the weak.
Few, except Shamgar.
Shamgar fought back.
With an ox-goad — basically a stick with a point on it to goad oxen onward — Shamgar stood up against the Philistines.
He stood up for what was just, what was right, what promoted and protected Shalom.
Now I will ask you a question: when you read that Shamgar struck down 600 Philistines with an ox-goad, did you assume he struck them all down in one amazing, heroic battle?
I must admit, I did.
I assumed Shamgar’s was a short story of heroic proportions.
I assumed that his was a flash of glory, a single battle that was remembered by posterity.
And it could have been that way.
But…. it also could have been that Shamgar struck down those 600 Philistines over the course of a long life of defending Israelites from Philistine raids.
We read that the peace of Ehud lasted 80 years.
80 years is a long time.
Even if Ehud kept the peace for 40 or 50 or 60 years, that still leaves a long time for Shamgar to fight for peace on Israel’s southern frontier.
But we often do not think like this.
We hear the short story and we forget about the long obedience.
MARTIN LUTHER
Take the story of Martin Luther.
Most of us know the short story.
The year is 1521. The place is the German city of Worms.
There is Luther standing alone before a crowd of papal envoys and German princes. A heavy stack of books that Luther has written is dropped with a thud onto a table in front of him. Luther is given the opportunity to recant for all he has written or bear the consequences of being excommunicated.
Luther looks at the books.
He mumbles that perhaps he may have expressed himself a bit strongly against certain individuals. But then he lifts his head high and says with a strong and clear voice that when it came to the substance of what he had written, why he could not in good conscience recant of that unless… unless he was convinced that they contradicted either the testimony of Scripture or of reason.
There is suddenly a great stirring in the crowd
The papal envoys are whispering loudly, “How dare he…”
But Luther injects and adds, “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”
That is the short story we know.
And yet, we must not let the short story make us lose sight of the long obedience.
Luther had been struggling with what it meant to be justified before God ever since he became a priest in 1507. For ten years he struggled.
In 1517 he made public some of his concerns.
And he was not alone.
There were like-minded reformers in his University.
There were like-minded reformers in the German towns.
His significance must not be reduced to one-battle on one day.
His significance was the result of a life-time of struggle – a long obedience.
ROSA PARKS
Take another, more modern example. Rosa Parks.
Most of us know the short story.
The day was December 1, 1955.
The place, Montgomery, Alabama.
Rosa Parks is sitting in the middle of the bus.
It is rush hour, and busy, and she is ordered to move to the back of the bus to make room for some white passengers.
She refuses to give up her seat.
She is arrested.
She becomes the catalyst for the bus boycott in Montgomery, and the mother of the Civil Rights Movement.
That is the short story.
What we often forget is the long obedience.
Rosa Parks did not make a spur-of-the-moment decision to stay seated.
Rosa Parks had been an active member of the NAACP for 12 years.
There were a whole series of Civil Rights actions in that time.
There was a whole crowd of people fighting for Civil Rights at the time.
Rosa Parks trained to be a civil rights activist.
When she remained seated on that bus,
She was not a political innocent.
She was not a civil rights lone-ranger who appeared out of nowhere.
No, she and many others had planned for it,
had prepared for it
had prayed for it
for many years.[2]
The short story belongs as part of the long hard road of obedience.
GLORY ROAD
In the theatres right now there is an inspiring movie called “Glory Road.”
I admit, I have not seen this movie, but I have heard it is good.
It tells a short story.
The time is 1965-1966.
The place is Texas Western University.
In that year’s NCAA Championship, Coach Don Haskins fields an all-black basketball team for Texas Western against an all-white team from Kentucky. Texas Western wins the NCAA championship and changes the history of basketball in this country.
That is the short story.
But the road to glory was really much longer than one season,
and it was filled with many more hardships than simply beating
Kentucky.
Don Haskins built his team over the course of years, not simply one season.
The battle to integrate not only basketball but all sports had been going on for years and was being fought by many different people on many different fronts.[3]
We like the short story.
But the real story is one of long obedience.
HEBREWS’ THEME OF PERSEVERANCE
The Book of Hebrews spends most of chapter 11 telling very short stories of people of faith. But it doesn’t want us to lose sight of the long obedience in each of these stories.
And so, when it tells us what is needed to follow Jesus,
when it tells us what is needed to keep our eyes fixed on the author
and perfecter of our faith,
it does not first speak about strength, or valor, or even courage.
It speaks about needing perseverance.
Without perseverance, we will grow weary.
Without perseverance we will lose heart.
Without perseverance we will lose sight of the fact that we will have hard times, tough times, hard times – but these are the very times that produce of harvest of holiness and peace.
We need to hear this because we live in an age of instant everything…
Instant coffee, instant soup, instant oatmeal; instant popcorn;
instant access, instant messaging, instant information; instant gratification.
I even have read about instant protests.
They are apparently called “flashmobbing.”
A “flashmob” is a high-speed demonstration or protest.
It can be organized in the morning,
run for a couple of hours in the afternoon;
and everyone can be home to watch Seinfeld reruns by suppertime.
Even our battles for justice have become “instant.”
That is the temptation, isn’t it — to keep things short;
to win instant victories and to gain instant glories.
If not, we wonder why we should bother struggling at all.
But we, we are called to live differently.
We are called to run with perseverance the race set before us.
We are called not grow weary in our struggle against sin,
and not to lose heart in our battle for justice in this world.
We need a long obedience.
That doesn’t mean we have to be perfect.
Who is? Certainly not Shamgar who struck down 600
or Samson who struck down 1000
or even David who struck down 10,000.
They were all miserable failures in their own ways.
But the point is, God stuck with them, through thick and thin.
And God sticks with us.
He showed us that he sticks with us
in sending Jesus,
who endured the pain of the cross
and in so doing,
triumphed over the principalities and powers of darkness.
In the annals of history, our stories may very well amount to little more than a line or two.
They may be seemingly short stories.
But may they reflect lives of long obedience.
Amen
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