Jeff the Racist

Pastor Dusty Mackintosh
Judges  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  31:44
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Jephthah is called to be a judge of "Israel", but narrowly identifies himself only as a Gileadite. He places the needs of "his own" above those of "the other". Speak "shibboleth" and enter. This is tribalism: the tendency of humans to divide the world into "us" and "them". Who is my neighbor?

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Owens vs. All

Tribalism and the Owen Brothers.
Tribalism and the Owen Brothers.
My oldest friend, born two months before me, is Jeremiah Owen. And he is still my good friend today.
The Owens were a family with 5 boys and 1 daughter, the youngest. And man, could they tear into each other. Verbally and physically. Hilarious. Brothers beating on brothers was completely free reign, making fun of one another.
But if, even for a moment, anyone else, including me, tried to join in...
Jeremiah might say to Aaron “Dude, you’re such an idiot!”
and I say “Yeah, Aaron, you’re an idiot!”
All of the Owen boys stop what they are doing and turn and look at me. And they’d turn on me, mid-fight.
They can pick on each other, within the tribe… but fire and brimstone upon ANYONE who dared to attack the Owen tribe!

The Shibboleth Slaughter

Jeff the Judge, Jeff the Shaman, Jeff the Gileadite

Recap Jephthah… the Gileadite.
Being a Gileadite is a clear part of his identity. It was an identity denied him as a young man, driven out into exile by his brothers. And now it is part of him, such that just about every time his name is mentioned in Scripture, it is “Jephtah the Gileadite”. And now he is made King of the Gileadites, in addition to being called a judge over Israel. The emphasis is not on “Israelite” but on Gileadite.
This epic victory over the Ammonites. They are feeling good, feeling proud, they did it.
Here we can see why it was the Gileadites who were most threatened by the Ammonites. Over on the east side of the Jordan, where modern day nation of Jordan is, they were the first line of defense against the foreign invader.

The Ephraimites

But the most powerful tribe, the Ephraimites, they got left out of the party… and now they are upset.
They were left out of the victory, left out of the glory. As brothers in Israel, brother tribes, shouldn’t they have been invited to defeat the Ammonites? They remember generations ago when they were left out of Gideon’s victory too… so they are sensitive to this kind of treatment. Plus, many in the Gileadite region are from the tribe of Ephraim, or related. Shouldn’t they give proper respect to family, to the tribe, to the most powerful tribe amongst the tribes of Israel.
Their pride is offended.
Judges 12:1 ESV
The men of Ephraim were called to arms, and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house over you with fire.”
There pride is hurt… but that escalated quickly! Straight from feeling left out to “BURN YOUR HOUSE WITH FIRE!”
Judges 12:2–3 ESV
And Jephthah said to them, “I and my people had a great dispute with the Ammonites, and when I called you, you did not save me from their hand. And when I saw that you would not save me, I took my life in my hand and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?”
Judges 12:2
Sounds like he is going to negotiate again. Until...
Judges 12:4 ESV
Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim. And the men of Gilead struck Ephraim, because they said, “You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh.”
Judges 12:4
So Ephraim was talking more trash against the Gileadites, like they were tribe rejects.
But this word “struck” means that the Gileadites just trashed the Ephraimites. To strike. To smite dead. Jeff’s team won. They smashed the “enemy”. The Gileadites defeated the Ephraimites soundly, scattering their army.
But in order to get back home, the scattered Ephraimites soldiers need to get back west across the Jordan. But the Gileadites sneak around and capture the fords so that, as the scattered men of Ephraim try and make their way home, they are caught.
And the Gileadites sneak around and capture the fords so that, as the scattered men of Ephraim try and make their way home, they are caught.
Judges 12:5–6 ESV
And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When he said, “No,” they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell.
Judges 12:
The Gileadites talked funny, it seems. Arabic is like this, it has no “sh” sound, and so apparently the men of Ephraim didn’t say the “sh” sound, they used the “s” sound. This was then a clear marker. Shibboleth isn’t a magic word, it means “ear of grain”.
But this becomes the dividing line. Who is “us” and who is “them”. It is us vs. them. And “they”, the other, the stranger-danger, the Ephraimite… they have to die.
42,000 (or 42 divisions or clans) were killed. That is a lot of murder based on an accent.

Shibboleth?

I have heard sermons on Shibboleth and Shibboleth enters the English language (somewhat obscurely) as a kind of magic password or sign showing true believers or true membership in the group. The idea here being that the Gileadites were righteous in following Jeff and the Ephraimites were unrighteous in rebelling or invading.
This is another situation, though, in which there is no moral judgment in the text whatsoever. God doesn’t seem to command this war, and we certainly can’t infer from the fact that Jephthah is a “judge” that he is acting righteously here. We have seen too many judges acting in monstrous sin, including Jephthah himself in sacrificing his daughter!
I believe that both sides of this conflict are acting in sin. Why? Because they are family, they are brothers, they are the people of God, commanded to unity and peace. Jephthah above all, a judge of all Israel, acts for the pride and defense of Gilead alone. Where he could have turned aside anger with a gentle word, like Gideon before him, he rises to battle. Ephraim acts out of foolish wounded pride. You didn’t invite us to the battle so we will burn your house down?
This is a war within the family of God. Everybody loses.
And it is rooted in this dangerously attractive idea. Tribalism. This is my tribe. That is theirs. It isn’t about fault. Perhaps Ephraim was the initial aggressor. They are certainly wrong. Jephthah is slaughtering fugitives of war.
Tribalism in politics.
Tribalism within family. Between brothers, between sisters.
Tribalism between churches. Tribalism within churches.
We don’t do this, right? Only “they” do it. (See what we did there?)
This is human and this is me. I am going to draw a line around my family, my church, my team, my people. And in a thousand practical ways, that makes sense.

To love or not to love?

But then comes this question: How am I going to treat this person? We have a conflict (of any description), how are we going to resolve it? What is the range of options available to me?
If someone is in my tribe, then we have in-tribe kind of options. Family kind of options. Let’s solve this together, you and me against the problem.
If someone is outside my tribe, then we have outside-tribe kinds of options. And I can justify anything if it done to “the other” in defense of “my tribe.” My anger and fear is justifiable, violence and aggression.
But if I’m going to love them… that really shapes my options, doesn’t it? If I am going to love them, no matter how they have hurt or offended me, that is going to completely alter the way that I respond. It may still be the case that self-defense is necessary, or words of rebuke or punishment of some kind… but everything about that decision and that process is going to be different if they are “my tribe”… if they are loved.

Who is my neighbor?

Love then becomes a problem. It becomes a ridiculous challenge.
A brilliant man knew the right answer when Jesus asked him what was written in the Law. A lawyer who knew the law, and he answered:
Luke 10:27 ESV
And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
The lawyer asked Jesus: Who is my neighbor? Seeking to limit the options. Seeking to put careful boundaries on the demands of love, on the demands of righteousness. Seeking to draw a circle that defines my tribe: these are the people I have a responsibility to love.
The lawyer asked Jesus: Who is my neighbor? Seeking to limit the options. Seeking to put careful boundaries on the demands of love, on the demands of righteousness. Seeking to draw a circle that defines my tribe: these are the people I have a responsibility to love.
And Jesus tells this powerful story. A man who would have grown up on the very same land where the ancient tribe of Ephraim lived. Perhaps he couldn’t say Shibboleth either. A mixed race social outcast, long persecuted by the Jewish people. A man who had every reason to cheer when he saw one of those Jews beaten on the side of the road after he’d been robbed. Not of his tribe, not of his people, not his family, not his, by all measures, not his responsibility.
And yet that man, the Samaritan, instead of saying “them”… he said “us”. He picked the man, cared for his wounds, fed him, provided lodging and money for his recovery. He treated him like family, he extended his circle to include someone who had no business being included.
Luke 10:36–37 ESV
Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Luke 10:
For the Christian, this isn’t optional.
We can’t draw the limit-of-love somewhere other than where Jesus drew it.
And where did Jesus draw it? Where does Jesus’ tribe end? To whom did God show love and for whom did Jesus die?
John 3:16 ESV
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Love.

There is no measure, no metric, no standard of judgment that allows us to say that “they” are other, that “they” are outside, that “he or she” is anything other than “us”. Not even “Christian” vs. “non-Christian”.

The Other

If that were the Shibboleth, none of us would be saved, for “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Just as you are welcomed into the family of God, so we must develop that instinct of love, the habit of love, the practice and discipline of love, that says first to every human and every collection and organization of humans, we say “we”.
The power of us.
One of us. One of us.
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