Today’s passage is Judges 9:7-21. Jotham shouts at Shechem from a mountain top about the deaths of his brothers and the anointing of Abimelech. He tells a fable about different trees being asked to be king as a comparison to Shechem choosing Abimelech as king. The olive, fig, and vine all refuse the role, preferring to be true to themselves. The thornbush says if he’s not chosen he’ll burn up the cedars of Lebanon. Jotham curses both the people of Shechem and Abimelech to mutual destruction. Then he runs away.
Why does Jotham tell a fable? Why does Jotham use four conditional clauses before the main clause (16-19)?
When Jotham is cursing Shechem, he makes so many long ‘if’ clauses before he gets to his point that it’s hard to remember what his point is.
But if we take just the main words of each clause, then we can see his point.
“If you have acted honorably and in good faith …, if you have been fair …, if you have treated Gideon as he deserves …, if you have acted honorably and in good faith ….
Basically, he says that if they’d been fair and just in their attitude and actions, then they and Abimelech should be happy together.
But if the opposite is true, then they are cursed with mutual destruction.
Jotham’s tangled and convoluted ‘if’ clauses are exactly what takes place in my head when I want to do something that I shouldn’t.
I create an endless string of rationalizations to support a sin.
A good example is my adultery with my first wife.
She was in an unhappy marriage when I had sex with her in her and her husband’s house and in their bed.
Here’s how my self-justifying rationalization went:
“If I have strong feelings of love for her,
if I have strong pity for her unhappiness,
if I see how badly she has been treated by her husband,
if I understand that she needs someone like me to help raise her self-esteem,
if I appreciate that everyone needs a little happiness in their life,
if I know that my sexual skills are good for any woman but especially this one at this unhappy moment in her life,
if I consider that I am perhaps her soul mate, if I think about how much nicer I am than her husband,
if I value the dreams and hopes that I can give her, then it’s not just okay to have sex with her,
it’s really my duty to have sex with her so that we can have a beautiful relationship for however long that relationship will be.”
But what I really did was commit adultery.
I committed a sin.
No matter how much I dressed it up, it was a sin. I just didn’t want to see it.
Jotham’s curse of Shechem and Abimelech is very clear:
If you weren’t honorable, just and fair, then you should burn each other up.
He uses just one short ‘if’ clause (20) because that’s all he needs to show their sinfulness.
The same was true in my circumstance.
If I had sex with a married lady, I committed adultery. And I did.
Although God waited for many years, I paid the price for my adultery in a life that totally collapsed when I was 50.
I burned myself up.
God recovered me but my repentance is ongoing.
Application: Tell my story to a friend from 53 years ago who out of the blue wrote to say hello.
Lord, block my sinful action with your clear and warning voice. Let me not be deaf to you because my rationalizations are so loud and so many.
