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And the Fat Closed Over It with Pastor Ryan Braley

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A left-handed assassin, a king who never saw it coming, and a peace that feels more like a pause than a cure—this wild tale from Judges isn’t just ancient drama. We use the story of Ehud and Eglon to face a hard question: does force ever deliver the freedom we’re after, or does it only reset the countdown to the next crisis?

We start by placing the narrative on the map—from Sinai’s covenant to the chaos of the Judges era—so the shocking details make sense. Then we dig into the assassination itself and the irony that Ehud’s “oddness” is his edge in a right-handed world. That theme opens into something personal: the traits we hide out of shame may be the very gifts God uses for healing and change. But the text refuses to flatter force. Ten thousand corpses and eighty quiet years are not the same as shalom. The cycle returns because violence reshuffles power without restoring people.

From there, we ask what actually breaks the loop. The answer doesn’t arrive as a bigger sword but as a battered cross. Jesus refuses the logic of payback, absorbs the blow, and heals the roots that keep us reaching for control—rage, fear, and scarcity. This is not soft talk; it is the only power that renovates hearts and communities. Along the way we name how “private” sin spills into public fallout, how unhealed wounds fuel endless wars, and why God’s relentless faithfulness—not our perfect willpower—is the ground that lets us try a different way.

If you’re tired of repeating patterns, this conversation offers a map: notice the cycle, tell the truth, ask for help, and practice a love that doesn’t mirror harm. Listen, share with a friend who needs courage to use their “odd” gifts, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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SPEAKER_00:

Go and be seated. I can't pray right now. I gotta pray. Oh my gosh. This is one of my favorite Bible passages of all time. I love it. Uh and uh when people ask you, what's your favorite Bible verse? Oh, the one where this guy, Ehud, makes a sword and he stabs this really fat king, and the sword is swallowed by the king's belly. By the way, uh Todd said in the text, he says he was a very fat man. It's in the Bible. Just a good reminder, too, that in the ancient world, this was not a value statement. Okay, no one's trying to body shame anybody, just so you know. It's just that was what they said. Like if someone was tall or short, they would just sort of say it. And like if you've been to Asia in Asia, like to this day, if you go there, they will make comments on your physical appearance, not a value statement. They'll just be like, oh, you're and they'll fill in the blank. So beware when you go there, because they'll just say it. They're like little kids, you know. Anyway, so uh the text says that he was a very large man. But um, anyway, thank you, Todd, for reading that. Okay, now we can pray. God give you thanks this morning for your presence here with us. And we ask that you would come and make this story come alive to us in all the kinds of ways that we need it so badly this morning as people. And God, in all the ways in which we are stuck in these cycles of our own sin and brokenness, would you free us and liberate us as always, God? This is a story of liberation, and would you help us to be people who live free in every way? In Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so uh my name is Ryan. I'm the pastor here at Central. I agree to be with you guys, one of the pastors, anyway, and um we are at the end of our sermon series. We're calling, we called it reading in the dark. We've been exploring some of the troubling texts of the Bible. And uh, what are these weird stories about? Some are weird, some are odd, some are like morally suspect or dubious. And this one is just a weird, hilarious, I think it's hilarious, um, that it's in the Bible. Like, why is this in our sacred text about this guy who gets stabbed and he's so big his belly swallows the sword, you know? And um, and it also like one of these stories that seems to not just talk about violence, but almost endorses it. Many of our friends who are atheists, like maybe they're a part of the neo-atheist group or movement that's out there, they will point to a text like this and say, the Bible is a violent book and it endorses violence. So it's good for us to kind of like, hey, what would a response be to that kind of an indictment? And I think I've got one for you today because here's the deal: when you read the Bible, this is important, there's all kinds of ways to read it. Number one, you want to like, what's the genre? What am I reading poetry? Am I reading history? Am I reading theology? Um, you wouldn't read the newspaper in the same way you read a poem by Shakespeare. They're different genres. That's important to know how to interpret them. That's like just basic interpretation. Also, then you want to look for patterns. You want to zoom out, like what's before this story, what's after the story, what's the where are we in the Israel story, the Jesus narrative? Has it come yet? Where are we? And what what patterns, recurring themes, repetitions might we find in this story? Does that make sense? So this morning, that's just what we're gonna do, because I want you to look for patterns in the story, before the story, after the story. Like, try to, what is this story all about? Why is there the story about a fat king who gets stabbed in the belly, the sword gets disappeared? Like, what are we talking about? And uh, and I'll tell you why it's my favorite story. But um, yeah, this is sort of Ehud. Ehud, by the way, the first thing we learn about Ehud, this ancient, he's an Israelite, he's from the tribe of Benjamin, but one of the first things we hear about Ehud isn't, and by the way, my sermon title is called And the Fat Closed Over It. That's a great title, if you ask me. Uh, I enjoyed it. Uh, the first thing we learned about Ehud is that Ehud was in fact left-handed. Can I get an amen from the left-handed folks in the room today? Uh, raise your hand if you're left-handed. Yeah, okay, not that many. Okay, but yeah, with a few in the proud. There are lots of great left-handed people in our history. Did you know this? Lots of famous ones who did amazing things. For example, do you know who this is? This is uh a little painter known as Leonardo da Vinci. He was a famous painter, inventor, a renaissance man, and he was left-handed. Uh, how about his uh related friend? I don't know if they're friends at all, but uh Michelangelo, who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. That's what that is. But I've been in there. And when you go in there, they're like, hey, no photography, no phones, no video, right? So I'm like, it's a sacred place. So I was like, okay, no doubt. I'm like a pastor, I put my phone away. And I walk in there, and there's hundreds of people in there with their phones out, like blatantly. I'm like, well, if they're doing it, I'm doing it. So I took a few photos. Um, but he was left-handed. Also, yes, this gentleman. Who is this? Jimmy. Oh, someone said Prince. Close. But not close. Uh, Jimmy, by the way, what do you notice about his guitar? It's upside down. Yeah. Because he he plays left-handed, but he all they had around was right-handed guitar. So he learned to play guitar left-handed on a right-handed upside-down guitar. How awesome is that! Yeah, that's great. So it's upside down. Uh Jimmy, great left-hander. Uh, how about this? Uh, Barack Obama and George Bush. I want to be equal opportunity here and not leaving anybody out. We're we're for all the people. We include everybody. Left, right, uh, you know. I'm not saying who is better. I'm just saying they're both left-handed. Good for them. Let's move on. Okay, so here we go. Uh, God himself, Morgan Freeman, was left-handed. Yeah. Great actor. He'd played God many times in some of the films. The great bambino left-handed. Yes. I would argue one of the greatest baseball players of our time. Not my time, but of in America. Uh, how about the modern day great Bambino who was also left-handed? Yes. The great Joe Maurer. Who, oh, I was I was corrected that he he throws right-handed, is that right? Okay, that's fine. He's allowed in. He's fine. Uh in fact, in the in the ancient world, left-handed could have meant something like ambidextrous, ambidextrious, ambidextrous. Yeah, so he might have been. So Joe Maurer. Uh, but listen, but one of the greatest athletes of our generation, and you probably know him, he was left-handed. This young man here, Ryan Braille. Yes! The old Southpaw from Aurora, Colorado, Aurora Parks and Recreation Youth Football. I was the Steve Young of my generation. Yeah, the spiral went backwards when I threw that football. But it was a spiral, I'll tell you what. He's left-handed, Ehud, which comes into play later on. Whenever the Bible tells you a unique feature about their physical appearance or their, it's not very common. So notice it, like what why would they say that? It's not very often that you in modern literature they do it all the time, but in the ancient world, they didn't do it. So why would it mention that he's left-handed? Well, it comes into play later on. But before I get there, this story comes to us in the book of Judges. So here's a timeline so you know where we're at. So Genesis is way back here. The creation. At the end of Genesis, you find the people of God, God creates a people through Abraham and Sarah, and they end up enslaved in Egypt. Uh, Pastor Ben preached last week about Moses. Moses is the man who rescues the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. But they were enslaved. So here's Moses back here, by the way, just so you know. And they were enslaved in Egypt for about 400 years. And then they cry out to God, God, save us, help us. We're enslaved. We're the people of God. Help us. And God sends a deliverer named Moses. And then, of course, Moses dies. You heard from Pastor Ben that he dies on a mountain and God buries him, which is quite sacred and beautiful. And then Joshua takes over from Moses. From the time of Joshua's death, Joshua dies. They go to the promised land. Life in the promised land from the time of Joshua's death until the rise of the monarchy. Who knows who the first king of Israel was? David's a good guess. He's the second king. Saul, yeah, good guess, so David, then Saul. Um so between the Joshua and the monarchy, you have this time in the promised land. It's kind of chaotic. And this is the time of the judges. So David is down there, but further down. Here's an important thing to remember. Back when Moses delivers them out of Egypt, they're saved, they're set free. All they've known for hundreds of years is slavery. They have no idea how to be free people. God teaches them. And here's what he does first. He takes them up on a mountain, well, it takes Moses on a mountain, and they have this ceremony. There's lightning, there's thunder, it's this dramatic show. The people are down below, like we're too scared to go up there because God might kill us. You go, Moses. And it's this beautiful ceremony in which God makes a promise to the people. He's like, hey, you guys, I will be your God, and I want you to be my people. This has never happened in the history of the world. God adopts them as his own people. I promise I will fulfill this, and they call it a covenant. It's like a promise, but deeper and richer. And it's mostly one-sided. But God's like, I promise I will be your God and you will be my people. They sign this document. We call the Ten Commandments, but it's like this beautiful ceremony, and they ritualize the whole thing. It's this beautiful thing. And God's like, don't forget that I've set you free to be free people and share this with the whole world. And I will be your God, and I want you to be my people. So that's Mount Sinai, way back here. Moses dies, Joshua dies. Now there's this time of the judges. And it's a weird, chaotic time of like bloodshed and violence. It's like uh there's like unstable, fragile leadership. There's like no one really in charge, like sort of leaders kind of come and go. It's like sort of this odd time. In fact, in the book of Judges two, it says this then the Lord raises up judges who saves them out of the hands of raiders. There's raiders kind of roaming around, Oakland raiders, LA raiders, other raiders are out there doing their thing, raiding and pillaging. It was like a chaotic violent time. And so God raises up these judges, he calls them, and to help them and save them from the hands of these raiders. It was a violent time, very disorganized. It was kind of like if uh, oh, here are some of the judges, by the way, that he raises up. He raised up about 12 of them, but these are the more famous ones. So Ehud is a judge. Uh, Deborah, can I get an amen from the ladies in the room? She was a judge. Um, so who said that God can't use women leaders? I never said that, because he does. Deborah, Gideon, uh, Jeff Tha. You know all Jeff Tha, right? He invited into the cookout. Samson is also one of them. And uh, it's this violent, unstable time. It's almost as if, like, you know, succession were to meet Yellowstone. That's what judges would be like. The book of Judges. I didn't know if the older crowd would get that this morning, so I'm like, okay, what would be an older? Well, the book of Judges would be like, you know, if uh if Gunsmoke met the Godfather. I got a better laugh at the earlier one, too. You guys like that one. All right. No one has seen succession, I'm guessing. Anyway, it's sort of this time like who's gonna be in charge? Who will rule? There's assassinations, there's undermining, there's backdoor deals, all kinds of shenanigans happening. There's violence, there's uh, you know, again, fragile kinds of leadership, there's moral clarity is really absent from this time in the Israel's history. There's a lot going on. And who will rule, who will be killed, and what might God have to do with any of it? And is God there? Does God is God endorsing violence? Or what's happening here? So God raises up judges in this chaotic time where there's no leadership, and he raises up judges. Now, judges, the word judge in the ancient world really means something like leader or chieftain, or like a um like a guerrilla commander. So not so much like this. Um, like think less John Roberts, or like less Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and think more like this. You know, more like like on a more like Katniss Everdeen. Okay, couple, or William Wallace. Okay, okay. Just more like that, yeah. So a judge wasn't like a courtroom, it was like a leader, like this guerrilla commander. And these stories of the judges in the book of Judges, which is the seventh book, so it goes uh Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and then Judges. And it reads like these ancient Near Eastern hero stories, like the hero is sort of like divinely appointed, and like they have supernatural strength or abilities, and like all this weird, there's violence and kind of bloodshed, it's crazy. And that is the book of Judges. Now, again, it's a chaotic time. And here's what here's one of the beginnings of the themes that we see repeated over and over again. But I don't want to give away my thunder here. But you read in Judges 3, right before the Ehud story, at the outset of the of this book, the Israelites, the people of God, who had a covenant with God, that God had set them free. And God said, Go live as free people now and share with the world. Here's what happens to them after Joshua dies. The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Now, the Lord strengthened a king, King Eglon, who's a nearby Moabite king, and uh he takes over and he becomes the ruler of Israel. So the Israelites who were supposed to rule on their own, because of their evil ways, their wicked ways, they go counter to the ways of God. They're taken over by this guy called Eglon, who's the king of nearby Moab. Now, Eglon or Eglon, he rules for 18 years. And they're kind of like back in slavery, but now under another foreign ruler, the ruler of Moab, who's king Eglon. See, they were supposed to remember what it was like to be enslaved, then to be set free, and they were to share that with the world. Don't forget who you are. I'm to be your God, you're my people. Live like that's true. That's what he said to them. Don't forget it. And of course, what happens? They forget. And they do evil in the sight of the Lord. They were to take this blessing that God had given them and share it with everyone. Because they had been set free. Don't forget where you were back then. When I saved you, I set you free. And don't hoard it. Don't hoard or hog the blessing. Share with other people. Jesus, years and years and years and years later, shows up. He says, He who or she who's been forgiven much loves much. In other words, if you've been set free from something, and you've been given grace, go show grace. My dad, my stepdad we used to always say, Yeah, he's like, Ryan, always show grace. We we always want grace extended to us, like show me grace, show me grace. But then with others, like, no, no, no grace for you, you know. No, he's been forgiven much, loves much. So share it. What you've been given, share it. Don't hoard it, don't hog it. I love the final step in AA. Like now that you've been set free, go and help somebody else. Like keep the thing going. Go help others find sobriety. That's the whole point. And Israel, they forget. And they go off the path, they do evil things, they worship other gods. And God was like, don't worship other gods, because the other gods will eat your lunch and they'll destroy you. It'll bring death and destruction. But I will, I'll set you free. I'm helping you be free. Here's how you do it. And they forget. They forget their roots, they forget their connection to their roots, and they do evil. I'm so glad I always say this. I'm so glad that you and I are nothing like this. I'm so glad we always remember the things that God has saved us from are the gifts we've been given, and we just are so freely able to share with other people. And we're so magnanimous and generous, you know. We never hog or hoard our blessings. Because remember, it's all from God anyway. So we're glad we share all of our things with people. And it says they do evil in the sight of God. They forgot what God told them, remember their kindness and goodness to show to their neighboring uh neighbors, neighboring neighbors. There you go. And uh there's all kinds of chaos that happens because of it, because sin always breeds destruction and chaos. In fact, notice that in this story, their sin, they're doing evil in the eyes of God, has all kinds of political ramifications. There is political consequences to their actions as people. In this in the book of Judges, like politics and economics and social sort of uh interactions, they're all this one giant hairball kind of clustered together. It's as if to say your sins, when you wander off the path, when you stop loving God and loving others and love yourself more than and you worship yourself, uh, it has all kinds of consequences beyond just you. We often think, oh, if I can all do this sin over here, nobody will know. No one will, my wife will never know, my kids will never know, my boss will never know. No, people find out, or it just will, it just bleeds over. There's always consequences to your, you never sin or do anything in a vacuum. Even biologically, this is true. Like organisms, there's always like ramifications to what we do. Sin never happens in a vacuum, there's always consequences. I think Pastor Ben said that a couple weeks ago. Oh, no, last week with Moses. So anyway, there's all the this whole thing's tied together. Now, they're under the oppression now of King Eglon, in in the Moabite king, for 18 years, and they cry out to God, the text says. So when they're uh under oppression, they cry out to God, and the Lord raised up a deliverer, Ehud, a Benjamite, a left-handed man. Can I get an amen left-handers? Yeah, all right. All the right-handers are like, so, who cares? Yeah, notice that they cry out to God. Have you heard that before? This repeated phrase, that they cried out to God. It's a theme in the Bible over and over again. When they were in Israel or Egypt, enslaved, they cry out to God. And God hears their cries and sends a deliverer, Moses. Earlier than that, Cain kills his brother Abel, and God says, Your brother Abel's blood is crying out to me from the ground. I can hear it. It's crying out to me. And God hears the cry of Abel's blood. Later, Jesus is walking around through this crowded village, it happens a number of times, and the people are crying out to Jesus, help us. And the disciples are like, nah, ignore them. Just it's fine, we got we got somewhere to be. But he can't ignore them, he hears the cries of the people. Yeah. This is a story from maybe the beginning to the end of people crying out to God, God hearing them, and sending a deliverer. Because God always hears the cries of the suffering. He does. He always hears the cries of the oppressed and the broken and the poor and the weak. If you're here this morning, maybe you need to hear nothing else. I've lost, I'm sick, my marriage is hanging on my thread. I can't stop drinking, I can't stop doing this. I'm just a yeah. Cry out to God because God always hears the cries of the suffering. And in these stories, God always then sends a deliverer. And he does. He sends this guy, Ehud, who's left-handed again. Which is an odd thing to say because most people, as you saw earlier, uh most people in the ancient world were not left-handed. Most of them were right-handed. Raise your hand again, left-handers. Yeah, even in this room this morning. It was funny. This morning I did this, and the first time, like three folks raised their hand. Then I asked again, like ten folks raised their hand. Like, oh, now it's cool to be left-handed. Everyone's like jumping on the bandwagon. But I do know in some generations, uh, usually the older folks to be left-handed is like it's kind of like you're broken. It's like actually a bit of a, it's a handicap from some day. That's how I viewed it when you were younger. But anyway, but in the ancient world, most folks were not left-handed, they were right-handed. So here's the story. Ehud, God raises him up to deliver the people that are crying out under the oppressive King Eglon. And Ehud comes to, you know, he comes out onto the scene, and Ehud, we're told, the first thing we're told is he's left-handed. He goes to visit the king. He's got to pay tribute. Now, oftentimes, you know, subjects would pay tribute to their king. So he goes there to pay tribute, not a big deal. He probably brings money or something, maybe an offering of some sort. And he pays tribute to Eglon. So he gets in there, the bodyguards are there, and and uh he pays his tribute to this to this king. And um, we're told that he he fashions a sword and straps it to his right leg because he's left-handed. So he would grab it this way, and you'd you'd have your sword on the on the outside of your of your right leg. And so he makes a sword, it's about a cubit long, I think, that Todd said, and he puts it on his right leg. And he goes and brings this gift to this, we're told, a very large king, an overweight fat king. And uh, and when he's there, he gives the tribute, then he turns around and he leaves. But then he comes back. Now listen. Uh, and then he says to the to the king's bodyguards, hey, uh, I forgot something. I need to see him again. And uh now look, I'm not a bodyguard expert, but I would be a little suspicious if this happened to my to my king. I'm like, wait a minute, what you were just in here? This is why they have no entry rules at like the fair or at the you know, at the at like in concerts. Like, what'd you what'd you just go and do and what are you bringing back in here? Like, we're not having that, you know. I forgot something, he says. I have a secret to tell the king. I uh it's a surprise, I forgot. Here's a picture of um of Ingolon when he goes back in there or Ehud. Anyone know this this meme? Okay, okay, Jay, this is for you, buddy. No one else knows this meme. It's a surprise. Okay, it's a surprise. Is Will here? Where's Will? Is Will here? Okay, Will. I texted Will, this is my friend Will. I go, dude, do you know this meme? It's from uh TikTok or Instagram, and he's like, I don't know this meme. He goes, but my parents do. My parents, one's a boomer, one's a gen Xer. They know who this kid is. I'm like, no way, how are they on TikTok? He goes, No, they saw this kid on the news. I was like, Well, how funny is that? Uh later that he goes, Hey, correction, they thought this was Elion Gonzalez, the kid from Cuba who swept anyway. Not the same kid. Uh, surprise. Anybody know this? It's a it's a go Google, it's a meme on TikTok where he's like, uh he tells his mom, hey mom, I gotta show you something. And the mom goes, what do you want to show me? He's like, uh, it's it's a surprise. Come on, do you like surprises? It's hilarious, trust me. I didn't know if this joke would work. It didn't work at the 8:30, it didn't work here, but it's I I laugh. It's for Jay. Yeah, yeah. But he goes back, hey, I got a surprise for the king. I got I I forgot to tell him something. I have a secret message for him. Which again, no way. But you know, they let him back in. And they let him back in. And when he goes back in, here's what happens. I love this story. This is crazy. The king rises, he's up on the chamber, up on the roof, and uh, he gets up from his seat. Ehhu then reaches with his left hand, draws his sword from his right thigh, pulls out the sword, and plunges it into the king's body. Because the king had dismissed all of his bodyguards, too, by the way. There's nobody in the room except for him and Ehud, Iglon and Ehud. Again, I saw this coming from a mile away. What were these guys thinking? And he stabs him in the belly. Even the handle of the blade sinks in after the blade, and his bowels are discharged. I love this next part. Ehud does not grab the sword out of there. Yeah, neither would I. Ehud's like, you know what, man? I'm gonna let you keep that sword. I don't want it back. That's got your bowels all over it. Go ahead and keep that one. I've got more at home. It's fine. Gotta clean that thing off when I get it in you. And then it says that he doesn't pull it out and the fat closes over the sword. My friend Pete Knapp this morning goes, it's the perfect assassination. He kills the king, he gets away, and no one can find the murder weapon. No one knows what happened. How did he die? Because here's what happens: he leaves, Ehud leaves the room, locks the door to be polite, so no one steals his stuff or something. I don't know what he locks the door and then makes a run for it. Now his guards are like standing like, What's taking the king so long to text? They think that he's going to the bathroom. What's he doing in there? He's going to the bathroom. He's relieving himself. He did bring his phone in there. He's probably around chess.com playing, you know, he's probably scrolling on Instagram, whatever. He's, you know, four hours later, this is probably long enough. We should go. They go open the door, finally, they kick the door down or whatever, and there he is. He's dead on the ground, his bowels discharged over the ground. Ehud, this deliverer, left-handed, is gone. Here's what happens: he gets away, blows a trumpet, announces that the Israelites have been given victory over the king, and then they slaughter 10,000 Moabites, and then the Moabites become subject to the Israelites for the next 80 years. And everyone lives happily ever after. Except for the king who's murdered and battles came out, and the 10,000 Moabites slaughtered by the people of Israel, uh, and who are now slaves themselves for 80 years. Yeah. And this is the story, and this is the end, sort of. What a crazy story. Like, what do what do we make of this story? It's wild. And is the Bible endorsing violence? Is it promoting violence? What's really going on here? Well, again, the first thing we read about Ehud is, of course, that he's what? Left-handed. You're picking up on this what I'm putting down. Uh, which is funny because he's from the tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin, if you know what that is, anyone know what the name Benjamin means? It means the son of my right hand. So it's like this odd, ironic story about this guy who's left-handed, who's from the tribe of the son of my right hand. And the Bible only mentions three left-handed people. Uh, and Ehud's one, Ryan Brailey's another one, and there's a third one. Just kidding. That's not true. There are three, and they're all from the tribe of Benjamin. Like, what's the deal with this? Yeah, it's crazy. Because again, if he was left-handed, this guy from the tribe of the right-handed people, he would have fashioned his sword to his right leg. And no one in their right mind, no bodyguard would have ever allowed someone to come into the king's presence without frisking him down. But the guards would have checked Ehud for a weapon. They wouldn't have checked his right thigh, because hardly anyone in the ancient world was left-handed. If you're right-handed, they would have checked your left thigh. That's where the sword would have been. So they undoubtedly check his left thigh and they find nothing. And they let him in there to kill the king. Because no one in the story or in the ancient world is left-handed. But Ehud is. It's weird. It's his oddness, his uniqueness, his difference, the thing that he maybe was made fun of. Maybe that he considered an abnormality, a thing that was broken. It's his oddness that makes him able to do this thing to deliver the people of God from enslavement. Which makes me think and wonder maybe your oddness is actually a gift from God. I'll say it again for all the weirdos in the back. Maybe your oddness, your weirdness, the thing you've been made fun of for, the thing that maybe your family is like, oh, you're the black sheep of the family. Maybe that's a gift from God. When I was younger, my wife Katie would always like, she'd always call me weird. Like, Brian, you're so weird. And I'd be like, I'd be like offended by that. I'm like, because I was insecure about, you know, my why am I so you know? Now I'm like, I love it. I'm totally weird. I don't bother me at all. Because maybe our weirdness or our oddness, our uniqueness, something different about ourselves, is actually a gift from God. And maybe, just maybe, God wants to use that in his kingdom in some way. I don't know. But maybe it's actually a gift from God. I love that. It was for Ehud. Ehud sets the people free. God often will flip around expectations. I mean, in the ancient world, the oldest son was always the favorite son. In all these stories, one after the other, the youngest son is the favorite one. Read the stories. It's always God favors the younger son. Or in the ancient world, there's tons of these stories in our sacred text where there's a barren woman who can't have a baby, but suddenly she can have a baby. And like there's a deliverer that comes out of her womb. Happens over and over again. And in this case, a right-handed tribe person who actually, or rather, it's a left-handed guy from a tribe of right-handed people, he becomes the deliverer. Also, there's this God himself comes to earth in the form of a peasant, you know, family, a young boy in the in the uh in Bethlehem, and saves the whole world. God is always flipping around expectations. It's wild. So, what do we make of this story? Like what can we what can it tell us about life and what about violence? It is a violent story, no doubt. It's very violent. It's blood, assassinations, who's gonna rule? It's succession meets Yellowstone, meets Game of Thrones, meets gunsmoke, meets the guy, it's all these things. It's wild. What is this story trying to tell us? I mean, yes, Judges is violent. It's a violent, chaotic, blood-filled story. Even the last line, which I read to you a minute ago, uh has like this weird kind of overhanging shadow. Well, I don't know if I can get there fast enough, but it says, uh, yeah, they they become, uh, they find peace. Well, that's that I'll just skip it. The last one of the story is that they experience peace for the next 80 years, the Israelites. So they do experience peace, but it's only brought about by the murder of a king and the slaughtering of 10,000 Moabites. So it's peace brought about through violence. So even that last bit, like, what the heck? It's peace, but it's peace through this unbelievable violence. What is this story about? Well, you could say it's this story. Oh, hang on, hang on. Let me get back to where I was. Yeah, it's a story about Ehud, this clever and crafty hero whom God raises up, who delivers his people from violence, but doing it with even more violence. Do you see the cycle of violence? By the way, the next chapter, the very it's like a couple sentences down, you can look it up, starts with this line. You maybe can guess it. Yeah, again, the Israelites, not long after, after, well, 80 years after, but they again do evil in the eyes of the Lord. And then guess what happens after this? You probably can guess it. They become oppressed for 20 years. And then after that, they cry out to God. And you can guess what probably happens. God sends another deliverer and sets them free. And then you can probably guess what happens after that? They they get comfortable and they begin to do evil in the eyes of God again. Again, I'm so glad that we don't do this. You know, we get comfortable and we think we're doing so great, and so we start to do our own thing, and maybe we do evil in the eyes of God. And then things go poorly for us as they did with Israel. And we're like, oh my gosh, this is terrible. I'm suffering all these. God help me. We cry out to God, and God sends a deliverer and saves us and sets us free. Oh, thank you, God. Thank you. And we like return to God and we're faithful, and then all of a sudden, though, we get a little bit more comfortable being free, and then uh lo and behold, we sort of fall back into this cycle and we do evil on the side of God again. And then we suffer these consequences. And then we cry out to God, help us, and then God saves us again. Then we get comfortable and we it's this cycle over and over and over and over and over and over again. And God sends deliverer and rescuer after one after the other. And you get this sense like this is like it's just this overwhelming, like it's the same thing on repeat. As though the author was saying, like, hey, can you feel like here we go again? Same thing that happened last year. It's happening this year. These are Buffalo Bills fans, by the way. I could have said Vikings fans. I didn't want to be mean, though. I don't want to be mean. It's the same thing year after year. Here we are again, over and over again. And it's as though the story is saying, like, hey, it's not working. Your solution is not working. Stopping violence with more violence, it doesn't work. It's nothing, nothing's actually changing. It's not getting better at all. I love Dr. Phil. He used to always ask, Oh, how's that working for you? You ought to ask yourself the same question, like, how's life working for me? Not well. Yeah. You need help because it's not working over and over again. And they just can't figure it out. And it's as though there's like this there's this deeply ingrained pattern happening here, just over and over again. And things are on repeat. And this story is not just the story about this story, it's about what's happening again, before it, after it. And this story is like sort of telling us over and over again. When you read it as a whole, like this is not how we solve problems. So one commentary says this story is about a left-handed liberator and a fat king, but it's also about a tribe that has lost its way. They forgot that God had saved them. I want to be your God. I want you to be my people. I will liberate you, and I want you to teach others how to be free. They forgot. They lost their way. It's about failure of violence to actually solve anything. They think, oh, if I just add more violence, it'll solve it. But violence oftentimes only begets more violence. And in this story, you can see how unproductive violence really is. It doesn't solve anything, it doesn't actually make things worse. Look at our history. We have endless war after endless war that we think will bring peace, and it doesn't. Or it does for a short while, but it only is replaced by more war. So you have more wars to end the other wars, and then you have short peace and more wars. Look around in our history, or these other countries are like despotic leaders. They will overthrow one violent, oppressive regime and despotic leader. And guess who takes over in his stead? His cousin, who's twice as bad. Or the nephew, who's three times as bad. So you overthrow one regime with violence, and then who takes over? Some other violent king. It's like the way that we live and we operate. And here's the true tragedy of this judges isn't glorifying violence, it's exposing it for what it really is. This endless cycle that doesn't actually solve anything. And the tragedy is that all of us reach for the same answers that we think will give us different results. And it doesn't. I'll say that again. The tragedy in the story and in our lives, we reach for the same answers all the time, thinking, oh, it'll be different this time. It'll work this time. If I yell a little bit louder, my kids will finally change their ways. Or listen to me. Or my my coworkers will finally have respect for if I just yell a little bit louder. If I'm just a bit more passive aggressive with my mother-in-law, she'll finally respect me. If I harbor unforgiveness just for a few more years, they'll finally get what I'm trying to. And it doesn't work. If I just respond with their unkindness with even more unkindness, if I go online and they say a mean comment, but I come back with an even better mean comment, I will win. And it won't keep going forever and ever down the comment line. Are you with me? Doesn't work. God sends a deliverer again, and they need to do it again and again and again. And the underlying story there is that maybe they don't need that kind of deliverer. They need to be saved from the corruption that got them in that place in the first place. Years later, God says, I'll do it myself. He comes down in the form of Jesus. Jesus could have killed all of his enemies, wiped them all clean, come with force and violence, built a kingdom and slaughtered everyone. He doesn't do that though. Jesus doesn't come with a sword or more violence. In fact, he says, if you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. He says, Hey, look, this echo chamber is just going to keep on going. You don't need more liberators or violence. You need to be saved and set free. You need a new way, a brand new way. He doesn't come with a sword, he comes with the cross. He absorbs the violence and heals our wounds, which cause the violence. Look, all of us need to be healed. That's what perpetuates this violence, is our brokenness. We need a God who can raise the dead. Not more force. We need love. I love this quote. Mike Tyson, the great boxer, was asked, Hey, how do you really intimidate another man? You know what he says? This is Mike Tyson, Iron Mike. He goes, Yeah, you know what? We'll intimidate another man if you love him. Yeah. He goes, you know, most men can handle being hated or talk trash. We all we all get that, but you love somebody, it's the real deal. It'll change their life. He's not talking about some passive, gushy, oh hey, Hallmark cart. No, no, no. Like real love. That'll change somebody. And Jesus shows that on the cross. That's what the cross is all about. Because the violence isn't working. And there's this too. I love this story because there's this underlying thread in this story. It's this insistence that just below the surface, God refuses to give up on them. He won't give up on them. It seems idiotic to me, if I'm honest with all due respect. It seems like, what are you doing, God? They do it over and oh, you're a fool. But he won't give up on them. He hears their cries and he rescues them over and over and over again. He's extremely patient. More patient than I would be as a flatter. He's way patient. Why is God so patient? Why? Because he promised he would be. Back here on Sinai, I will be your God, and you're my people. You're mine. You're not getting rid of me that easy. It's not that easy. I'm not letting go of you. I've adopted you. You're my own. You're my child. I'm not letting go. He's not being soft on sin. There's all kinds of consequences to our sin. Of course, there's all kinds of consequences. There's destruction, oppression, devastation, brokenness. But he won't let go. That's the kind of love that will change somebody. Paul years later says this in the book of Ephesians, for it's by grace you've been saved through faith. And I've always been taught, oh, it's through your own faith in God. So better have faith, have faith, have faith. It's not from yourselves, though, it's a gift from God. Some scholars think you can actually transit this in a different slightly different way. It's not through your faith in God, it could also be rendered that it's the faith of God or the faithfulness of God. So it's by grace you've been saved. Through the faithfulness of God. Because here's the deal: your faith and my faith sometimes is not very good. It's like barely measures on the Richter scale. Sometimes I don't have it and I don't know how to get more. I can't just make more of it. It's fine. Because my salvation is not dependent on my faith, it's the faithfulness of God. His refusal to give up on you and on me. His insistence just below the surface, or maybe above the surface. I'm not letting go of you. I'm not. I will set you free. Central Lutheran Church. May you see the story. It's a violent, bloody, chaotic story. About this odd left-hander who's used by God in this weird way. It's a story about deliverers and saviors coming that kind of do the trick for a short while. It's about violence. It just perpetuates more violence and the cycles of our own humanity that are still around today, 2,000 years later. We're so smart though, we modern people, but we still do the same thing over and over again. It's about God's refusal to let us drown in our own misery and oppression and in our own suffering. Who sends his son to set us free. This morning may you be free. Amen.

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Ryan Braley

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