"Shall I ... Wave Over The Trees?"

I read Judges 9 this week. It is the story of Abimelech, a son of Gideon whom he had by a female servant. Gideon was one of the Old Testament judges of Israel, and after his death Abimelech killed all of Gideon's other sons except one, and made himself king over Israel. The son who was left alive got out of town quickly, of course, but before he did, he gave a little speech to Abimelech and the men who backed him. The speech consisted of a parable about how God would cause Abimelech and his backers to destroy each other, but it also contained an interesting observation concerning the things people give up when they decide to live solely for the chance to be in charge of others. Here is a portion of the text:

When they told it to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said to them, “Listen to me, you men of Shechem, that God may listen to you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us.’ But the olive tree said to them, ‘Should I leave my fatness, with which by me they honor God and man, and go to wave back and forth over the trees?’ The trees said to the fig tree, ‘Come and reign over us.’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Should I leave my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to wave back and forth over the trees?’ The trees said to the vine, ‘Come and reign over us.’ The vine said to them, ‘Should I leave my new wine, which cheers God and man, and go to wave back and forth over the trees?’ Then all the trees said to the bramble, ‘Come and reign over us.’ The bramble said to the trees, ‘If in truth you anoint me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.'”

Now I know that the main and specific point of this parable was to address the evil done by Abimelech and those who supported his evil deeds. But the parable of the trees got me thinking about how many benefits come to the world through people who are just content to live their lives as useful, honest citizens doing good work, and how such a useful and worthy life is forfeited by those who only want to have power over others. The only tree among the trees that was willing to wave over the rest was the bramble – a plant which does not have any obvious uses. Even so, there are many people in this world who want to be “in charge,” not because they have anything to contribute to others, but simply because they've always wanted to be over everyone else. They are rather useless people in every other respect.

This makes me think of the megachurch culture in American evangelicalism and the associated culture of celebrity which seeks to manufacture “Christian superstars” on a regular basis, complete with their own little (or big) personal empires. I'm still recovering from my involvement with one such wanna-be big shot, and memories of my involvement were fresh in my mind as I checked out a couple of blogs I recently discovered. I've been reading more posts from The Autonomy of the Believer, which I mentioned last week. It still amazes me to see how common are the tricks used by selfishly ambitious abusive church leaders, even when the churches under consideration have never even heard of each other. I have also been reading Letters From Kamp Krusty, whose author is running a spoof of church leadership seminars titled, “The 417 Rules Of Awesomely Bold Leadership.” Quite funny, actually.

The serious truth, though, is that there are still scoundrels at the helm of many evangelical churches, and I still feel the need to be on my guard when going to church. There are still churches whose pastors' main message seems to be how much authority the pastor is supposed to have over his congregation. There are still too many leaders in American evangelicalism who are tarnishing the testimony of Christ by their power abuse games. This is a shame. Some of these people are in sore need of a righteous kick in the pants.