Bible Grab Bag - Brambles and Biblical Echos

This episode is broken into two halves, fr Alex hosts the first half as we explore why the Bible can feel like deja vu by design, tracing how repeating story patterns teach us to read Scripture as a unified narrative. Fr Anthony hosts the second half as we then turn to Abimelech in Judges 9 to unpack a parable about leadership, pride, and what happens when we demand a king instead of trusting God’s timing. 

Intro music provided by https://hollyssweetmusic.com/

Transcript

Deja Vu And A Split Format

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Do you ever have deja vu? Didn't you just ask me that? Join us today on Wadi Cherith as we do a split Bible episode in the first half on deja vu like similar story types throughout the Bible, and the second half on the threats of someone becoming king.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Welcome to Wadi Cherith, the number one podcast for Abimelex worldwide. I'm Father Alex Roach, and today as always I'm joined with Father Anthony Dill.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Hey, Alex. I appreciate you giving a shout out to Abimelech. Can't wait to talk about him in a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Always. Abimelech shows up, different Abimelecs show up in both of our topics today. And just to give you a little bit of outline for how this episode is going to go, we haven't obviously recorded an episode in a long time, and both of us were together. We thought that we should. So what we decided to do was each present a theme or a topic that interests us, but that perhaps isn't big enough, at least in terms of our expertise, to warrant an entire episode. Because what I've discovered is oftentimes when you're preparing a homily or some talk, you might have enough to be able to go for eight minutes on it, or maybe a little bit longer, but that's really the extent. Sometimes we'll have topics that we could talk on for hours and hours, but often we have things that pique our interest, but maybe don't have enough material for a full episode. So that's really what we're going to do today, kind of a grab bag.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

I agree. And like with Wadi Cherith, I know it's been fun for me because I feel like when we do have a topic we're interested and we start talking about it, it keeps expanding the possibility of the topic or like the interest in the topic. And we start to evolve into things I didn't think about before and it makes it more and more interesting. So even starting with these two small topics, I think will be a fun episode to see how this format goes.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Right. And we did not prepare each other for one another's topics.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

So sandbagging's all Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

You could be witnessing some real time fights in this episode.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Would you say Abimelech is the James of the Bible?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I don't understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

James is in the Bible, so it's confusing. Sure. So the Abimelech.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, I'd be interested in a study of what the most common name in the Old Testament is. I'm not sure. I don't think it's Abimelech, but who knows?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yeah. Joshua. I can think of one.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

In any event. Well, we can dive in, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So my topic is one that

Reading Scripture Like Literature

SPEAKER_00 3:11

really started striking me when I was reading a book by a biblical scholar, primarily an Old Testament scholar by the name of Robert Alter, who really tries to look at scripture and write about scripture as a narrative, as a form of literature. Now he's not questioning necessarily its historical reliability.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

As opposed to like the truthfulness of the document or understanding historic truths.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Sure. So so one of his general broad critiques is that when we're studying the Bible, one of two things can happen. You can have more secular scholars who, because this is a religious text, kind of pick it apart and are questioning authorship and viewing it in these little pieces. And contradictory statements. Sure. On the flip side, you can have religious scholars who are looking at broad, big theological themes exclusively or almost exclusively. But what he said sometimes we miss is just diving into the story and seeing what it tells us as a story. So one of the things that he talks about, and other scholars do as well, is what's called a type scene, meaning there are certain scenes throughout scripture that repeat themselves over and over again. And they have certain characteristics, certain events. And because they're similar and are doing a similar thing, they're meant to almost reference one another.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Like cycles of the same thing, or it's like an narrative structure.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah, sort of an echo. So you can kind of tell something about a subsequent story by how it's similar to an earlier story, but also how it's different. If something is intentionally played with or left out, it might reveal something about the story you're reading.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Is that like you could say like he's the MacGyver of the 21st century or something like that? You're like referencing a character that already existed to explain who a new character is.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah, perhaps. I would say, you know, maybe something like, you know, in Joseph Campbell, like the hero's journey, right? So you you could say like Star Wars is picking up like Luke Skywalker is picking up on a theme that appears other places, or or you know, maybe connecting the story of like Hamlet to the Lion King, right? There's just like similar things that happen in our in their stories, but things that change, you know, maybe that's a good way to understand.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Like Harry Potter like took a lot of things from Lord of the Rings or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Sure, sure. But here we're talking about specific scenes, specific things that happen. So then maybe just going into the example will help with that a little bit. So the one I found very interesting, and it popped up because recently we had a first reading from 2nd Kings from the story of Alicia is this

Annunciation Scenes And Their Pattern

SPEAKER_00 6:20

annunciation type scene. So, in other words, uh a story in Scripture where, broadly speaking, a woman is unable to have children, she receives some divine visitor of some sort who announces to her that she will bear a child, a son in all of these instances, and then typically that that son will go on to accomplish great things. So, as we're gonna see, each of these stories leaves out and emphasizes and plays with different parts of that narrative structure. But I find it really interesting to connect them all together.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So the when we are as Catholics hear the word enunciation, we're thinking about the angel Gabriel coming to Mary, but you're saying these are stories of like similar structure with older ladies that happened before. And it's it's a it's a party kind of a type of narrative that exists before Mary.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Sure. So so the story of obviously the enunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary is an example of an annunciation type scene, but it's not the first one, and it's not the only one. It's not even the only one in the New Testament. And in fact, it's it's always viewed quite tightly and closely with the birth of John the Baptist, as we know. So, right in Luke's gospel, we see both of those annunciations happening side by side. The enunciation of John's birth and the annunciation of Jesus' birth. And for Luke, it's very clear we're supposed to read them together and compare those two stories with one another, but also compare them with annunciation stories that had happened in the past. So uh just a couple. There is an annunciation in Genesis 18. So that is when Abraham and Sarah receive mysterious visitors who are generally read as angels. But remember, and we've talked about this in other episodes, in the Old Testament, typically an angel is just a theophany, it's just an experience with the divine, with God. They don't necessarily have this unique individual category or genre of angels.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Right. It's just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

So in this case, uh Abraham and Sarah feed these mysterious visitors, and it is announced that Sarah and age will have a son, right? This great promise, and that son ends up being Isaac. There are no requirements placed on Sarah and Abraham, they don't have to do anything to make this happen. It's just announced that this is what will happen. Interestingly, this is the Abimelech. So earlier on, Abimelech has a dream that foretells a little bit of this. A different Abimelech from yours. Not super relevant, just thought I'd bring that up.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Since we're gonna hear the name Abimelech a couple times, and that's why I said Abimelech in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

So you can forget about my Abimelech after that, right? For the most part, I might bring them up one more time. Um there's also kind of miraculous births by Rebecca, Isaac's wife, and kind of foretelling the well surrounding the birth of Jacob and Esau. There's another one with uh Rachel, who is Jacob's wife, about the birth of Joseph. Those are a little less clearly these enunciations, so I'm gonna skip right past them. Uh, the next one is from the book of Judges, the 13th chapter. This is a real drawn-out, explicit one with a lot of detail, in which uh we don't have the woman's name, the wife of Manoah sees an angel, feeds him. He the angel announces to the wife of Manoah that she will bear a son, and she gives she receives certain requirements for this.

unknown 10:10

Right?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

She can't have any alcohol, and then famously that no razor should touch this son's head, and that son is Samson. Now, Samson has kind of a vague mission, somehow he will deliver the people of Israel from the Philistines. Again, you can read in Judges 13, it goes into a lot of depth of all the things. Like they're not sure if this is an angel or not. He had the appearance of an angel, they said. It's kind of an interesting story. Later on, you have a story that kind of plays with this narrative a little bit. It is in 1 Samuel, which we've talked about before, in which Hannah, this woman, is desperately praying for a son. And she has an encounter with Eli, the priest, when she is in prayer, who thinks she's drunk. You might remember us talking about that. Now, it's her prayer, Hannah's prayer, that guarantees now that she will have a son named Samuel. She even promises, like with Samson, that he'll be a Nazirite, she won't cut his hair. And then Eli tells her she'll have a son, not an angel. But it's kind of an interesting play there of like the uselessness of Eli as a priest, that he thinks he's doing something significant, but really it was Hannah's prayer that guaranteed this son. And of course, that son famously is Samuel. We move forward then to the New Testament. In the New Testament, we see the birth of John the Baptist, as we talked about in Luke, similar to the story of El Kanah and Hannah from the book of Samuel. They are old and they are part of the priestly tribe. Here, Zechariah has a vision from an angel in the temple. He is then not able to speak. So there's a sort of a fast there. So Hannah had to fast from eating. The wife of Manoah had to fast from drinking wine or beer or you know, hard drink, any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

We see the other mothers in the New Test Old Testament don't have that.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Right, yeah. Yeah, they don't get that instruction. So we we see this annunciation story with John the Baptist. Finally, then we have this Anunciation story where Gabriel appears to Mary and then to Joseph in a dream about the birth of Jesus. Some interesting ways in which the New Testament annunciation stories play. Oh, I missed one. I forgot my favorite one. I'll get back to it. The New Testament annunciation stories play with this, is that unlike Sarah, their angel gets a name, Gabriel. And somewhere I read, I heard it suggested that the angel in this story is separated from God a little bit because the true theophany, the true revelation of God is not in the angel appearing, it's in the birth of Christ. That's where God's revealed. So they want to kind of separate where God really makes himself appear in this story, not in the annunciation, but in the nativity. Right. So

From Hannah To Zechariah’s Silence

SPEAKER_00 13:40

there's ways in which these annunciations are similar or different from other biblical annunciations. In some ways, the announcing announcing of the birth of Jesus is similar to the story of Samson, because like Samson, it's kind of an ambiguous and almost intimidating annunciation that this child will be destined for the rise and fall of many. It's a little bit frightening, which is different from something like Isaac, which is just a universally positive annunciation, right? It's just your descendants, like it's numerous as the stars in the sky.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Except for to Ishmael.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Right. Yeah, except for to Ishmael. Not great for him. The one I forgot, which spurred this whole rabbit hole for me, was in 2 Kings 4, when similar to the story of Samuel, but a prophet instead of a priest this time appears to a woman from Shunim, a Shunammite woman, and she shows him hospitality. So this would be similar to the story of Sarah and Abraham. She lets this holy man Alicia stay with her. And she then is asked by Alicia if there's anything he can do for her to repay this kindness. And he announces that when he returns in a year, she will have a son. Now, later on in that story, Alicia brings her son back from the dead. But what I find fascinating about this story is that it's the only enunciation where we don't know the name of the son, and he doesn't do anything necessarily of historical importance. So it kind of makes it an enunciation something that's a little more attainable for folks like you and I who aren't Samson or Samuel or John the Baptist, right? Right. So I find it very interesting that all the, and you could do this with a lot of different narrative scenes or type scenes in the Bible, how there's all these stories that are broadly the same thing, an enunciation of a great birth, but each one of them plays with the idea a little bit, almost to show what's different and uniquely important about this story.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Variations of the pattern. It's just interesting, like the contr the different contracts God makes, and it's not consistent. So it's not saying this is the formula to be holy. It's just like I want certain people to do this and other people not to.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Right. But as you're reading these, you're you're recognizing how this connects with a story that already happened. Yeah. So like it should trigger certain thoughts in your minds and certain connections, and yet they're all a little bit different from one another. So this isn't exactly the same story being told again, but you are broadly supposed to call to mind these past stories.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

And you're saying the only one that really had no significance was the Shunammite woman's.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah, well, there's significance in that there's a resurrection, you know, he raises somebody from the dead. Yeah, right. But but yeah, it's not it's it's unique in that these are all characters that this is you've heard their names before. You might not have heard that story of Alicia before. Right. And and you know, you don't necessarily always think of this son.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, it's more to show Alicia's, or like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Sure. And also kind of this contrast between Alicia and Eli, I think, in some ways.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Oh, Alicia and Eli the priest.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah. Where Alicia really seems to have a more active role in this enunciation, that it's Alicia's prayer because of the woman's hospitality that's making this happen.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

But it's still the woman's sacrifice that's making it happen. It is the woman's sacrifice. Right. The the piety and the respect recognition of God. Right. Which I guess I'm trying to think of any of the women that they wouldn't have had an incredible piety or recognition of God and his power and hope and his power. Right. Yeah. Hannah and Rebecca and Rachel. They all do something good. I guess. I guess.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

But now, but now you also have, I think, in so this goes would go across their role in the story, Zechariah, maybe in some ways being compared to you know, there's the other priests in this story. So Eli or you know, Manoah in the Samson story. But it's sort of interesting that here Zechariah's muteness connects to like the fasting of the past. And I've heard it suggested that it represents how long Israel has gone without an authentic prophetic voice. It's sort of supposed to kind of hint at that.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Well that it's been deaf and are not able to speak since whatever. Since the Maccabees, maybe or even before that, since the last prophet Micah or who right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

I don't know. I I think I found that interesting. Just like I like that. I like that analogy. And I I like the this instinct to dive into the liturgical techniques that are happening in or liturgical, the literary techniques that are yeah, the literary techniques that are being used in scripture to draw these stories together, to compare and contrast, to get at something deeper that's happening in the narrative.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Especially in the Old Testament, because the Old Testament revolves around a single culture, the the Hebrew people. And so like they have their own language and their own culture and their own way of telling stories. So like that would have been like a natural way for them to tell stories because uh they weren't, well, I guess they could write down things in a Hebrew way before a lot of other countries, but like they would have heard stories over and over again in a similar way.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

And and I think then this isn't just Robert Alter. I think NT Wright, the the New Testament scholar, says this a lot. That I get I would so I would say probably in the old and new testament, narrative is what matters the most for them as they're writing these books. So sometimes we get caught up in things that are unclear or maybe contradictory in different stories, historically suspect, right? But what they what they want to do is tell a story, and the story itself reveals the meaning and like the the the narrative arc of the story is what important, not as much the little tiny details. Yeah. So so even with a guy, Mark, Luke, John, Matthew are emphasizing a different narrative. It's they're not just it's not a Wikipedia article, they're not just giving you information, they're telling a story, and which illusions, which type scenes, any different literary structure, but they're just timelines totally changes the timeline of the Passover meal with Jesus. But they're using it for a narrative arc.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah, to show that yeah, Jesus is the Passover Lamb. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Which which doesn't just happen in scripture. I mean, it happens in historical writing

Mary, Jesus, And Narrative Contrast

SPEAKER_00 21:05

in general often. I mean, there's lots of historical texts where like, yeah, not that the details don't matter, but we're trying to establish a broader arc here because we can draw connections.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

A meta, a meta philosophy that's above it.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, so that's my little little piece. I know I talked a lot, but now you're gonna get a chance to talk a lot.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Finally. Um so I'm also doing different genres from the Bible, kind of uh metaphor, story, parable genre, and I'm doing the old testament as well. And as you already know, I'm doing Abimelech. Say Abimelech three times, it'll show up. It's like the John Jacob Jenkelheimer Schmidt of biblical characters. Yeah, maybe. All right. So I'm in Judges chapter nine, and I am Abimelech is one of the sons of a different judge. So we talked about the judge. Samuel about the judge Gideon who's before Samuel. And when the judges are going through the when the Israelites escape from Egypt and they enter into the Holy Land, they're kind of scattered into tribes and disorganized, and they're supposed to be following the cult and making sacrifices and meeting and revolving around kind of God and his father and king, but they kind of fall into their own personal interests and get disorganized, and they'll get attacked by a foreign country. And then God will raise up what's called a judge to defend them. So these judges go through. Gideon is this great judge that defends them and defends against warring armies, and everybody loves him and the leadership that's there and they love the unification that happened. So they want to make Gideon king. But do you want to say the difference between like a king and a judge?

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah, I think generally in the book of judges the 12 tribes kind of do their own thing until there is a an important moment in which God raises up one figure, man or woman, just for the moment. And then when the moment passes, they go back to the status quo. Whereas a king would be dastic. So this family in his line is the one who rules Israel consistently. Whether, whether God, you know, it's not about God raising up someone, it's about this family having authority throughout the ages.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

A loyal institution. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

And and I and I don't remember if it was our first Samuel episode or the first part of our King's episode, but we talked a little bit about that in another episode.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

And it's and it's a hard frustration politically, just because like if you know who the king and the king's family are, you can work with them, you can predict what they're gonna do. If you're waiting for a judge, like it's like what happens? We have to get beat up and a lot of people have to die, and then we just wait for God's timing to bring somebody up and wait for God's time. That's exactly what they're supposed to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole Bible is about waiting for God's time. Even Jesus has to wait for God the Father's timing and the temptations of the desert, where the devil devil's saying, turn this rock into a piece of bread. No, it's not the time to do that. I know I have authority over all the kingdoms, it's not the time to show it. So, like it's a frustrating thing waiting for the timing in the judges. So they want to make a king. And so they ask Gideon to be the king, and he says, No, I'm not gonna be the king. God needs to be your king. And then they ask, they're like looking at his sons, like maybe one of your sons can be king. He says, No, I don't want my sons or my grandsons to be king. But then one of his sons, uh, he has oh, by the way, he has 72 sons because he's he's like Punxitanny Phil with making sure that he has a descendant at all times with multiple. Doesn't he have like a harem of groundhogs?

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Like they make sure they're like, I didn't know it was uh the same line.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

I think he's not aware that they were all wow. It's dynasty not judge. I think I don't know if I'm slandering Punxitani Phil, I apologize to everybody for saying it out there, but I don't know. But this is something we can check AI for in a little bit. So, anyways, he has all these descendants because he's this awesome war hero and with concubines, wives, whatever. And another point that the Bible isn't everybody living perfectly morally, it's just random people being raised up by God and struggling like you and me to understand what our relationship with God should look like. So of his sons, there are two main ones mentioned. It's Jotham and Abimelech. Jotham is the youngest, and Abimelech is son of a slave woman from Shechem, and he goes back to Shechem and talks with the Shechemites and says, Hey, like I'm one of you guys, we're the same blood. Maybe you can all put a dollar in the hat and I'll raise up some ruffians, some thugs to help me take over the rest of my brothers and make sure I'm the king. So they do that. And while he hires these people, they get all the brothers in one space and he slaughters all of them on the same rock, except for one Joseph, who gets away. And as this is happening, they make Abimelech king of Shechem. And there's a mountain right beside Shechem and Beth Milo. Beth Milo and Shechem are like halfway between Galilee and Jerusalem on Israel. So right beside there is a mountain called Mount Gerizim. And according to the story, Jotham goes on the bot top of Mount Gerizim and says this parable. So we have parables in the New Testament. Jesus uses also parables in the Old Testament. And he says, in this parable, which I just think is interesting as background information to get to it. They asked all the trees, they wanted another tree to rule over them. So they looked around and they saw how noble the olive tree was. And they asked the olive tree, Hey, why don't you be our king? And the olive tree says, My olives make oil, and the oil gives honor to kings and men. Why should I stop producing this oil so that I can sway over the other trees? And so the trees go to another tree. They go to the fig and they say to the fig tree, Hey, will you be our king? And the fig tree says, My figs are sweet and everybody loves them. Why should I give up my sweet fruit to be your king? And then they go to another tree, which is the vine, I guess it isn't a tree. And they say to the vine, Why don't you be our king? And he says, But my grapes are used to make wine, which cheer the hearts of gods and men. And why should I stop producing this wine so that I can sway over you? And so finally they go to the Bramble bush slash tree, bush of a tree, and bush light. And the Bramble says, If this is true, if you're honoring me, I will let you take refuge in my shade. But if you're not honoring me, I will let my branches light on fire and burn everything to the ground. Yeah. And after I dropped the mix this speech, we kind of see it play out again. So just like analyzing the speech a little bit, we can see that we have these three noble trees that represent life in Israel and

Abimelech And The Demand For Kings

SPEAKER_01 28:55

the life that's there. Like these different things are used throughout the Bible. The book of Revelation references the olive oil and the olive tree. Even in the church today, we use olive oil for our anointings. And still in the church today, we use grapes and their vines. And Jesus chose that to portray the blood of Christ when he redid the Passover meal, and it was always in the Passover meal. This idea of giving life and the fig as well. Jesus curses the fig tree. And it's like this sign of fruit on a tree. And so the fig tree he curses is like Israel not giving fruit. So this idea that this thing gives fruit is beautiful. And so like these gifts God gives us are giving life, and we want to change them into something else to replace God. And we don't want to do that. And so like of those things, they're noble, and so they don't want to be perverted from the purpose God gave them. But the Bramble Bush, which is already kind of like I don't know, a Bramblebush. A bramble bush. He just makes things happen. He's the MacGyver of the old stone. So he is worthless. And so like he may be, I don't know, like we're we can project the capital sins onto something like the Bramble Bush and the way it's stated, like the dead, seven deadly sins, the three at the top are pride, envy, and wrath. And we see like the Bramble Bush is putting himself to a place he shouldn't be. And so like that's a pride that he can replace God and he's willing to replace God. And when we have that pride, usually envy and wrath are right beside it. So envy anybody, if I'm God, then anybody who's acting like God or has anything I don't have, I hate and am so bad that I want to destroy them. Wrath is this anger that's like an unquenchable anger. So we have kind of like this this vision when we start replacing God in our hearts and making ourselves the judge of everything. A lot of times, envy and then wrath accompany that, where we want to totally burn to the ground someone. And what happens with Abimelech, surprisingly, they raise Abimelech as king. He ray he reigns for like three years. He seems seems to be going well. And then another guy moves into town like, why is this Abimelech? I king, he's not great. Direct quote from I think Judges chapter nine. And he tries to raise up, like subvert them and raise up an army against them. And Abimelech raises an army back and starts killing all his own citizens in in Shechem. And then while that's happening, he ends up like killing a lot of the people, and then a lot of the people flee to this tower that's a safeguard to protect themselves from the slaughtering that's happened. And while they're in the tower in in Chechem, they he takes a some cuts down a bunch of branches and puts it abottom of the tower and then lights it on fire and burns all of his own people alive. So he's the king and he burns all his people alive. Just like he said he would. If you well, he didn't say he would, Jotham's prophecy said he would. And then he goes to the next tower because some people flee. He goes to the next town, and it means in the next town, they have a tower too. And then he goes to burn that one down too, because everybody flees to the tower for refuge, and a woman throws the top of a millstone out of the tower and cracks the skull. And that's the end of that Abimelech. But I like, I like the the parable that they use about leadership and kind of about pride, but also like our desire to have some control over timing, prediction, some control over power. Like we want to have political affiliations. I want to be able to say, like, I know this guy, I got this guy into power, this guy owes me a favor, and stuff like that. Do you have anything?

SPEAKER_00 32:43

I I I find it interesting the location. So a lot of stuff happened in Shechem. So Shechem is where the first place Abraham stops in the promised land. He builds an altar there. Shechem is the place where Joseph is buried. Shechem is the first place Joshua goes in the promised land to renew the covenant of Moses. Shechem was that's where they crossed. Right. Shechem is the original spot of the first kings of the northern kingdom of Israel after they split. Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well in Shechem to bring the northern kingdom, you know,

Jotham’s Trees Choose A Ruler

SPEAKER_00 33:30

to symbolically bring the northern kingdom into his promise. And then we learn that Jacob apparently built a well in Shechem too. So like it's this holy place that is both the this great place of God's promise, but also in other cases, other than in Judges, this site of division, really. So it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Or possibility, like there's possibility there that's kind like squandered.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Or but renewed possibility with like the with Christ.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Yeah. So I I I find it interesting. An accident. I mean, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yeah, right. Because you're talking about stories repeating with similar storylines. So like this ended up being a similar thing with Shechem.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah. And then, but then that then would be almost you can connect it to like the split of Israel later after Solomon died. Yeah. That well, they raised up a king in Shechem before, and they do it again.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Shechem has some authority, yeah, some weight that we can make a king there.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

But also some missteps. But then Jesus goes to Shechem. It's not called Shechem anymore, it's like Saichar, I think, Sikar, yeah, by that time.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

And that's where he meets the Samaritan woman as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

I just thought I find it very interesting. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Yeah, and I like and like saying, like, because it's a place of opportunity for grace where there's both acceptance and rejection, it helps us to see a starker contract between grace and sin. Like when I was just talking about the the deadly sins and like how that wrath worked, like it is like if you if it's a special place where you get to make a choice because grace is being offered to you, you get to see the consequences more sharply.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Do you have anything more to say about because I I'm I'm really intrigued by the notion in the the parable of the olive tree or the fig tree or the the vine suggesting that to rule over people they would have to give up that what they actually are already providing? I don't know if any any insight into that.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

It's hard. Like my initial thought with that is we're a super hierarchical church, and I understand that Jesus elevated the apostles to like a different level, but at the same time, we're we're really focused on that hierarchy. And we've talked about like the bis episcopy episcopacy before and like a bishop being connected to people. And so like sometimes when someone's ordained a bishop just to be a bishop or an auxiliary bishop or something like that, it's like, are you just swaying over trees? Like, not saying they are, but I just like it just draws the question like, how important is that institutionalization of the church? And like, do we want to rely on a stability that's not necessarily supposed to be there?

SPEAKER_00 36:15

And and I mean it's not the episcopacy, but you do have instances of like priests that now we view as like very holy men, saints, even great theologians who have requested, you know, sometimes maybe not to be elevated to a cardinal, or even requested not to become bishops. You know, this this view, like, well, what I'm doing is important, and I'm using these gifts in this way. And I don't necessarily think that to take that authority would be the best use of the gifts God has given me to give to provide to the church, you know?

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Yeah, and so like, and then that's a a melding which is confusing for everyone and it's hard, like discerning the Holy Spirit as an individual, discerning the Holy Spirit as an institution, like you're a vocation. You will understand that discerning the Holy Spirit as an institution is very important, just like individuals if somebody's thinking about becoming a priest. So, like a lot of people say you can't say no if they ask you to be a bishop because the institution has discerned that you're supposed to be it at that point. But other people, like you said, like St. Bruno was our we were ordained deads on St. Bruno's feast day who rejected the bishop's role three times. Now, the the at that point, maybe the episcopacy was a little bit more of a benefit and sure, sure, like a a place you just got financial. Yeah. So it was like a yeah, just a rank to get paid. But and that's a disservice too, like abusing those powers. Sure. Any any stability and guaranteed power you give to a position or for just being a person is necessary sometimes, but is also kind of the same thing we're debating about whether there should be a king over Israel or not.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

And it's not just an ecclesiastical matter. So you can always talk about this as, you know, just in the world at large. Yeah, you know, like amassing more power isn't always necessarily, you know. And I and I've had this conversation with people before, parishioners, different people, like maybe they're in a job in which they feel very fulfilled and they think they're doing a lot of good. And the opportunity or even the request comes for a promotion, and it kind of fills them with some anxiety because the promotion would mean they're not doing what they're currently doing. Sometimes I've given that advice, as I'm sure you have. Like, don't take the promotion just because you think what you have to do is move up in the organization and make more money and have more power, more prestige, more prestige. Like if you think you're where God is calling you to be, maybe that's where you're called to

Pride, Power, Shechem, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 38:55

be. Now, that's not saying sometimes there's like we're called to sacrifice and take on a role because it's what needs to be done and we're the person for it, even though it might be difficult. Like, obviously, that's the case sometimes too. But sometimes we assume that if we're in a job, we just need to keep rising the ladder. Now, it has never been a problem for me. I've never been offered to rise any ladder, so it's not really a thing that I have to worry about. But but like for some people, it is, and it's like, no, you don't have to keep looking for the job that will make you more money because maybe with more money is also more work, less time with your family, you know. So there's always going to be trade-offs. And so, like, I don't know, I think part of that, like a modern day lesson would be, you know, you don't have to keep climbing the ladder.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

I was just I just had a a family wedding and I was sitting with my dad, and I know like his job, like he was offered to work for like some national organizations, and he also took a bigger promotion near the end of his career. And uh he worked government and law enforcement. And I was like, Do you regret that you didn't take like something for a bigger organization? Or do you like how do you feel about it? And he's like, you know, like I I weighed each one out, and you can only make so much money, so it had to be like, do I feel like I'm supposed to do this too? And then I was like, Do you regret taking the promotion at the end? That was a super stressful job for you. And he's like, I I learned a lot from that, and like it exposed me to see what something like that was like. I'm glad I didn't do it any longer than I did and to retire. But I I think like, like for me, like I think my dad is a good example of being able to discern should I move up or not, not just move up at all costs.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Another question for you. Yeah. And I don't know if you're prepared to answer this question or not. Yes. But yeah. How would you, you know, given just the conversation we had in the first half of the episode, would you how would you compare or contrast this parable with maybe maybe later parables in the old testament or the parables of Christ? Like, does it seem to follow? Is it doing something similar? Is it used in the same way?

SPEAKER_01 41:05

No, I think this is a more basic kind of story or analogy to prove the point about a king. I think Christ's parables are a lot more profound, and Christ enters into giving himself. We'll do, we'll do an episode on parables for sure, but like Christ makes himself the bad guy in some parables or equivalent to a bad guy, and is usually trying to show us and open our mind to what the kingdom of is like. So, like, I guess you could say with this one, it's a little bit about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is not a human being ruling over you, but I think this is a little bit more of a shallower parable to show a political point rather than entering you really deeply into something.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Right. Would it would it be similar though to maybe like the oracle of Nathan to David, something like that?

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Like later, yeah, like yeah, basically using an analogy to prove a point about the king. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Maybe something more similar to that. Yeah, okay. More of like a prophetic device as opposed to, well, I guess the all the parables are prophetic devices. Yeah, I I don't think it has the same punch as one of Jesus. I think Jesus is our like super revolutionary and like confusing. Yeah. More confusing. This isn't confusing. It's not like, oh. You know what it means, you know what it's saying.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Yeah, you don't have to have a PhD in biblical studies to figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Literary studies. Yeah. English major.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Well, I think that was a nice episode. We're back. We're back, baby. We're back. Just another six months. We'll do it again.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Yeah, hold on tight. So thanks for talking today. Uh we we uh we rode in the heat today, and it's uh it's July. And while we were riding, we're like, we gotta do an episode. Let's let's think of some some good stories, and I'm glad we got to run. I'm glad that we got to record. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

We'll see you next time. See you next time. That was pretty good, actually. It was more monologues, but I think it worked fine.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Being able to see each other is