Don’t Vote for Kudzu!
Photo by Justin Wilkens on Unsplash
The Book of Judges purports to recall the early days of ancient Israel before the establishment of monarchy with Saul and David. It features a loose confederation of tribes that were variously beset by enemies who imposed oppression on Israel when they could. The core of the book consists in a series of highly stylized narratives of leaders who arose in response to crisis in a way that fits Max Weber’s model of “charismatic” leadership. In Israel’s attestation, these leaders were said to be evoked and empowered by the spirit of YHWH. While they are termed “judges,” they function rather as warrior-emancipators who rescued Israel from its several oppressors brought on by covenantal disobedience. The narratives follow a formulaic pattern of sin-punishment-repentance and then deliverance that requires a narrative completion. This collection of narratives does not doubt the direct and immediate governance of YHWH in the life of Israel, a governance that expected Torah obedience, and that was harshly intolerant of the worship of other gods, that is, the embrace of economic systems of exploitation.
The most fully developed narrative (and likely the most interesting) is the story of Gideon. The narrative features oppression by the Midianites:
They would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the land, as far as the neighborhood of Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they and their livestock would come up, and they would even bring their tents, as thick as locusts; neither they nor their camels could be counted; so they wasted the land as they came in. Thus Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian; and the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. (Judges 6:4-6).
In response to the direct oppression and the petition of Israel, an angel of YHWH summoned Gideon to lead Israel out of Midianite oppression. Gideon demurs from the task but is assured of divine accompaniment, and so signs on to do the emancipatory work. Gideon conducted his assault at night, because “he was too afraid” to do it by day (6:27). The complex narrative ends in a mighty victory for Gideon and for Israel, and the routing of the enemy:
They captured the two captains of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb, as they pursued the Midianites. They brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon beyond the Jordan (7:25).
It is at this point that the stylized narrative usually ends with an assurance that the land “had rest” from its enemies. But here, of course, the narrative does not end in the usual way. Flush with victory, Gideon asks for “some loaves of bread” (8:5). The request is not very specific but perhaps we may take “bread” in a freighted way as goods for money. In any case, the officials refuse his request with a recognition that Gideon already possesses “Zebah and Zalmunna,” and is not in need of their “bread” (8:6). Their refusal fills Gideon with angry indignation, so much so that:
He took the elders of the city and he took thorns of the wilderness and briers and with them he trampled the people of Succoth. He also broke down the tower of Penuel, and killed the men of the city (8:16-17).
Gideon is portrayed as a vengeful, violent man prepared to damage his own people who do not, in his judgment, adequately or generously reward him for his great victory.
The narrative of Gideon ends with something of a crisis. His people offer him kingship over them, an institution not yet on the horizon of Israel. Gideon refuses the offer by asserting that only YHWH is or could be king in Israel. But then his greed, that we have already witnessed, again comes into play as he requests and receives the precious jewelry of his people. That is, he refuses the offer of kingship but he eagerly seeks wealth for himself:
Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over; the Lord will rule over you. Then Gideon said to them, “Let me make a request of you; each of you give me an earring he has taken as booty…” “We will willingly give them,” they answered. So, they spread a garment, and each threw into it an earring they had taken as booty. The weight of the golden earrings that he had requested was one thousand seven hundred shekels of gold (apart from the crescents and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian and the collars that were on the necks of their camels) (8:22-26).
The narrative acknowledges that Gideon’s confiscation was a “snare” to Gideon and his family. His confiscation of course violated the neighborly covenantal order that was taken for granted in Israel. Thus the Gideon narrative foreshadows the political-economic seduction of greed that was to disrupt the covenantal life of Israel.
As the text is arranged, the extended narrative of Gideon functions as an introduction to the vexed narrative of chapter 9 in which the crisis of leadership comes to the surface. The narrative now features two sons of Gideon (Jerubbaal), Abimelech and Jotham. The story features Abimelech as the greedy ruthless son of Gideon who thirsts for power, on the one hand. On the other hand, another son, Jotham, brother of Abimelech, performs as a truth-teller who exposes the perfidy of his brother, Abimelech.
Abimelech, son of Gideon, proposes that he alone of all of Gideon’s many sons, should exercise governing power. He reasons that one ruler is better than all of his seventy brothers. He advances his claim through the work of hired goons, “worthless and reckless fellows” (9:4). In his thirst for power, he kills off his several brothers. In a follow-up narrative Abimelech asserts his authority; he is, however, eventually killed by “a certain woman” who crushes his skull (9:53). His would-be monarchy ends in disaster, a narrative that champions the old pattern of charismatic leadership against any established institutional order. Abimelech is harbinger of what is to come with royal power that is for now postponed:
Thus God repaid Abimelech for the crime he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers; and God also made all the wickedness of the people of Shechem fall back on their heads, and on them came the curse of Jotham son of Jerubbaal (9:56-57).
Well, he was not able to kill all of his brothers. One brother, Jotham, survived because he “had hid himself” (9:5). For an instant, Jotham occupies center stage while the reign and ruin of Abimelech are put on hold. The text concerning Jotham is in two parts. First there is a parable cast in poetic cadence. In the parable the trees seek to anoint one of their numbers as king of all the trees. In good narrative fashion the parable proceeds in three parts:
-First, the olive tree is offered the new throne. But the olive tree is too busy producing oil that serves to honor both gods and mortals (9:9). It will not have its rich produce interrupted by any pause of public service.
-Second, the fig tree declined royal power, too much preoccupied with producing “sweetness” and “delicious fruit”.
-Third, the vine likewise declines the offer of governance, being fully committed to the production of wine that brings wellbeing.
Each of the trees prefers private industry and production to public service. It occurs to me that the parable in three parts is not unlike the three-fold excuses made in the parable of Jesus in Luke 14:15-24:
-The first invitee declines because of new property;
-The second declines because he has new oxen; and
-the third declines because he is recently married.
All three make their personal lives the reason to decline the great invitation to the banquet. In both triads, self-preoccupation prevails against the greater good, first concerning governance and second concerning the banquet.
In the parable of Jotham the trees, almost by default, offer governance to the bramble, because there are no other available, viable candidates. The bramble is quite prepared to accept royal power, but sets a condition for acceptance. It requires that the offer should be “in good faith” (“amen”), that is, serious and durable. The bramble is hard-nosed and warns against being played as the sucker.
The second part of Jotham’s narrative is the prose of verses 16-21 in which Jotham “applies” the parable to the political crisis that is at hand. As in the parable, Abimelech requires “good faith” (v. 19). In the poetic parable the other plants accept the condition of the bramble; likewise in the prose the people offer no resistance to the demand of Abimelech. Indeed the establishment of Abimelech as king resulted in the desperate flight of his brother, Jotham, who feared for his life. In both the poetic parable and in the prose narrative, ominous governance is established that cannot bode well for the plants or for Israel.
By way of translation, it has occurred to me that the best equivalent to bramble in American experience may be kudzu in our southern states that has blanketed exhausted cotton-growing areas. Anyone who has witnessed the expansive growth of kudzu knows it can readily blanket the earth, scale tall trees, houses, and barns in its relentless conquest. If we take “kudzu” as a stand-in for “bramble,” we may conclude: Do not vote for kudzu as king of the earth! And if we, in our context, apply and interpret “the parable of kudzu” to our common life, it is easy enough to see that bramble-kudzu takes the form of candidates who have blanketed political parties and made themselves the key to public wellbeing. Public life thus has become an arena for the death-dealing harsh ruthlessness of self-preoccupation. We may imagine that the bramble-like kudzu will demand “good faith” for acceptance of rule. We can, moreover, imagine that political candidates, not unlike Abimelech, will demand serious durable commitment to their sometimes infamous would-be governance.
The point of all of this exposition is to alert the preacher and teacher of the church in this election season to the parable of Jotham as a useful teaching tool concerning public responsibility in the community of the faithful. One can, as I have done, make the case quite pointed and specific. But one need not press the point that far. One need not do more than point out the claim of Jotham that when good people default on public responsibility, kudzu-like exploitative alternatives occupy the public space. Responsible political engagement may take many different expressions, including candidacy for office, advocacy in a variety of ways, lobbying, sending money to support candidates, and voting. The parable is an acknowledgement that if good people are solely preoccupied with personal matters, public policy and practice go readily to nefarious forces that are self-serving and self-seeking in their avarice.
It is a puzzle and a surprise to me that this parable of Jotham is not more widely recognized and utilized in the teaching work of the church. It is as though the church and its preachers are simply unaware that it is there in the Book of Judges. Thus my exposition is an urging that church leadership, in the run-up to the election, should make good use of the parable in preaching and or in teaching. Abdication of public responsibility for public wellbeing lets the tilt of public reality go sour by default. The Bible is indeed a summons to public engagement. It is a summons to resist the force of kudzu in our political economy, an insistence that our work and our life depend upon better than that. Kudzu requires attentive resistance work in order to make room for the growth of good plant life. It may be that in Genesis 1:11-13 God saw that all vegetation was good including kudzu. But since then, footnotes are surely added to the affirmation to make kudzu an exception to the verdict of “good.” Since that first week we have learned better. The olive tree, the fig tree, and the vine were quite slow to notice the threat to their common life. The folk around Abimelech were quite slow to notice the threat he posed. We ought to be on the alert to notice more attentively and more promptly where the common good requires our ready investment.
