BREAKING BAD 4: a Series in the Book of Judges

BREAKING BAD 4: A series in the book of Judges

Overview: Judges Chapters 7, 8 & 9 (ESV)

March 30, 2014

In 1817, a large artifact sailed a long journey from Egypt to London. It was the upper torso and head of an Egyptian Pharaoh with a serpent-like diadem and strong torso. This huge piece was close to 10 feet tall and 7 feet wide and weighed almost 15,000 pounds. The amazing thing is that this is only half of the statue. This artifact was around 3,000 years old and it had broken in two, hundreds of years earlier. As it turns out, this massive broken-off top half was a rendering of Ramses II.

Ramses II was also sometimes referred to as Ozymandias. He is regularly recorded as the greatest Pharaoh in Egypt’s history. He consolidated power, extended the kingdom and built Thebes into a city of 100 gates, many of which were covered in gold and silver. He built more statues and buildings than any Pharaoh before or after. Ozymandias ruled for 67 years and is still believed to be the most successful and impressive king in Egypt’s history. He was so impressive that many people referred to him by his preferred title of King of Kings.

Ozymandias, the King of Kings, was quite impressive. And to this day, you can see his likeness, all 15,000 pounds of it in the British Museum. When this Ozymandias torso and head sculpture showed up in London, Percy Shelley wrote a poem about this statue. Utilizing a historian from the time of Jesus named Diodorus; Shelly pieced together a startling picture of this King of Kings. He juxtaposed the idea of this impressive torso against the broken legs and the inscription that Diodorus wrote was on the base of the statue:

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert…near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The key irony of this poem, this statue and the man it represents is that inscription, “ My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair.” This is, of course, written on the base of a broken down statue from which the torso has been separated. The poem highlights the great irony of this King of Kings and only the legs that still remain.

Since Shelley’s poem emerged and gained popularity, Ozymandias has become a synonym for a power-hungry-empire-builder; someone who becomes obsessed with building their own little kingdom even when its imminent collapse will crush them. The third to last episode of the TV show Breaking Bad was titled “Ozymandias.” This is the TV show that followed the progression (or regression) of Walter White from suburban chemistry teacher to drug kingpin. Walter White originally planned to sell drugs for a short stint so that he could make a large amount of money to leave to his family before he died of terminal lung cancer. After awhile, Walter’s cancer regresses and yet he keeps making drugs. Not only that, but he expands his business until it grows into a worldwide cartel. He keeps saying that he is doing it for his family, but it becomes clear over time that he is really an Ozymandias. A power-hungry-empire-builder who is building a kingdom that will eventually crush him. That third to last episode shows the eventual fall and collapse of Walter White, like every Ozymandias before him, he crumbled.

When you see stories like this, it makes you wonder how people cannot understand that the pursuit of building your own kingdom will eventually crush you. Think of every person who has been destroyed as a result of their dogged pursuit of building their own little kingdom. You can think of Icarus in mythology, who flew too close to the sun. You can think of Julius Caesar who exceeded his power and was assassinated. You can think of Napoleon. You can think of William Randolph Hearst. You can think of modern day celebrities who achieve what is supposedly the ultimate dream and yet more times than not they come crashing down. Burned out. Committing suicide. Killing themselves slowly with drugs and alcohol. Every Ozymandias before and after Ramses II have met the same fate and yet sadly, new people every day say, “That won’t happen to me.” The statue always crumbles. Icarus always comes crashing down. The addiction always wins.

Tim Keller brought my attention to a book by Cynthia Heimel. In her book,If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?She wrote about the disastrous nature of celebrity and she wrote this:

“The minute a person becomes a celebrity is the same minute he/she becomes a monster. Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Barbra Streisand were once perfectly pleasant human beings with whom you might lunch on a slow Tuesday afternoon.

But now they have become supreme beings, and their wrath is awful. It’s not what they had in mind.When God wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you he grants you your deepest wish and then giggles when you suddenly realize you want to kill yourself.”

There is a little bit of Ozymandias in all of us. Why does this happen? Let’s look at the story of Gideon today.

As a bit of context for you, Gideon has just taken part in one of the greatest victories in Israel’s history. You might have heard this story before but it goes like this, God calls Gideon to be a judge and deliver the Israelites from the hands of the Midianites. The story goes that Gideon had 30,000 soldiers ready to fight the Midianites. God tells him that was too many men because the Israelites might boast in their own ability, and he tells Gideon to send men home and ten thousand leave. The remaining 20,000 were still too many and so God through Gideon whittled them down again to 300. The purpose was for all of the glory to go to God. For more on this idea, I encourage you to check out the sermon from last week. Sometimes God’s victory isn’t obvious, but it is always there. This battle with the Midianites was going to be different. God wanted all the glory. And even when it came to the battle, God confused the Midianites and scared them so that they fought with one another. It was the most lopsided, God-sided victory. The Israelites didn’t even have to swing a sword, just show up and watch God work. Remember this because it will be important for the upcoming story.

Judges 8:1-9

The Midianite kings are fleeing, and Gideon is chasing them down to finish the job. The details of this story are really important. In pursuit of these kings, Gideon and his 300 are tired and hungry. He asks for help from two groups of Israelites and they both decline. Here is the interesting part; God has given the victory and Gideon is starting to act like it was his. The implication in both of these moments is, “How dare you oppose me after what I have done?” Do you hear the machismo and hubris? When I get these kings vanquished, I am coming back for you. I tore down the Midianites, I will tear down their two kings and then I am coming back to you. This judge has quickly become an Ozymandias. How does this happen?

Only a chapter or two earlier, this man was fearful and wondering how God could use someone like him and now he is starting to say, “Look on my works ye mighty, and despair.”How does this spirit of Ozymandias start to creep into his soul? Let’s keep reading.

Judges 8:10-17

There is so much here. This situation devolves really quickly. The last passage was hubris. This passage gets real really quick. Gideon captures the two kings he was chasing. He then parades them in front of the two groups who turned him down. For the first group, he publicly shames them, showing his power and whipping them with thorns. Then the second group, he tears down their tower, and he kills the men of that town, his fellow Israelites. Why? Because they didn’t help him.

Remember, the book of Judges is descriptive not prescriptive. Just because it happens in this book doesn’t mean God has sanctioned it or is happy with it. I am certain that Gideon is in the wrong here and he is on the wrong path. That will be painfully obvious in the next passage. The spirit of Ozymandias is growing in this man. “Look on my works ye mighty, and despair…”He publicly humiliates them and then he kills the others, almost as if he is getting more and more worked up, angrier and drunk on his power. Because these people wouldn’t give him bread, he cut them down. Because they wouldn’t help him against his enemies, he put them in their place. And this is all based on the glory that Gideon earned in his battle against the Midianites. And you remember who won that battle, right? The Israelites… but really it was God with 300 men, who didn’t have to swing a sword. Gideon did not earn the victory, but he is acting like he did. It is already going to his head. How does this happen?

Monday of last week, Pope Francis accepted the resignation from his bishop in Limburg of the Netherlands. The bishop who resigned, Franz-Peter, has been referred to more recently as the “Bishop of Bling.” He is called the “Bishop of Bling” because he spent 43 million dollars of the church’s money renovating his personal residence. This man who took a vow of poverty just spent $43 million of the church’s money on things like a $21,000 bathtub, a $1.1million garden and $4 million on a private chapel. Here is the interesting part; the “Bishop of Bling” was allowed to spend up to $7.5million on the renovation. And he spent $43 million. Money he did not earn on a house he did not own. The victory wasn’t his but he was acting like it was. How does this happen?

Judges 8:18-21

We aren’t at rock bottom yet but we are very close. They caught the kings and Gideon is now in full-on Ozymandias mode. He interrogates these men and asks them a question that he already knows the answer to, “Who did you kill in the battle?”They tell him that they killed his brothers. And he says because of that, “I will kill you. If you hadn’t killed my brothers, I wouldn’t kill you. Doesn’t matter if you killed ordinary Israelites but since you killed my brothers, I will kill you.” It doesn’t look like he is listening to what God wants him to do. This is vengeance. He is probably fuming and yelling at this point, and he might as well be saying, “Look upon my works ye mighty and despair!”

The story gets very dark here, very Machiavellian. He gives one of his young sons a sword to kill these two men in cold blood. As a show of power, he was going to have these two powerful men be killed by a prepubescent boy. The boy is scared and unable to do it, so Gideon runs them through.

Judges 8:22-26

This is where the story turns. This is where we find answers. Gideon has just completed the victory, he has won the day and all of the Israelites come to him. You can almost picture them putting him on their shoulders, singing his praises and lifting him high. They finally say, “Be our King. Let a dynasty start with you and pass the kingship down to your sons and grandsons.”This is clearly something that God doesn’t want. Israel is not supposed to be a monarchy but a theocracy. Where God alone is King, not any man. Gideon knows this and says the right thing,“I won’t rule over you. My son won’t rule over you. Only God will rule over you.”

Good job Gideon, if only for a moment. The spirit of Ozymandias begins to rise again. He says, “Don’t make me a King…. but you can do one thing for me. Pay me a bonus for winning the day.” Everybody throw some gold in the pot for old Gideon. And he gets very rich. Seventeen hundredshekels, is about 50 pounds of gold. Here is what you need to know, Gideon just asked for a tribute. Do you know who asks for a tribute? One person and one person only, a King. I have been asking you today, how does this happen? It happens when you refuse to be King but act like one anyway.

Prior to this moment, it has already been true. He is going out of his way to look and act humble. But the more we read, the clearer it becomes. He doesn’t want to be called King but he sure wants to act like one. Don’t call me King, but you can pay me like one. Gideon was the “Bishop of Bling” before Franz-Peter ever was.

David Foster Wallace was one of my favorite authors in my mid twenties. He was a brilliant post-modern author who rose to success with his gigantic novel Infinite Jest in 1996. He ended up receiving the MacArthur Genius Grant for his work. This man was not a Christian or really any sort of religious person. His brain wouldn’t allow it and his brain wouldn’t allow him peace either because he killed himself in 2008 in his late 40’s. In 2005, three years prior to his death, he gave a profound commencement speech at a small liberal arts college. Without faith, he was scratching the surface of the Ozymandias syndrome. He said this:

“There is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”

He then goes on to state several things that we worship and how they are dangerous. And then he says this profound statement at the end:

“Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious.”

Gideon refuses to be called King but acts like one anyway. It is unconscious. And he doesn’t realize it is going to eat him alive. Let me show you a few more quick snapshots of Gideon’s descent. Let me show you this man who refused to be called King but didn’t mind acting like one.

Judges 8: 26-27

Gideon makes a golden ephod. An ephod is a garment worn by priests. It is kind of like a priestly identification. It signaled authority. It signaled an emissary of God who could explain God’s will. In one sense you can say, “Look Gideon didn’t want the money, he wanted to help people worship.” The problem was that worship wasn’t supposed to be happening there, and Gideon was not a priest. He gave up the money so that he could have more power and more influence. He refuses to be called King but he has no problem acting like one. Come to me for wisdom. Come to me for your questions. I won’t be a King in title but I will be one in actions. I will be a King in every sense except the title.

Judges 8:29-31

Having several wives and concubines is a kingly behavior. Creating multiple heirs. But here is the best part. His son with his concubine is named Abimelek. The Abi prefix, does that sound familiar? What is the Hebrew word for father? Abba. This form is “my father.” What does Melek mean? King. This man who refused to be named King named his son, “my father is King.”

Gideon and Ramses II aren’t that different. Ramses called himself the King of Kings. Gideon wouldn’t dare call himself that, but he had no problem acting like it. He received tribute, he set himself up to offer spiritual advice and he put himself in a place of authority. He sired 70 plus sons, and he named one of his sons “My father is King.” In all reality, Ramses II is the better man because he was at least honest with himself.

Many things tie these two men together. They are pursuing their own kingdom at any cost. What they don’t realize is that it will eat them alive. Their pursuit of this goal will cost them everything. We don’t have time to go into it today but Abimelek will end up ruining the entire family of Gideon. What was whispered in the heart of Gideon was yelled from the lips of Abimelek. Abimelek watched his father while he was growing up; the man who always refused to be king but had no problem acting like one. And so Abimelek took that truth to its logical conclusion. He began to build a movement to crown himself King, and in that process, he killed all of his brothers and consolidated his power.