Judges week 10

How do we experience faith in the ambiguous? What do we do when we feel like God has let us down? How can we be sure that our ideas about God are the same thing as God, and how do we wrestle through this?

Judges 10-12 is a sad story. Sometimes we need help letting sad stories in our sacred text remain as sad stories. Ultimately our question this week is about who suffers and who is sacrificed in the process of religious and institutional battles?

Where is God's justice in the world and how do we account for the perceived lack of it? How can we view God without ascribing to God the same kinds of power we see in our world? How can we play our part in the world without seeking control and power?

How can we best tell the story of the world and our story? What stories are we ending too soon? What stories should we end that we are hanging onto?

Judges 4-5 introduces us to some strong female characters whose actions are explicitly credited as divine actions. These stories make us ask serious questions about “whose side” God is on.

The Judges Cycle begins with an introduction to our first three leaders: Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar. It’s tribal and violent and graphic and it makes us questions what to do when our theology and morality don’t align with our sacred text.

What kind of the theological overlay do we put on our stories? How do our metaphors about God shape our lives? How can we more consciously choose what kinds of stories we tell about God, ourselves, and the world?

The book of Judges begins by painting a picture of tribal successes and failures. As we study, we must also ask: how do we still participate in tribal politics? How do we understand the identity of "the people of God" in less restrictive ways?

The Book of Judges depicts a time of political and religious disorganization in Israel. It paints a picture of how disloyalty to Yahweh, Israel's God, leads to conflict and division internally and externally. Rather than simply narrating a historical account, Judges tells a theological story about how faithfulness leads to peace. Dark and violent, the book attempts to shock us into a realization of our own ability to do harm and forces us to ask the question, "How could things be different?"