The Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt: A Cautionary Tale and Godly Ambition

Judges 9: 1-56; Isaiah 53: 7-12; Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 10:32-45

The power of the story has always fascinated me. Beginning as a child who cut her teeth on C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and as an undergraduate who wrestled with and appreciated genre in literary studies, I have been trained to ask questions about the inter-relationships between form, content and tenor. The Scriptures are replete with different mini-forms and also full-blown genres, modes of discourse that frequently jostle up against each other. We are reminded by John Barton of the important of recognizing genre as we seek to understand: We would not, he reminds us, expect a piece which began, “The stars will fall from heaven, the sun will cease its shining, the moon will be turned to blood, and fire and hail will fall from heaven” to conclude “The rest of the country will have sunny intervals and scattered showers” (Reading the Old Testament, 1996, p. 17). So, then, what kinds of expectations do we have when we read parables or stories in the Scriptures? A case in point is the colorful cautionary tale in Judges 9. Placed within a narrative of political intrigue, conflict, and judgment, there is embedded this parable:

The trees once went forth to anoint a king over them; and they said to the olive tree, `Reign over us.’But the olive tree said to them, `Shall I leave my fatness, by which gods and men are honored, and go to sway over the trees?’And the trees said to the fig tree, `Come you, and reign over us.’But the fig tree said to them, `Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to sway over the trees?’And the trees said to the vine, `Come you, and reign over us.’ But the vine said to them, `Shall I leave my wine which cheers gods and men, and go to sway over the trees?’ Then all the trees said to the bramble, `Come you, and reign over us.’And the bramble said to the trees, `If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.’ (Judges 9:8-15 RSV)

This is clearly not a simple fable told to beguile those who are hearing. Even without knowing the setting, the ominous nature of the final brambly statement makes its mark. And of course, this pointed story, told by Jotham, a son who has survived a coup after his family had been destroyed, is aimed particularly at the collusion and politicking of those who had supported the usurper. By the story alone, we might not actually get much illumination concerning the bramble bush itself, for the dynamics of the story makes him a sort of innocent by-stander, forced into kingship by the trees. The story says almost nothing about Abimelech himself, illegitimate son of Gideon, who cared more for power than for his 70 half-brothers, whom he slew! Jotham, after all, is speaking to the Shechemites, and warning them that they have made the unwise choice of seeking the shade of a bramble bush. They will get their comeuppance, for, as he implies, they are not sincere in following this leader, but are using him for their own purposes. After all, how can a bramble bush give shade to the cedars of Lebanon?

As it stands, then, Jotham’s parable offers an accent to the major story, which features the ruthless and ambitious Abimelech—whose name, by the way means “My father is king!” The story of Abimelech, left to itself, would train our eye on this manipulative upstart who used persuasive words to win over his clansmen, , reminding them he was also a Shechemite and therefore their “brother,” and saying it made more sense to have single ruler than a council of seventy men from outside of Shechem. The reader is set up to be gratified when Abimelech meets his doom, at the hands of a woman who crushes him with a stone from the very tower that he has set on fire. But Jotham’s parable reminds the reader that it is not simply Abimelech who is at fault here. The Shechemites had the opportunity, in joining with Gideon’s people, to own as their ruler the King of the universe, the LORD himself. “The Lord is king; he rules in majesty.”

Instead, like Adam seduced by Eve, they responded to Abimelech’s appeal that they look out for their own clan, and put in place a usurper who was filled with sheer ambition. Not one of the plotters escapes doom: they fall into their own nets! As St. Basil the Great, our father in Christ, comments, this story is meant to ‘teach us that the profit of human wisdom is illusory…It is a meager and lowly thing and not a great and pre-eminent good.” The trees wanted a king! It might have seemed wise to the people to lift up a king of their own flesh and blood, and it might have seemed clever to Abimelech to orchestrate his reign by murdering his half-brothers, but these are the “traps of inquity” and “on that day his very plans perished.” The blessed Augustine tells us that it is frequently by means of parables or fables that God speaks to us: yes, remember the parables of Jesus. So, then this strange story about trees seeking a leader “is invented in order that we may reach the matter intended.” Here is the matter: human vainglory is destructive.

The Old Testament parable and story cannot tell us everything there is to know about this topic. The parable speaks better in the context of the entire chapter of Judges. Similarly, the early books of the Bible speak better in the context of the prophets, who look forward to the one King of all who would take on the role of the Servant (Isaiah 53:7-12). Then, as Jesus says, we can consider ourselves even more blessed than those prophets, because they “longed to see what [we] have seen”(Matt 13:17)—the humility of the Son himself!

Taken by itself, the parable is a cautionary tale about honour and lack of wisdom. Taken by itself, the story of Abimelech is a warning against violence and oppressive behavior. In the light of the prophets, the failures of Israel are understood to be rebellion against God. But when Jesus enters the picture, all these OT texts speak even more clearly. For Abimelech and Jesus the Servant emerge as polar opposites. Abimelech, “My father is king!”, is a godless usurper; Jesus is the true heir, but takes on the form of a servant. Abimelech slays his brothers; the Lord Jesus, by his death, brings “many sons to glory!” Abimelech reigns for three years with terror, but Jesus with healing and wisdom; Abimelech is shamed by a woman, but our Lord glorifies the virgin’s womb, and speaks peace to the myrrh-bearing women. Abimelech no one remembers; the Lord Jesus has “seen the fruit of the travail of his soul.” What looked to be a tree of death, the cross, was the true tree of life—and brings forth leaves for the healing of all the nations! As our epistle reading for Divine Liturgy, Hebrews 9: 13-14, puts it, “how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” What was merely a moral lesson in Judges becomes a foil by which we can see the wonder of the greatest story of all, Our God come to make us true and free servants, what we have always been meant to be!

How are we to serve? By following, of course, in the footsteps of Christ, and offering ourselves to his service, whatever this may mean. The Gospel reading for this Sunday, Mark 10:32-45 shows us that even those who are closest to the Lord can miss the mark. Thanks be to God that our gospel stories do not cover over the weaknesses of his people! James and John have just heard Jesus say that “the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.” How out of touch they are! Immediately they ask for seats at the right and left of Jesus in the day of resurrection. Jesus does not shame them, but asks, “Can you drink my cup? Can you undergo my baptism of suffering?” Their affirmative answer is given, of course, in hope that this will open the door for them to these places of honour, rightfully occupied by the Theotokos and the holy Forerunner John the Baptizer. What Jesus offers them is no slight thing, though: he invites them to suffer with him! To be like Jesus, to suffer for him, is the greatest honor anyone can be given: for to rule, Jesus tells his apostles, is not to “lord it over” but to SERVE. And the greatest example of service we know is that of our Suffering Lord, who gave his life as a ransom for many.

So we end with a great paradox. We know that our Lord said, “he who seeks to save his life will lose it, but the one who give up his life for my sake will save it.” A saying like this bears careful thought, causing us to re-examine our presuppositions, just like many parables do. This saying directs us to understand a dynamic of the real world as it has been created by God. We live in an age that holds up democracy and egalitarianism as an ideal: and our political system has certainly prevented a good deal of oppression, because human beings with power can be dangerous. However, perhaps sometimes we are tempted to think that sheer sameness, everything on the same level, corresponds to reality.

As Christians we should know better. There really is a Lord, the King of kings, who is distinct from his creation, though he enters into our lives by his own initiative. He really did call patriarchs, apostles, prophets, “to whom” the apostle Peter says, “you should pay heed as though to a light shining in the darkness.” We really do live in families, where children are called to obey parents. Indeed (and here I will make myself unpopular), there really is a headship of the husband over the wife—this is not abrogated by St. Paul or by Jesus, though in Christ there is “no male or female.” Our Christian story is not a mere book of precepts, not a mere Aesop’s fables with a moral tenor. It is a dynamic drama, one that shows how the One who is greatest of all made himself of no reputation, taking on the role of a servant. And for this he is given the greatest honor, the name above all names. So it is that the strange story of the bramble, the poignant song of the Suffering Servant, the vignette from the book of Hebrews about Jesus’ sacrifice, and the embarrassing story about James and John all make their mark on our imaginations. The point is not to say that everybody is the same, and that we should not give honour to those who lead and feed and help us. The point is to call us to the wonder of the living God, and, by the strength of his Holy Spirit, to urge us to take on godly ambition—the zeal to serve others. By these stories, read together, in our hearts is placed the One who is a Lion, a King, but who made himself for our sake a Lamb and the Servant of all. It is his over-turning power of humility that reached out to our sister Mary of Egypt, transporting her from a life of degradation to join the company of the holy virgins. (But that is another story!) The Highest sought out and continues to seek the lowest, and in his company there is only one adequate response—we are amazed!