Today’s Scripture Reading (November
8, 2012): Judges 11
There is a
great story about a man who is sentenced to hang in Russia in the nineteenth
century during the reign of Czar Nicholas I. According to the story, the
sentence was carried out on a cloudy Russian afternoon. The convicted felon was
marched up onto the platform that had been built for the purpose of hanging him.
The rope was placed around his neck and the priest gave the criminal one last
chance to confess his sins. Finally the charges were led along with the verdict
and the condemned man was given a chance to say his last words. And when all of
this was completed, a hood was placed over the man’s head and the hangman
pulled the lever that would cause the platform the condemned man was standing
on to release - and the man fell to his death. But in this case fate decided to
intervene. Rather than snapping the man’s neck, the rope broke and the man fell
to the ground – bruised, but very much alive. The criminal rubbed his neck and
looked up at the platform and the broken rope and exclaimed “Only in Russia,
the land where they do not even know how to make a proper rope.” Normally, a
broken rope was thought to be an act of God and the one to be hanged would be
given a pardon and sent on his way. But a messenger was dispatched to the Czar
with the news of what had happened – and also the words of the man regarding
the ability of Russians to make a rope. The Czar apparently sent this message
back to the execution. ”Prove to him that he is wrong. Hang him again.”
So many of
the cautionary tales we tell our children seem to carry this theme – be careful
what you say, because your words have a life of their own. As adults, we simply
know the truth of the tale. There is sometimes nothing that scares me more than
the words that I have said – and too often I reach the end of a conversation
and wish that I had said less.
The tragedy
of the story Jephthah is twofold. The first is that there was no reason for him
to make the vow that he did. While he acts like the victim in the story, there
were a limited number of things that could have come out of the door of his
house – and a number of them were bad. And yet he made the vow anyway. But the
second tragedy was that it was only his pride that made him follow through with
the vow. Again, it was not what God was asking of him. The words that he had
given life to with his vow, he was too proud to destroy.
Our words
have a life of their own, a life that can destroy us. But sometimes that life
can be stopped – if we are willing to swallow our pride and admit that our words
were wrong when we spoke them in the first place (and that was a path that both
Jephthah a certain Russian criminal should have taken.)
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Judges
12
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