But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. – Judges 19:25

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 23, 2019): Judges 19

What would happen if God didn’t move? We can only guess what life might be like if God did not move in various situations that we meet as we progress through this life. In 1984, Amy Grant released her song “Angels,” which poses that precise question.

Near misses all around me, accidents unknown,
Though I never see with human eyes the hands that lead me home.
But I know they're all around me all day and through the night.
When the enemy is closing in, I know sometimes they fight
To keep my feet from falling, I'll never turn away.
If you're asking what's protecting me then you're gonna hear me say:

Got his angels watching over me … (Amy Grant, Brown Bannister, Gary Chapman, Michael W. Smith)

The story of Gibeah, found in Judges 19, is essentially the same story that is told in Genesis 19 and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. We have oversimplified both of these stories and made them about same-sex sexual interaction, but that is not the theme of either story. Both stories are a condemnation of inhospitality and the persecution of the stranger, the visitor or the immigrant. But the significant difference between the stories is that in one, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, God moves and prevents evil from being done and, at Gibeah, he does not. The result in Sodom and Gomorrah is that the visitors and the family of Lot escape the city safely, while the cities themselves are destroyed. But at Gibeah, the concubine of the Levite dies after being repeatedly raped during the night, and a civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of Israel begins. 

And maybe the deep mystery is wrapped up in the question “why?” Why did God move at Sodom and Gomorrah and not at Gibeah? The question might be unanswerable, but let me give it a try. At Sodom and Gomorrah, the presence of God was totally absent. And so God decides to move and destroy the cities because of the evil that they had committed, saving those who are faithful to him.

But the story of Gibeah is even sadder. These were not people who did not know God. The Levite passes up staying in a foreign city so that he could spend the night in a town that was governed by the people of Israel. The tribe of Benjamin, along with the rest of Israel, had been charged to be the presence of God among the people of the world. So the evil at Gibeah was not committed by people who did not know God, but by the same people who were supposed to be the presence of God among the nations. God leaves Gibeah so that it can stand as an example of what happens when the people of God abuse their position in the world and commit evil in the name of God. The ripples of the evil at Gibeah were not contained within the town. The evil at Gibeah resulted in a civil war that almost wiped out the tribe of Benjamin.

It is a result to which we need to give attention. When we refuse to carry out the hospitality of God, when we lie in his name, or believe that our concerns are automatically his, then we are endangering not just ourselves, but the church and society at large. And maybe God will move to stop us before the damage becomes irreversible. But the story of Gibeah reminds us that maybe he won’t.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Judges 20