“In The King’s Shadow
By Rev. Dr. Donyelle McCray
Sunday, August 3, 2025
Text: Judges 9:1–6
I greet you in the name of the Living God,
whose love has no borders, no beginning, no end,
And who created each one of us in that love
and is making all things new.
I’m so excited to be with you. When I was invited, I’d imagined preaching a light and joyful piece of scripture. Maybe a psalm or proverb or some hope-filled story from the gospels. But of course, you are knee-deep in the study of the book of Judges! And this book is anything but light and fluffy. Thank you for leading me where I might not otherwise go and giving me one of the most challenging passages I’ve ever attempted to preach. It continues to haunt me.
Our text is a portrait. A portrait of a man thirsting for power. A portrait of a man who will do anything to become king and once made king, will do anything to stay in power. If we look at the whole of his story, we find that he is shockingly comfortable with lies. His very name is something of a lie. He goes by the name “Abimelech,” which means my father is king. But his father was not king. Nor did his father desire to be king. In chapter 8 of Judges, his father said, “I will not rule over you.” In essence, I will not dominate you. So, Abimelech does not follow his father’s legacy, he betrays it.
Abimelech is conniving. Conspiring. Bloodthirsty. Murderous. He talks about family and fidelity but knows nothing of building or nurturing relationships! He shows no interest in learning these skills. He hires “unprincipled and ruthless” men—or as one scholar puts it “empty and unstable” men. Their only real qualification is their willingness to do what Abimelech tells them to do and think what Abimelech tells them to think. The lesson for us readers is one of contrast: Don’t be like Abimelech.
Abimelech does not seek God. He is his own god. He worships his own ego. Nowhere do we read of him praying for the wisdom to lead like Moses—or later, David, or Solomon. Nowhere do we see him helping people in need, protecting the vulnerable. The bible presents him as a villain pure and simple.
One of the many things I admire about Judaism is its willingness to look honestly at history. Not just at its heroes and heroines but also its villains. The expectation is that looking at the failures of the past might keep them from being repeated. Abimelech’s story provides a glimpse at what happens when evil goes unchecked. And what happens is murder. Abimelech murders 70 of his brothers.
Now the number seventy is symbolic. Early readers of this text would have heard about the seventy murdered brothers and thought immediately of Jacob becoming the head of a family of seventy who went into Egypt. Or of the 70 elders who helped Moses lead God’s people. Or of the ways seventy symbolized all the nations of the world in Israel’s table of nations. Seventy is the number that symbolizes strong communal leadership. Seventy symbolizes an extended family. Seventy symbolizes that which is precious in Hebrew culture. And Abimelech slaughters it in his ruthless quest for power.
I’ve read and re-read this text and I’m left with unanswerable questions: What drives people to heinous acts of violence? Where does that kind of evil come from? What is it in the human psyche that chooses control over connection? Because that impulse is dangerous.
I wish Abimelech’s model of leadership had fallen out of favor. I wish Abimelech’s ways were so unrecognizable that we’d have to wrack our brains to think of contemporary leaders who seem to emulate his behavior or his logic. People all over this world live with the reality that a modern-day Abimelech might rob them of home, or food, or livelihood, family or life itself. When we survey our current world, there is still much that the human family needs to learn about leadership and power-holding.
You see, Abimelech was not just an individual. Abimelech represents a mentality, a way of thinking and moving through the world. And this mentality is always acquiring, conquering, and controlling. Abimelech represents a narrow vision of life centered on the self and on illusions that prop up a self-centered life. The meaning of life is reduced to grasping more and more status, more and more money and power. And to be clear, this mentality is not limited to the sphere of politics. It shows up online, in offices, classrooms, households. We live in an Abimelechian age. And this means contemporary people of faith have some of the same struggles as the people in this episode from the book of Judges.
First, we struggle to maintain our allegiance to God. Now we may owe degrees of allegiance to civic leaders and people in authority, but as people of faith, our one Sovereign is the Living God--the ultimate Judge to whom all human beings must give account. No human being, no matter how powerful, no matter how awful or angelic, is worthy of absolute, unqualified allegiance. The ultimate sovereign for Christians is God. As St. Ignatius said, “I come from God. I belong to God. I am destined for God.”
And while there’s room for a range of philosophical opinion, allegiance to God involves allegiance to peace-making, to the sanctity of human life, to sharing, to nurturing the land and waterways entrusted to our care. How will we maintain our allegiances despite the Abimelechs in our midst?
Second, we struggle to resist passivity. Part of the horror of the Abimelech story is that his behavior continues for so long without interruption. The Abimelechs of the world can make us want to throw our hands in the air and give up. Acts of love can sometimes look feeble in the wake of violence.
But one of my beloved spiritual teachers is bell hooks. She practiced Christianity and Buddhism. And one lesson I’m still learning from her is that “the practice of love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination.” Love keeps us from being passive; it compels us to act.
Love does not retreat from the world’s suffering. Love helps us look at the pain and ask how will we still do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God? How will we still contribute to the world’s healing?
Love urges us forward. I think the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi says it best:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy…
We are not powerless. And we can’t give in to the Abimelechs.
Third, many of us struggle to find signs of hope. I don’t blame anyone for feeling doubt or despair in times like ours. I’m writing a book about Pauli Murray—an African American freedom-fighter and Episcopal priest. Born in 1910, Pauli lived through the rise of Hitler and the brutality of Jim Crow. She experienced bouts of searing despair. Looking back on her life, Pauli said, “If anyone should ask a Negro woman what is her greatest achievement, her honest answer would be ‘I survived.’” In her lowest moments, she was comforted by little signs of grace—mostly in nature: a brilliant sunset, the beauty of gently falling snow, the soft fur of a dog panting near her feet ... These signs didn’t erase the horrors, but they hinted at another reality. They assured her that God had not abandoned the world to the Abimelechs of the day.
More recently, Ruth Brown wrote an illustrated book for children entitled Eye Spy.
The book is much like the game many of us played as children, “I spy with my little eye…” something beginning with “O.” It sleeps by day and hunts by night. It flies across the moon. It rhymes with fowl… it’s an owl. What Ruth Brown gives us is a day’s journey from early morning until late night. In one vivid scene after another, beautiful animals hide in the background and we have to strain to find them. A mouse hiding among flowers. A rabbit cloaked in grass. She helps children look beyond the surface. And I think there’s value in taking this approach as we move through these difficult days. Search for signs of life amid the death. Those signs feed the spirit and hint at the new world God is bringing into being.
And one of those signs is hidden in our text just as Abimelech is being made king. The last line reads, “Then all the lords of Shechem and all Beth-MEE-loh came together, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.”
Now trees are sometimes easily overlooked by those of us who grew up in North America or parts of the world where trees are in abundance. But this tree would have stood out more to people in the ancient near east where trees were rare. In that hot, dry terrain, trees of all kinds were precious. Their gifts of shade, olive oil, and figs were something of a miracle. Their beauty—alluring.
And the oak tree—with its long life—living hundreds, even a thousand years—the oak tree was a reminder of the fleeting nature of human life. It’s rugged endurance through drought and storm pointed to the strength that can only be found in God.
The upward thrust of the tree, pointed to the God who is our only true King, the Eternal One who will judge all human actions. The One whose ways are higher than our ways and whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts. In addition to the height. In addition to the height, the oak’s wide-open boughs model the openness and generosity God wills for all of creation…..
So, here in the text, in the shadow of the king, an oak tree offers a counter-testimony to Abimelech. And the early readers of the book of Judges would’ve quickly picked up on this symbol.
You see, this oak was not just any oak tree. Some scholars think this may be the same oak tree mentioned in Genesis 35, where Jacob gathered all the idols among his family and buried them under the oak in Shechem. This could be the same oak mentioned in Joshua 24, where Joshua and the people made a covenant with God and placed a stone of remembrance under the oak at Shechem.
An oak tree was a reminder of God’s faithfulness. Under the oaks of Moreh, God promised to be with Abraham as he traveled through Canaan. Under the oaks of Mamre, God promised to bless Abraham and Sarah with a son. Under the oak at Ophrah, God promised to be with Gideon when his people were being oppressed. So, there was an implicit promise at this oak, that God would be with them. That God would not abandon his people. That Abimelech would not have the last say.
And I don’t know, but I suspect that the mere mention of the oak tree reminded the people of Psalm 1:
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
Or take the path that sinners tread,
Or sit in the seat of scoffers;
But their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
Planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, …
But the way of the wicked will perish.
The oak tree symbolized a more humane way of life. And we need that symbol today. Because times of extreme violence call for extreme models of gentleness. If we let them, oak trees might help us be better humans. Do you know there are over 500 species of oak trees? And unlike Abimelech, none of them seem to mind having a bunch of siblings. The Red Oak does not try to kill the White Oak. The Pin Oak does not resent the Black Oak or the Bur Oak. Oaks are part of a big, loving family.
Oak trees embody virtues that were prized by Christians in past generations—virtues like meekness, forbearance, and especially patience. As a child growing up in Florida, Howard Thurman considered a Live Oak tree his best friend because it was such a good, patient listener. He could take his time talking about the burdens on his heart and that tree would listen and never rush him.
And Thurman thought that tree was especially good at glorifying God. Decades later, as an adult, Thurman was known to walk up to beautiful trees and pat them and say, “You’re doing a magnificent job”—glorifying God, that is. Thurman was gentle enough, humble enough to learn from trees.
And people from many other faith traditions are encouraged to do the same. Trees teach humility and wisdom in Judaism; growth and perseverance in Islam. Trees model resilience for the Ashanti. And trees are called “Standing People” among the Cherokee—symbolizing the link between the living and the dead.
In my tradition, it is common after the death of a great soul to make an announcement to the community by saying, “A Mighty Oak Tree has fallen.” It’s a way of pointing to a substantive life. A life of dignity and courage in the face of oppression; of generosity in the face of greed; humility in the face of arrogance. In other words, this person’s life was a model of grace. Do likewise!
When Martin Luther King, Jr. died, it was said, “A Mighty Oak Tree has fallen.” When Fannie Lou Hamer died, it was said, “A Mighty Oak Tree has fallen.” When James Cone, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, died the sentiment was “A Mighty Oak Tree has fallen.”
The phrase is not limited to African Americans or to Christians. Thich Nat Hanh, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Heschel, Oscar Romero, and Mother Theresa all earned this appellation. And though I am offering names you’ll more likely recognize, the phrase is most often applied to people who were not famous but led quiet lives of love and service to their communities.
There is no denying the pain in our world today and no one knows what lies ahead. But my prayer is that God empowers each of us to face these difficult days with gentleness, humility, and courage. And that when our earthly journeys end, someone will remember our witness during these desperate times and say, “A Mighty Oak Tree has fallen.”
Amen.