said unto them, ‘Hearken unto me ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.’”
Our immediate concern is with what Jotham said rather than what was said about him. His speech was simply the telling of a fable, a fable to which some interest attaches because it is probably the first fable of which we have any record, as Lamech’s is the first song. To understand the fable, you will have to remember that in Hebrew literature, talking trees take the place which in the literature of other lands is occupied by talking beasts and birds.
THE FABLE AND ITS SETTING
The fable is simple and straightforward and it is told in the way that is striking and impressive. Once upon a time, the trees came together to appoint a king. In turn they approached the olive tree, the fig tree, the vine, and saying, “Reign then over us.” In turn each of these noble trees replied, “Shall I leave my fatness, my sweetness, my wine, to run up and down for other trees?” So each declined the honor and responsibility. Having failed with the kingly trees, the rest of the trees approached the bramble, representative of what was common and coarse, and asked him to be king. The honor refused by the great trees the bramble at once accepted, at the same time laying down the strongest conditions of his rule.
For the setting which gives point to the fable we have to go back through many centuries to the wild times in Israel’s history when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” and which was often wrong in God’s sight. It was a time when there was no king in Israel and very little in the way of national unity and organization. Judges and chieftains rose up from time to time to lead and deliver the people. Perhaps the greatest and best known among these was Gideon, whose great exploit with his gallant three hundred has always fascinated us. Not many of us have followed his career after his deliverance of the people from the hands of the Midianites. Unfortunately, it does not make very good reading. There is a blot in Gideon’s escutcheon and the story of his later life hardly bears telling. Before he died the people besought him to become their king. This honor he declined for himself and his sons. But after his death, his illegitimate son, Abimelech, who had much of his father’s endurance and strength, though without his sweetness and goodness, was approached and at once accepted the kingship. His first act was to murder all his brothers except Jotham, in order that his own seat on the throne might be the more secure.
It was while the feast of celebrating his elevation was in progress that Jotham appeared on a rocky eminence and told the fable of the Bramble King. You can see at once the point of the fable, and the biting sarcasm and touches of humor with which it is made. The bramble, the thorn, king over cedars and olives and vines! Jotham meant the people to see the folly and madness of electing a man like Abimelech to be their king. They were intended to mark the contrast between a man like Gideon and an unscrupulous place seeker like the man they had made their king.
THE MORAL OF THE FABLE
It is when we try to find the moral of the fable for ourselves that the difficulty begins. It does not pretend to have any religious significance. Yet there is a lesson standing out clear and convincing and as I see it, it sounds like the following. The highest places in the state, in the municipality, and in the church should be accepted by those most competent to fill them. In the terms of the fable the bramble should not be permitted to usurp the place of the olive tree, fig tree, and vine. Neither should the olive and the vine shrink from the responsibilities their gifts fit them for.
This is the sort of sermon one would like to preach at election times. Men who are graceless and gift-less ought not to be elected to positions of critical responsibility. If we are foolish enough to elect such men, whatever the length of their purse or their pedigree, however glib their tongues and their promises, it needs no prophet to predict, as Jotham did, that a fire will break out and consume much that we value. On the other hand, if men of noble gifts and character refuse to accept the responsibility of office and leadership you may be quite sure that less worthy and less able men will shift into the position. If the olive will not rule then the bramble will.
Preparing for this sermon I was reminded of a modern parallel—the French Revolution whose failures we mourn and at whose “excesses” we shudder. “What was the French Revolution?” asks Dr. Aked, “In one sentence it was the issue of fires from the bramble king, fires that blazed sky-high from hell to heaven and consumed the cedars of Lebanon. Every function that belonged to place and power, to responsibility and rule, had been abdicated by olive, fig, and vine, by noble, priest, and king . . . That was why the trees of the forest sought the bramble and the thorn, called to the Dantons, the Robespierres, and the Marrats to come and rule over them.” So the modern application of the moral of the fable is—
THE CONDEMNATION OF THE UNWILLING
In the state and in the community. What a picture the fable gives of much that happens today. There are men and women who are gifted and eminently fitted for the service of the community. But they say, “I’m not interested. It’s too much time. All parties are alike and a plague on all your parties. I’m too busy with my studies and the living of my own life. I do not covet any of these positions, let those who want them have them.” It all sounds very humble. In reality it is often selfish slacking. The inevitable happens. Because worthy men and women will not undertake public service and sit in committees, the work gets into the hands of the incompetent and unscrupulous. That is not to say that all men in public life are either incompetent or unworthy. One gladly bears testimony to able and unselfish service of those who run up and down to serve the community. One honors such people and it is to help them and to multiply their numbers that this is said. But we all know that the old fable is true to life and that the bramble rules because the olive declines.
In the church. But my main concern is with the church. Listen to these words. “There is, perhaps, no danger more threatening to the efficiency and peace of the church in these realms than the grievous tendency of men of culture and refinement to decline from its communion and its service.” That was written by Dr. Cox in 1872. It might have been written yesterday for it is true to the facts. Many of those who are best fitted to guide a congregation are either outside the church or, if within it, are content to pursue their own path rather than share its responsibilities and duties. They try, so they tell us, to be good in their own homes and that they are better and happier outside the organizations of the church. Anyway, it would be a waste of time.
Boiled down, it’s the old excuse of the olive and the vine, “Should I leave my fatness and my good cheer to run up and down after others?” The temptation we can all understand. When men are wise and happy, cultured and refined, pursuing their own ways in peace and context, it is a peculiar temptation to leave the wild to go its own way. From the days of the disciples, men who have stood on the Mount of Vision and Contemplation have wanted to abide there and leave the demoniacs and sufferers to others. Some of the tasks can be so vulgar and some monstrous, some of the people helped are so ungrateful, fellow workers can be small and mean and jealous. It is always easy to persuade ourselves that we are doing better by keeping aloof. No useful end will be served by simply indulging in condemnation. So, let me translate the lesson into other terms.
THE CALL TO THE CAPABLE
You have special culture, refinement, goodness. You might not keep them to yourself. “If our virtues go not forth from us, tis all alike as if we had them not.” A call comes through the special lesson of this fable. You are fitted for service, if you do not undertake it, other less fitted will have to do it. It will be idle for you to blame them or complain that the work is ill done. You say, “We need better men in the pulpit, in the leader’s meetings, in the Sunday School.” Exactly! What about you? It is because men and women of education and ability are shrinking that those of us who are less competent have to do the best we can.
The common life constitutes a call. We are a fellowship, a communion and no man is to live to himself. It would be a strange and quaint spectacle, says Dr. Cox, to see all the trees of a great forest stamping up and down in
