There are times when it comes very much to the fore that the Bible is not simply a set of moral stories, or stories from which we say, “So the moral of the story is…” I’m talking about stories that might make us ask “Why is this in the Bible?!’  Jesus tells a parable in Luke 16, and it's not the most famous of his parables.  The Parable of the Dishonest Manager or The Parable of the Shrewd Steward.  A rich man finds out that the man who has been managing his accounts (his money) who has been wasting his money.  An audit is ordered.  The manager realizes he’s about to be fired.  He’s too proud to beg and not fit to work.  “What will I do?” he thinks.  He goes to the people who owe his soon-to-be former boss money and tells them, “You owe 100; let’s make it 50.”  “You owe 100; let’s call it 80.”  He does this to make sure that there is some goodwill out there, which he may be able to take advantage of in his soon-to-be unemployed state.  Is Jesus trying to imply that it is good for his followers to be dishonest in business dealings?  Not at all!  The parable is about the importance of using resources which are all from God for kingdom purposes.  In short.

What do we do with “The Gibeonite Deception” here in Joshua 9?  It’s certainly not in our Bibles to tell us that deception is good.  I want us to consider three things about God of which we are reminded in our story.  The recognition of our need for God.  The foundational importance of seeking to hear God’s voice in our day-to-day.  The inclination toward mercy and deliverance that we see on Joshua’s part.  Let’s ask for God’s help as we hear God’s word for us today.

Last week, we looked at the story of Achan and the Israelites' initial failure at Ai in chapter 7.  Ai is defeated in ch 8.  At the end of this story, we have a wonderful scene where Joshua writes the entire law of Moses on stone, and these are read to the people of Israel.  Not just the people of Israel, though!  Here’s 8:35 - “There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the aliens who resided among them.”

A Tale of Two Reactions

The Gibeonites are a group of people who give what we might consider an unexpected reaction to the entry of the people of God into the land of promise.  Like Rahab’s reaction to the presence of the Israelite spies, the Gibeonite response is unexpected.  It goes against the trend.  Here’s the trend which we hear about in  9:1 – “Now when all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country and in the lowland all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon – the Hittites , the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizittes, the Hivites, and the Jebusites – heard of this, they gathered together with one accord to fight Joshua and Israel.”  And then comes the “but” in v 3 – “But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they on their part acted with cunning…”  Now I have to say I think we tend to read these stories and look for the morals and think “How dare those Gibeonites do such a thing!” 

When we’re looking for something deeper, though, we need to consider who they were and who they remind us of.  When we consider God working in and through the descendants of Abraham, we see some deception involved.  in Israelite tradition in the techniques they use to advance themselves!”  Think of Jacob, who convinced his brother Esau to give up his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew, and he tricked his father Isaac into giving him his blessing by pretending to be his brother Esau.  Think of Rahab, who hid the Israelite spies and then lied about their whereabouts to the king of her city.  In all of these stories, it is not so much the deception that is frowned upon as the lack of cunning shown on the part of those being duped!

Like Rahab, the Gibeonites show themselves to be familiar with the law of Moses and also show themselves willing to submit to it.  The Gibeonites had two options here, after all.  At the end of the book, Joshua will lay the choice out to the Israelites when he tells them, “Choose this day whom you will serve.”  The choice is every day before us.  The five kings mentioned at the beginning of chapter 9 make a choice.  We must fight.  Which side do we choose?  Do we choose to trust God and enter into this relationship where we’re invited to save our lives by losing them; where we find that in service to God and Christ’s command/enablement to love God and love people, we find freedom?  Or do we put our faith in ourselves or our competencies or our possessions or whatever else we’re tempted to base our lives on?  In the Canaanite kings and the Gibeonites, we see both reactions.

The Gibeonites saddle up with some worn-out sacks, worn out/patched wineskins, worn-out sandals and clothes, and dry, moldy bread.  “We come from a far country, so now make a treaty with us,” they say.  The Israelites are skeptical at first. “Perhaps you live among us,” they say, “then how can we make a treaty with you?”  Joshua speaks – “Who are you?  And where do you come from?”    

Listen to how much we are reminded of Rahab here as the Gibeonites speak of the delivering power of God: “Your servants have come from a very far country, because of the name of the Lord your God; for we have heard a report of him, of all that he did in Egypt, and of all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, King Sihon of Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan who lived in Ashtaroth.”  Like Rahab, they are seeking mercy.  Humbly.  Calling themselves servants.

They’ve heard a report of God.  God makes himself known.  Sometimes long before we’re even on the scene, God is working in places.  God is working in hearts.  There are people around us who would go to great lengths to seek God.  I was at an ordination examining council for three pastors from one of our CBOQ churches in Markham.  Logos Baptist Church Milliken is one of our large Chinese churches that serves in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.  One of the candidates was a 40-year-old Mandarin pastor from mainland China.  He had grown up without any knowledge of Jesus. Told to work hard and study hard to make a good life for himself.  Working as an accountant, his company sent him to Costa Rica.  Career.  He told us that he thought there must be more to life than this.  Working and accumulating things and dying.  One day in the breakroom, he came across a Christian magazine someone had left on a table.  “People were willing to die to follow Jesus,” he thought. “There must be something to this.”  God was moving in his heart.  He felt called to visit Israel in 2014 to see where it had all happened. All on his own.  Returning to Costa Rica, he started attending a Chinese church.  He became a follower of Christ not long after that and was baptized.  Now a soon-to-be ordained pastor of the Mandarin congregation at Logos Baptist Milliken.  God makes himself known, and there are people all around us in whose hearts he is working.  May God make us attentive and responsive to these truths.

  “So the leaders partook of their provisions, and did not ask direction from the Lord.  And Joshua made peace with them, guaranteeing their lives by a treaty; and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.”   Our second point today.  The foundational importance of seeking God.   The foundational importance of asking for direction from God.  On asking for help, guidance, and wisdom.  How significant is this truth in the life of our faith community here at Blythwood?  Pray that we continue to be faithful in our seeking.  They did not ask for direction from the Lord.  “I’ve got this, Lord!”  “No problem here!”  God is quite willing to let us say that.  We’ve got this; we tasted their bread after all, and look, the burst wineskins, the old sandals!  We know exactly what to do here.  Joshua made a treaty with them, and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.  We want to be asking for direction from the Lord here, don’t we?  We don’t want prayer to be something we merely tack on to the beginning of a meeting, maybe the end of the meeting too, do we?  We don’t want to think that anything we do here is going to depend first and foremost on our own ability to discern, communicate, decide, debate, whatever.  This doesn’t mean that we don’t work hard in our discernment and know that your leaders are working hard and asking for direction from God.

Joshua made peace with them, guaranteeing their lives by a treaty, and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.  After three days, they heard they were their neighbours and were living among them.  The Israelites heard that the Gibeonites were their neighbours and were living among them.   They’re only 30hm away!  The Israelites set out and reached their cities on the third day.  The leaders tell the Israelites, “We can’t touch them; we’ve sworn an oath.”  The people murmur against the leaders.  What to do, what to do?

And this is the difficulty.  What do we do when God’s word doesn’t explicitly say what to do in a situation?  There’s nothing in Deuteronomy about what to do if one of these seven nations in Canaan that God has told them to destroy tricks them into making a treaty with them.  Do we violate our oath?  Oaths were a big deal in the Ancient Near East.  They were not made lightly, and they were made before God.  Joshua and the leaders of the Israelites show us the way here, I believe.  If we’re going to err, let us err on the side of mercy.  Let us ask what the love of God and the love of people call for.  Joshua asks them why they did this.  They answer, “Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land before you; so we were in great fear for our lives because of you, and did this thing.  And now we are in your hand; do as it seems good and right in your sight to do to us.”  The Gibeonites are looking for mercy.  They didn’t have to do this.  We read in Chapter 10 that the city of Gibeon was larger than Ai.  That all their men were warriors.  They didn’t have to do this.  They could have gone to war.  They could have relied on themselves, on their own strength, their own power.  Instead, they recognize God’s power and say Have mercy on us.

“This is what he did for them; he saved them…” Does this remind us of anyone we know as we give thanks for the one known in Hebrew as Yeshua?  They came looking for mercy and found mercy.  You know, someone might say at this point, “Sure, but they became slaves!  They became servants, hewers of wood and drawers of water.”  Once again, we read this story from the other side of the cross.  We read this from the other side of God who lived among us, and we’re always listening for Jesus’ words and remembering when he said things like “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”  Matt 20:25-28

We make mistakes.  Don’t despair.  God is able to make something of our failures.  The curse that Joshua pronounces on the Gibeonites turns into a blessing in disguise.  Look at where the Gibeonites serve.  They are going to cut wood and draw water for the house of God.  They’re going to provide wood and water for the place where God is worshiped because the promise of blessing given to Abraham was never about one people – it was for all people.  Here we have this picture of “outsiders” standing shoulder to shoulder with the people of God in worship of the living God.  In a world in which divisions among people run so deep, where differences in ethnicity/nationality/socio-economic status/political views/you name it cause us to look down on each other or look up at others, we have this picture of outsiders becoming an integral part of the worship of God. 

This lasts too.  When the Israelites return to the land after Babylonian conquest, destruction, and exile, guess who gets exiled with them, and guess who comes back with them!  Nehemiah 7

22 Of Hashum, three hundred and twenty-eight. 23 Of Bezai, three hundred and twenty-four. 24 Of Hariph, one hundred and twelve. 25 Of Gibeon, ninety-five.

And they were still working, still serving.  When it came to rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall, listen to this from Nehemiah 3:

6 Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah repaired the Old Gate; they laid its beams and set up its doors, its bolts, and its bars. 7 Next to them repairs were made by Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite—the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah—who were under the jurisdiction of[c] the governor of the province Beyond the River.

Still working.  Still serving Yahweh.  The Gibeonite Deception?  The Gibeonite Question?  All of it speaks of recognizing our need for and receiving the mercy of God, seeking God’s guidance when answers aren’t so clear, and all being welcome and finding a place of belonging in the service and love of God.  Thanks be to God for this story and for God’s indescribable grace!

Amen