Ehud's Gift

One of my favorite narratives in scripture is found in Judges chapter 3:12-30; the story is Ehud and the deliverance of Israel from the king of Moab. Since I posted two weeks ago concerning calling I thought I would take my own advice and meditate on the idea of calling, using this passage as the basis of my meditation.    On one hand it is a serious recounting of how once again God works through a uniquely prepared individual to provide salvation for his chosen. On the other hand, it is a macabre comical scene, a Biblical example of bathroom humor. 

To lay out the narrative, the king of Moab, Eglon, has managed to oppose the people of Israel for 18 years. He extorts the people demanding that tribute be brought to him each year.  It is Ehud’s turn to take the tribute to the king.  He delivers the tribute without a hitch, but then returns to the king with a “secret message.”   The king clears the room and thus provides Ehud with the privacy he needs to carry out God’s judgement.  With his left hand Ehud stabs the king through, the entire sword disappearing within the fold’s the of kings fat.  Eglon’s attendants are paralyzed. They think their king is relieving himself and do not want to interrupt, thus allowing Ehud to escape. 

What really grabs my attention in this passage, as it regards calling, is the description of Ehud as left handed.  At least one commentator suggests that his left handedness was in fact more of a skill. A cleaver fighting ability that was learned.  This same commentator sights 1 Chronicles 12:2 of men who could fight with either hand.^⁠1  For a moment let us take the scripture literally or at least at face value.  Let us assume Ehud was born with the left hand dominate over his right hand.   That he indeed was left-handed in the modern American sense. 

As a left hander myself, I am aware how everything feels as if it is made for right handed individuals.  Left handedness has overtones of sinisterness and curse: for example, a left-handed compliment.   Or take the fact that our world is designed for those who are right handed. Ever notice vending machines require you to put money in with your right hand, assuming that you are in fact right-handed.  Or the left hand associated with dirtiness. Which side of the toilet is the plunger? The left side of course. It is hard to imagine the stigma of left handedness has changed since even Ehud’s time. Ehud most likely faced some level of  stigma and felt that sense of awkwardness and outsiderness which comes with being odd or different. 

 It is this quirk of fate that puts Ehud in the right place, at the right time ,with the right gifts, no pun intended. All his life his left handedness has been at best a curious mystery.  At this moment of deliverance it becomes the essential key to the plot of God’s redemptive story.  Calling is both time (Ehud’s entire life to this moment), and created makeup (who Ehud was physically). As it so often does the tension lays in waiting around to see how the puzzle pieces of circumstance and created order fuse together at the critical moment of our lives.  Admittedly, calling is often not what we expect and even if, as in the case of Ehud it all comes together, there is no guarantee that we will feel that all the questions have been wrapped up in a neat little bow.  

Take for example one of the most difficult passage of scripture to come to terms with.  In John chapter 9 the disciples ask Christ a question concerning a man born blind.  They asked, “who sinned?” In other words who is at fault, who is to blame for the sorrow this man encounters on a daily basis.  Jesus’s answer is staggering, it raises incredible questions.  “Neither. . . . This happened so that God may be displayed in him.”  It is difficult for me not to take this answer personally. It appears as if an entire life of disability was for the purpose of an object lesson.  Does God take lightly the suffering of others? Is the man’s suffering dwarfed in comparison to God’s glory?  

To one extent the answer is a resounding, “Yes, God’s glory far outstrips the suffering of any one individual.”  Calling is not something we make up, creating it out of our own sense of ourselves and desires.  Instead, calling is that which God grants as a gift, a strange, mysterious grace that is ultimately more concerned with God’s greatness then our own.  And yet, as with Ehud we are perfectly made for the calling God gifts to us. We are perfectly fit for the narrative in which we are placed. 

¹ “They were armed with bows and were able to shoot arrows or to sling stones right-handed or left-handed. . . . ”