"Israel Had No King," pt. 2

Judges 19-20:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2019-20&version=NIV
Judges 21:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2021&version=NIV
            The book of Judges begins with Israel's descent into failure:  Judah accomplishes its purposes and drives out the Canaanites, then there is a long list of the remaining tribes who don't get the job done.  The middle and most familiar portion of the book tells the story of Israel's repeated failure to follow the Lord.  And in chapters 19-21, the book ends with an incident reminiscent of the story of Sodom--only it is Israelites who behave as Sodomites, and there is no one to intervene to save the proferred young lady, who dies from the attack she endures.  By the end of the book, Israel has fallen so far that she is worse than Sodom!  In addition, the response is a bit of a muddled mess.  The tribes unite against Benjamin and treat the Benjaminites as if they were Canaanites themselves, looking to exterminate them.  Consider that irony:  they couldn't/wouldn't drive out out the Canaanites, but--holy cow!--are they determined to exterminate their fallen brothers!
           So, I find two things to reflect on:  the first one is how easy it is to 'slip' until the church is unrecognizable from the world around it.  For a long time, the church assumed that the world would support our values.  The problem with that is that the church didn't see the ways that world was actually shaping the church.  It would take a long time to explain what I mean by that, but just reflect on this:  there are huge swathes of American Christianity that assume God would vote Democratic, and there are equally huge swathes that assume He would vote Republican.  The interplay of Christian faith and the world's politics of power suggests that we have been as much conformed to the ways of the world as the world has been shaped by the ways of God.
            The second thing I think we should reflect on is how easy it is to turn on one another.  I've often told the story of the week that I attended a church voters' meeting and a township board meeting.  The point of the story is my conclusion that an outsider would not have been able to tell they were two radically different organizations.  The church meeting was every bit as hostile and cutting as the township meeting.  This weekend, I quoted Markus Barth's commentary on Ephesians, to the effect,  "If she [the church] failed to proclaim with words what she is given to know, or if she condoned division and sin, she would deny her essence and function, and she would grieve ‘the holy Spirit of God’ from which she lives."  It's easy to criticize ancient Israel; it is a much harder--but more profitable--thing to reflect on our own divisions and to work to heal them.
            After all, the church ought not be indistinguishable from the world around here.  She ought to shine with the light of Christ and "be a public exponent of grace and unity" (Barth).