Judges 4:1-7
A
couple of years ago I purchased an audio version of the entire Bible. I thought that it would give me something
peaceful and calming to listen to at the end of the day, perhaps before
sleep. When I came to the Book of Judges,
I had to skip major chunks. There was so
much war and violence. It was neither calming
nor soothing. Therefore, it will
probably not surprise you that I have never preached on this book. In my defense, this is the only time we have
a reading from Judges in our 3 year lectionary cycle. It’s also short, has complicated names, and
makes no sense if you only read only the part that we heard today.
Instead
of skipping it entirely, I am going to provide a little context. The Book of
Judges picks up where the Book of Joshua ends.
Moses had appointed Joshua to be his successor and Joshua had ruled the
Hebrew people successfully for decades.
As you can imagine, following leaders like Moses and Joshua would be
quite an undertaking. When Moses died,
he appointed Joshua to be his successor.
Joshua did not appoint a successor.
This lack of leadership was difficult for the people of Israel. The first line of our reading is: “The Israelites again did what was evil in
the sight of the Lord…” Again.
The Israelites had a
pattern in how they related to God. Take
yourself back to high school or college for a minute. You remember the
couple. They would be in love, then
there would be a fight and they would break up. Then one person would decide
that they could not live without the other. They would get back together and be
happy for a time. Then things would get
difficult and they would break up again.
This is a loose analogy for what happened with the Israelites and
God. However, in this case, there was
always one party who was at fault, and it was not God.
We
do not know why God didn’t appoint a leader after Joshua died. It would be many years before David would
become King. In the interim, there were
leaders called judges. These judges were
primarily military leaders who helped Israel defend itself from various
enemies. There would be peace and a good
judge. Then the judge would die and
there would be chaos. The people would turn to other gods. They would then be attacked by an army and
realize that they could not survive without the one true God. They would beg God to deliver them and God
would send another judge. Then the
process would start all over again.
When
we get to the point in today’s story the Israelites are in trouble again. They
have been controlled by the Canaanites for 20 years. They wanted to overthrow their oppressors,
but they could only do so with God on their side. The Canaanite army was led by a man named
Sisera and had 900 chariots of iron.
When we hear chariots, we don’t think of something scary and
deadly. However, at the time, iron
chariots were the top of the line military equipment. It would be like trying
to fight 900 tanks with people armed with pistols…not a fair fight.
The
judge who led the Israelites in this epic battle was an unexpected leader. She
was a judge named Deborah. As far as we
know, Deborah was the only female judge living in a time when women had no
authority. She did. What made her a strong leader was that she knew
that her authority came from God. She
was also a good delegator. She went to a
man named Barak and told him that he would lead the army to defeat the
Canaanites.
This is where our
reading for today ends, but this is also where it gets more interesting. Barak told Deborah that he would only go if
she came with him. This is almost unbelievable—a man of that time telling a
woman that he would only go into battle with her at his side. Her response was: “I will surely go with you;
nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for
the Lord will
sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” In other words, sure, I will come, but you
are not getting any glory because God is giving the glory to a woman instead. When we read this, we assume that it is
Deborah who will receive the glory, which does not make her look very humble. It isn’t.
God had another plan. The
Israelites fought hard and won great battles sending the general, Sisera, into
hiding with an ally, the King of Hazor.
Sisera thought he was safe, but he wasn’t. While he was sleeping the wife of the king
killed him with a tent stake and then found Barak and showed him where the body
was, which meant the Israeli people were victorious.
One
of our Eucharistic prayers (which is what
the priest reads before we all take communion) says: You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and
betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another. As Christians,
it is important to acknowledge that we too have had those moments when we have
turned away from God. Sometimes we know that we are doing it. Sometimes we
don’t because we can’t see past our own self-interest. But then when we need God, we come back to
him and he always takes us back.
The story of the Jewish
and the Christian community is complicated and beautiful. It is full of twists and turns. It is full of moments of betrayal and moments
of desperation. But what makes our story
compelling, what makes our story one that does not end with the words of the
Bible, is the unexpected heroes that permeate our faith stories. Yes, we need to admit our sins and our
moments when we turn away from God and one another. I hope that we can also see those
opportunities when we can be the unexpected heroes, the instruments of God’s
love, grace and authority. The Christian story is unfinished. It is up to each
one of us to decide what role we have in the story. We do not have to be great warriors to be
the heroes of this story. We just have
to be commit ourselves to following the will of God wherever it may lead us.
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