Deborah

Surprises come unexpectedly.  Duh.

But sometimes surprises happen right before our eyes and we miss them.  The story of Deborah in the Bible’s book of Judges is a repository of surprises.  Surprised?  Surprised that there is a significant character named Deborah?  Surprised there is a book in the Bible named Judges?  Let me help you see the abundance of surprises in this story.  And keep reading, because there is a surprise at the end you won’t want to miss.

To bring you up to this point in history, Israel had moved into the Promised Land, and Joshua – their fearless leader, had died.  Judges were raised up by God to help Israel defeat her enemies.  “Whenever the Lord raised up a judge over Israel, God was with that judge and rescued the people from their enemies throughout the judge’s lifetime.  For the Lord took pity on his people, who were burdened by oppression and suffering” (Judges 2:18).  Two judges came and went before Deborah’s story occured, and 120 years had passed.

The first surprise comes in the first verse of Judges 4: After Ehud’s death, the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight.  This should come as a surprise.  Israel had experienced peace for the last 80 years because of  Judge Ehud’s leadership.  Once he died, however, they ran amuck.  If you are familiar with the story of Israel, however, you are not surprised, because this was their pattern – faithful for awhile, then cheat on God like an adulterous spouse.  If we are honest with ourselves, we may be surprised that we follow the same pattern.  A human reality.

We are surprised to learn more details – their biggest foreign threat had 900 iron chariots, while Israel had pitchforks.  The Canaanites were the military super power, and Israel had the military strength of Aruba.  Imagine if Arubans felt threatened by the U.S.?  They’d be toast if a conflict ever broke out.  So it was with Israel.  Scared to death, they decided to call Home and ask for help…

Enter Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, who was a prophet judging Israel at that time.  SURPRISE!  Deborah was a WOMAN!  This was at a time when women were more or less property, treated more like a possession than a human being.  This is incredible.  Quick aside:  if you spend an hour reading about all the judges, you will quickly determine that Deborah was the best judge that served in that capacity – heads and shoulders above the others.  A bonus surprise that reminds us, early on, that God is not guilty of gender bias – that’s a human creation.

Next surprise: Deborah performed her role under a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim.  You are shocked, right?  Of course you are, because you remember that the Ark of the Covenant that Indiana Jones found originally split its time between Bethel and Shiloh, which is where the priests were doing their thing.  The priests were failing to perform their role satsfactorily, which is in part why people were seeking Deborah’s counsel.  People began looking outside the church for help from God, because they weren’t getting it there…  Know anybody who has ever felt that way?

Deborah then got a text message from God with military instructions.  She called Barak, one of Israel’s military leaders to gather the troops to take on the Canaanites.  As a man of great courage and strength, he said yes – but only if Mama Deborah went with him.  Sigh.  Surprise.  Deborah, who would become known as the Mother of Israel,  agreed to hold Barak’s hand as they went to prepare for battle.  But – and here is another surprise – this would come with a price: Barak would not receive any honor from the victory.  In fact, a woman would be given credit.  A little self-serving for Deborah to want credit?  We’ll see.

Then, another surprise: right in the middle of the story, the writer gives us what looks to be a pointless detail about some guy who was a shirt-tail relative of Moses who left the rest of the family and raised his sheep some distance away.  Ever have a friend tell you a story, only to get sidetracked by a few details you care nothing about?  Pretty annoying – get on with the story!

Upon hearing of the Israelite theater, Sisera, the commander of the Canaanite army, gathered his troops and all his fighter jets (iron chariots) for battle.  No surprise, there.

Deborah encouraged Barak and Israel’s 10,000 troops by assuring them God was going to give them victory that very day.  Surprise!  The Israelites had more than their pitchforks to fight with – God was going to show up.

The next scene surprised everybody.  Barak led the 10,00 Israelites to attack the Canaanite troops, when the Lord threw Sisera and all his chariots  and warriors into a panic.  Sisera leaped down from his chariot and escaped on foot.  Then Barak chased the chariots and the enemy army, killing all of Sisera’s warriors.  Not a single one was left alive.  Nobody knows exactly what happened.  Deborah wrote a song about the whole event (Judges 5), where she alluded to maybe a serious thunderstorm with hail, perhaps – whatever it was, everyone was surprised, and interpreted it as God’s activity on behalf of the Israelites.  We are also surprised to learn – those of us who live in the nation boasting the greatest military force in the history of the world – that military might is no guarantee of indefinite dominance.  We don’t really like to hear about that surprise in America, but it is true.  Always has been.  So perhaps that doesn’t qualify as a surprise.

Sisera was still on the run, however, and Barak and Deborah were in chase.  Sisera took refuge in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because they had some sort of peace agreement worked out (this Heber dude is the guy mentioned in that apparently pointless aside earlier in the story).  There are numerous surprises in this scene.  First, wife Jael invited him into her tent.  Big no-no.  I don’t think she was offering any services that day – just refuge – but it was not her place to do so.  In ancient times, it was the husband’s duty and honor to show hospitality to strangers.  She was robbing him of his role – doing a man’s job.

Sisera was happy to find a good hiding place, went inside, and – surprise! – asked for a drink of water.  This broke another social rule: the guest doesn’t ask for anything – it is the host’s job to take care of every need.  This was a great offense that most certainly was not lost on the woman Jael.  Instead of water, she gave Sisera a glass of warm milk and then tucked him into bed under some nice warm blankets and agreed to keep watch for Barak.  What a nice surprise!  What excellent service!  Nighty night – see you in the morning.

Once Sisera was asleep Jael, the hostess with the mostess, thoughtfully grabbed a hammer and a tent post, and lovingly drove the massive nail through one of Sisera’s temples all the way through the other and into the ground, killing him instantly. 

SURPRISE!  Deborah wasn’t the one to take out Sisera after all.  Jael fulfills the prophecy to Barak’s chagrin.  Bonus surprise: I guess allies – especially those who sign under threat – may not be as friendly as we think.

Barak showed up and, much to his surprise, was taken to see Sisera by Jael.  She’s the brave one we’re talking about, not Barak. 

So what?  From this story we have the opportunity to learn some things about God, life and ourselves.  We learn that God can move anybody to action, bypassing cultural norms and limitations.  When those anybodies do what they need to do, peace happens.  I believe that is the greatest, most wonderful surprise of all.  In time, God prevails.  Life, Spirit, Shalom cannot be squashed despite our best efforts.  This doesn’t make it all better, but it sure helps when we’re facing what seem to be terrible odds against us. 

What is the final surprise?  It’s a surprise just for you.  You are made in the image of God and are, therefore, good, creative, inventive, powerful, and capable.  While it may not be a good idea to hammer a tent stake through someone’s temple (please, please don’t do that), there are actions you can take and attitudes you can adopt that will bring more and more of God’s peace, God’s Kingdom of Shalom into the land.  To do what you need to do may require doing things differently than normal.  Okay.  Or, perhaps you, like Deborah, have a clear sense of what God wants to do and say to someone around you.  Do you have the guts to speak?  Or has your gender, your level of education, your social status, your past mistakes, your skin tone, your sexual orientation, and/or the labels others have placed on you so thoroughly masked your in-the-image-of-God-ness that you can’t see yourself doing anything so bold?  Surprise!  You can!  Ask God for clear guidance, seek counsel from others if necessary, and do what you sense God calling you to do – let God be the Judge.

May you dwell on the surprises found in Deborah’s story, and may you find yourself in God’s story doing surprising things that bring more and more of God into a world hoping you will.

Joshua

Joshua was one of two people recorded in the Bible as having experienced being slaves in Egypt who also was allowed to enter the Promised Land.  Caleb was the other.  When others cowered in fear over the armies they would face in the new land, they stood faith.  They were fully confident that if God was leading them, they would prevail.  He had already experienced incredible acts of God before he became Israel’s new leader, replacing Moses.  Under his leadership, Joshua watched as God parted the waters of the Jordan River during the rainy season.  Pretty amazing.  He called for people to consecrate themselves to God before attempting to take Jericho.  That consecration was circumcision for all males in Israel.  The fact that they subjected themselves to this says a little something about their commitment to God, and also says a lot about their trust in Joshua as God’s chosen leader.  As they were sharpening their swords and working on their “shouts”, Joshua was certainly full of faith.

God was with them, for sure.

Then he had a really surprising conversation with an apparent angel – the commander of God’s army, no less!  Not realizing initially that he was addressing an angel, he asked a simple question of this stranger.  Are you friend or foe?  Read it for yourself:

When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?”
“Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.”
At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence. “I am at your command,” Joshua said. “What do you want your servant to do?”
The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did as he was told. (Joshua 5:13-15)

I don’t know about you, but if I were Joshua, I wouldn’t be comfortable with the angel’s reply to my question.  Up to that point, I would have been completely confident that God was with me and my people, and therefore we would have nothing to fear.  The angel’s reply, however, would change my thinking, I think, because it has now, some 3500 years later.

Historically, we human beings have always been wanting God on our side.  Why do you think people started sacrificing stuff in the first place?  They wanted to appease the gods.  If things were going well, it was a clear indication that God was not pleased with us and needed to be won over again with more signs of our commitment.  In our history, we went so far as to sacrifice our children.  In modern times, our confidence that God is with us has provided a carte blanche pass to do whatever we think we need to do – damn the consequences.  If a few people need to be killed for their apostasy, so be it.  If a lot of people need to be killed, genocide may even be necessary.  Hitler was convinced of this.  In recent years, a well known conservative pastor, convinced that God is on the side of the United States, was suggesting to whoever was listening we should nuke Iran.  Because God is with us, and not with them.  God is on our side, not theirs.

We validate our position with the Bible itself.  God called Abram to be God’s chosen, right?  God’s “with-us-ness” was with Abraham’s line all the way through the end of Genesis.  When we meet Moses in exodus, God displays his favoritism for God’s people and for God’s leaders, too with great acts of power.  Joshua went on to defeat the enemies of Israel time and again.  To this day, especially conservative Christians and Jews are certain that the Jewish people are still God’s chosen people – mess with them and you’ll eventually be toast.  Because God is with them.  Translated into personal experience, we can get to such a place of confidence that God favors us that we can assume that our dreams are God’s dreams, our likes are God’s likes, our opinions are God’s.  Our biases,prejudices, hatred, anger, etc. – all are God’s, too, because we are God’s. 

Joshua’s exchange with angel brings us to a full stop, however, because of one word: No.  Many translations use the word “neither” as above, but the literal answer to Joshua’s friend or foe question was simply “no”.  No?  What do we do with that?  The angel doesn’t qualify it, either.  I’m not on your side any more than the other side.  Commentators quickly skip over this nonsense, pointing out that God miraculously conquered Jericho in the very next scene.

But the “no” is deafening to me, and I love it.  The angel goes on to note that the ground was holy, which required a different posture. No shoes.  Humility before God. 

I think we human beings have a very natural tendency to assume that the way we see the world is the right way, the true way.  And, since our way of seeing things is right and true, I think we naturally assume that God probably sees things the same way, since God is the source of all things right and true.  For trivial matters, this doesn’t really matter.  But for things that impact the state of our planet and the health of the people who inhabit it, it matters as much as anything can matter.  In a time when it feels like political polarities are normative, I see this as very dangerous.  Our government in recent years has sunk to a new low, where it appears that honoring party lines is more important than finding a solution.  I wonder if they are a reflection of our culture, or if they are influencing our culture to buy into their partisan ways.  We all suffer when we choose to cling to our polarized position.

I get concerned over current international affairs.  When we believe that we, the United States, are right and true, it is difficult to entertain dialogue with those who strongly oppose us.  When we urge other countries to give just one percent of GDP to combat extreme poverty, we don’t back it up with our own sacrifice, and neither do they.  People die because of our indifference, because we assume we are right, and that God is on our side.

I wonder if what God was trying to communicate to Joshua that day with his surprisingly negative response was simply that God has a much higher, more noble, and infinitely more beautiful agenda than our puny, short-sighted, usually self-indulgent dreams.  It’s not that God was reneging on God’s desire to broadcast God’s hope and grace through one particular country.  I think the angel was simply wanting to remind Joshua of a truth that was being talked about when Joshua went to press.  A truth that the prophet Isaiah penned (Is. 55:8-9):

My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

If this great insight is true – and I think it is – it requires something different of me.  It requires that I – we – take on a different posture toward God.  And life.  It requires a barefoot approach toward both.  Vulnerable. Humble.  Choosing to not be arrogant.  Intentionally wondering how limited our view might be.  Recognizing that we are inherently arrogant, which leads us to a great many mistakes.


As we who claim to follow Jesus find ourselves facing very complex problems that we can address, may we have the wherewithal to follow the advice of another prophet who would remind us to pursue justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God through the holy ground we tread.