A Clash of Wills
Scripture: Judges 4
Rev. Richard H. Thompson, Jun 20, 2010
The following reading is rated PG-13.
Judges 4:
"The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, after Ehud died. So the Lord sold them into the hand of King Jabin of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-ha-goiim. Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly twenty years.
At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgment. She sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, 'The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you, 'Go, take position at Mount Tabor, bringing ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun. I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the Wadi Kishon with his chariots and his troops; and I will give him into your hand.' Barak said to her, 'If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.' And she said, '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.' Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.
Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and ten thousand warriors went up behind him; and Deborah went up with him. Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the other Kenites, that is, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had encamped as far away as Elon-bezaanannim, which is near Kedesh. When Sisera was told that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, Sisera called out all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the troops who were with him, from Harosheth-ha-goiim to the Wadi Kishon. Then Deborah said to Barak, 'Up! For this is the day on which the Lord has given Sisera into your hand. The Lord is indeed going out before you.' So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand warriors following him. And the Lord threw Sisera and all his chariots and all his army into a panic before Barak; Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot, while Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-ha-goiim. All the army of Sisera fell by the sword; no one was left.
Now Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between King Jabin of Hazor and the clan of Heber the Kenite. Jael came out to meet Sisera, and said to him, 'Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me; have no fear.' So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. Then he said to her, 'Please give me a little water to drink; for I am thirsty.' So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. He said to her, 'Stand at the entrance of the tent, and if anybody comes and asks you, 'Is anyone here?' say, 'No.' But Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, until it went down into the ground - he was lying fast asleep from weariness - and he died. Then, as Barak came in pursuit of Sisera, Jael went out to meet him, and said to him, 'Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.' So he went into her tent; and there was Sisera lying dead, with the tent peg in his temple. So on that day God subdued King Jabin of Canaan before the Israelites. Then the hand of the Israelites bore harder and harder on King Jabin of Canaan, until they destroyed King Jabin of Canaan."
What about the violence in the Bible? The best answer to this question is to ask another question, "What about the violence in our world?" Because God knows the real world we live in is a pretty violent place. One could ask why that is. Even the worlds we create with our video games, our films, and our sports are violent. What's that all about? Someone has defined conflict as two parties wanting the same thing at the same time: maybe it's land, or wealth, or power, or sex-the trouble is there is not enough, or room enough for both. So the conflict gets "resolved" through violence.
The Bible is nothing if it is not an honest book. The problem of violence, says our Bibles, goes way back. It's a deeply rooted problem.
You can divide the story the Bible tells into a five act drama. In the First Act God creates everything good. It's a beautiful place, or at least it was. We can still see lots of evidence of the Genius that gave us All This. In the Second Act there's a "fall". Humankind depicted as Adam and, Eve went with the desire to become like gods. Inevitably, unavoidably says the Bible, this desire led to Genesis chapter 4, Cain and Abel, brother against brother, and murder. This is the Bible's first description of human violence.
We are all very familiar with Act Two.
But then there's Act Three. This is God entering in. As Theologian N.T. Wright put it, (he's the one who outlined this idea of the Bible in Five Acts), in Act Three we see God getting God's boots muddy in the mess of human history. In surveying the carnage and wreckage resulting from jealousy, faithlessness, and over sized egos, God may be sadly disappointed, even so God does not give up on us. People living in Act Three, which is the story of Israel beginning with God's call to Abraham, have a strong sense that God is with them in this mess. In Act Three they're learning just who God is and what this God is driving at. But it's still Act Three. There's still a lot more to learn about God, and about this world, and about themselves. We're still learning, aren't we?
Act Three includes this period of time from about 1200 to 1020 before Christ's birth we call "Judges". It follows after the wilderness wandering after the Hebrews were delivered from slavery in Egypt. After God had met Moses on the mountain to give him the "stipulations" known as the Ten Commandments. "Live like this," says God, "and you live well with God and with each other." You also limit the causes for violence. This has not changed.
Then it came time to settle down in a place called Canaan. Let's be clear. Canaan was not a nation. Life was organized by families, clans and tribes maybe a little like some places in modern Afghanistan. The Bible describes the move into Canaan a number of ways. In some places it sounds like the conquest was total and complete. In other places we get the sense that the tribes of Israel moved in and among other clans and tribes. We gather there was continual tension and competition for water and grazing land. It's a sketchy, messy period of time, and it's a violent time. But the Israelites were reminded they were not in this tension by themselves. I say "reminded" because they forgot a lot. They had a lot to learn. So do we...
This was the essential job of the Judges. Not "judge" as in a courtroom, but more like "judge" as in source of wisdom, like a prophet speaking forth the will of the Lord. This work called "Judges" describes a continual cycle that went like this: the Israelite tribes would forget their relationship with God which would lead to rebelling against God, that would inevitably lead to suffering, which in turn would cause them to cry out to God for help. God would answer by raising up a leader called a "judge". The judge would remind them of God's will and call them to repentance. The people would agree, repent and then they'd experience blessing. But then after a while they'd start the whole cycle all over again. It's like being stuck in the wash cycle. Act Two keeps replaying itself doesn't it?
We think this work called "Judges" was finally written down in the 6th century before Christ when Israel lived in exile. They had plenty of time out there in Babylon to think about what went wrong with their nation. What happened in the time of the Judges brought forward lessons they had forgotten. That this is what happens when you no longer trust God. You start worshiping at other altars. Then things start to go pretty haywire, including violence. They're still good lessons for a nation to remember.
What's God going to do with us? What is God's answer to the problem of violence?
One way for sure, is that God gets involved in the mess. "Canaan" is not a reference to a certain group of people. It's a reference to a way of life characterized by fear, power and force to control. At the beginning of this reading in chapter 4 we're told Sisera had 900 chariots of iron. In other words, he had the advantage of advanced technology the tribes of Israel did not possess. We're also told he used this power to oppress the Israelites cruelly for twenty years. The point is important-that Judges is not about attacking a certain group of people. Sometimes the Bible gets interpreted like this which sets up the rationale for using the Bible at other times to justify attacking other groups of people. What is forgotten is that God ever since the beginning of Act Three has had the whole world in mind, not just a group of tribes.
We also miss the ironic twists, even the humor that is in this story of Judge Deborah, Captain Barak, General Sisera, and lowly Jael.
This was the messy, muddy reality: once again the people had cried out to God for help. And once again God gets involved, this time through Judge Deborah. She is called a prophetess. There are many women who figure prominently in this time of the Judges. For that matter there are women leaders throughout the Bible, including Act Four in the days of Jesus, and Act Five, the days of the Church.
Deborah summoned Captain Barak, a known military leader, to tell him God's answer to their oppression. In a word, the "Lord God of Israel commands you" to take ten military units (the English reads "ten thousand" but "thousand" can also mean "unit") and get into position by Wadi Kishon, in a pass leading into rich grazing land in the Jezreel Valley. Trouble was the opposition was led by a frighteningly powerful warlord named Sisera.
Maybe Barak could feel the acid dripping in the pit of his stomach. Sisera? He had 900 iron clad chariots. He also had iron tipped spears. He told Deborah, "I'm not going against him unless you go with me..."
Deborah seemed to have a sense of God in all this. "I'll go with you," she said, "but you're in for a surprise. The Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman ..."
Maybe Barak thought he could assume just who that woman might be. We're all led to assume the same thing. Perhaps this is one point of this story-to be careful about what we assume how God answers our cry for help. Maybe we think we get it how God will act in this messy, violent world. This story reminds us that God is not so predictable.
Deborah gave the order and the battle was engaged. Amazingly, Sisera's military units and his iron chariots panicked. It strikes me that panic is a spiritual condition. How did such a force come to panic? You have to wonder, was this the hidden hand of God at work? Is the battle won or lost in the spirit? The result: Sisera's forces were completely routed and destroyed.
From the vantage point of tribe, family, and clan suffering under iron fist oppression early in Act Three this is God at work - sticking a broom handle in the spinning wheel of violence. There seems to be a lesson for us : that where the will to oppress meets the will of God there is going to be a "clash of wills". Sometimes violence is stopped, violently. There is truth in that proverb, "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword." It is still the case. So police officers, we call them "peace officers", usually do not have the option of asking permission to place hand cuffs on an out of control person's wrists. And sadly, there is still need for standing armies to limit violence around the world.
We ask, and we pray, "Dear God, please, is there any other way?"
Maybe there's a hint of an answer in what happened next. This cruel Sisera flees on foot in fear to Jael's tent. Jael is married to a metal smith named Heber. What we miss is that metal smiths were not highly regarded because they owned no land and because they were non militants. This is where the humor comes in. At least it might be humorous if you were Middle Eastern. Everyone understood the importance of hospitality. If someone needed food, or drink or a place to stay you offered because otherwise a person could literally die of exposure.
But in this situation there's more going on. The Middle Eastern person might well understand this is not the typical situation that would call for common decent hospitality. Mighty Sisera comes running, sans chariot, desperately looking for a place to hide fl2m Barak who is in hot pursuit. Jael knows something is wrong because he approaches Heber's tent without first going to Heber. This dishonors Heber and his wife Jael. So Jael would be on alert. It seems strange that she would offer Sisera hospitality, and under normal circumstances strange for Sisera to accept it. Jael knows Sisera is a very dangerous man. She understood the canaanite way. And powerful men like Sisera had a reputation.
It's amazing that she does not panic. She is clever. He asks for water. She gives him milk, because warm milk on an exhausted stomach induces sleepiness.
And while he sleeps she takes the tools all women in her station of life used to set up the tents to do what she must to end the danger.
This is not murder. This is self-defense.
What a twist this is. The weak, the vulnerable, prevailing over the power of fear and oppression. The story ends with the conclusion, "So on that day God subdued King Jabin of Canaan before the Israelites..."
Here is an Act Three answer to the problem of violence.
You look around allover the Bible it seems this is how God likes to do things-the weak, the powerless, used of God to work out the solution to the problem of violence in very surprising and unpredictable ways.
This same theme, the lowly used of God to work out the answer to the problem of violence flows into Act Four. Act Four is about God entering fully into the human dilemma in His Son Jesus. In Act Four God deals with the power of violence to claim and define and control life with the fear of death. Jesus~s was no military leader. He never so much as picked up even a tent stake to defend himself. Instead, irony of ironies, he was nailed to a stake. Yes this was violent. The ultimate act of violence, Him bearing the full brunt of all the forces of violence, social, political, personal and spiritual. We don't like to talk about what happened on the cross, just the way we don't like to be reminded of the violence in the Bible or in this world. But it was the only way to put an end to violence's power once for all. God with us, here, in the middle of this very messy world, doing the totally unexpected, dying, and then, another unexpected twist - rising.
The forces of darkness have been in a panic ever since.
Now we are in Act Five. The age of the Christian Movement. It's still a violent world. But now we're getting help. Now we know more about who God is, and what God is driving at. This comes from the other end of our Bibles, to Book of Revelation:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.' And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.' Then he said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."
Is this Act Six? No, this is probably a whole new play.
For now here is God's answer to the problem of violence:
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven..."
Please dear God help us to make it so.
Amen.
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