Deborah sermon

I chose Deborah as my Old Testament hero. Since that is my given name, I have always been
drawn to the story, but I hadn’t really explored it before at this depth.
 
Deborah is the only judge in the book of Judges that is female. She is also the only one in the book that is both a judge and a prophet. She is also the only judge in the book that the writer has only good things to say about. And she is the only singer/songwriter of all the judges. In studying this story I have found 4 spiritual principles for us to live by. 

Before we get started, let’s pray: God of all times and all people, thank you for your Word and for the ways that you speak to us through story and song. Open our hearts and minds to hear from you this morning. Amen
 

Before I get to the spiritual principles in the story, let me tell you the story of Deborah. In the book of Judges, the people of Israel go through 7 cycles of turning away and turning back to God. In this picture, we see the circular nature of this period of Israel’s history. Israel serves the Lord, Israel falls into sin and idolatry, Israel is enslaved, Israel cries to the Lord, God raises up a judge, and Israel is delivered. Then it starts all over again. Deborah is the 4th judge in the series of cycles – the center of the stories.

 
As her story begins, Israel is under Canaan’s rule – the king is Jabin and the commander of the army is Sisera. Israel is terrified of Sisera because he has 900 iron chariots – a fact that is mentioned several times. Deborah has set up a court in the middle of Israel – in the hill country of Ephraim, out under a palm tree – where people from all over Israel come to settle their disputes. The first description of Deborah says that she is the wife of Lappidoth – a name that is never mentioned again, but that can be translated as torches or flames. Also, the word ‘wife’ can be translated ‘woman’ – so she could be being described as a “woman of torches” or ‘woman of fire.’ 

I don’t want to spend too much time on this, but I do want to point out that there is no indication that anyone had any issue with a woman being a judge. I am thankful to be part of a denomination that recognizes women’s gifts for leadership – in fact this year is the 40th anniversary of that decision. There is an initiative within the Covenant Church called “Develop a Deborah” which "encourages pastoral leaders to identify and encourage women in their ministry contexts with leadership gifts."

Back to the story. Deborah sends for Barak, who lives in Northern Israel and gives him a direct and  personal command from God. ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun. 7 I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his [d]many troops to the river Kishon, and I will give him into your hand.’ But for whatever reason that is not revealed in the story, Barak doesn’t want to go without Deborah. He tells her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.”

Deborah agrees to go with him, but tells him that because of putting this condition on his obedience God will hand Sisera over to a woman instead of him. So Deborah and Barak lead 10,000 men. Deborah gives the command of God again to Barak saying that the Lord had gone out before him to lead him in victory, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not even one was left. Even those chariots, which are mentioned several times, were destroyed. 

Not one of his army was left, but Sisera himself escaped. He is desparate and goes to the tents of his allies, the Kenites. He goes into the tent of Jael, a woman, and asks her to stand guard at the door and hide him. He asks her for some water, but instead she gives him milk which seems to have a soothing effect on him and he falls asleep in her tent. 

While he is sleeping, Jael grabs a tent peg and a hammer and proceeds to hammer the tent peg through the temple of the sleeping commander all the way to the ground. The story of Deborah ends with her and Barak singing a song together that tells the story of the way God has delivered Israel once again.

The four spiritual lessons that I got from this story are:
1. God gives us direct and personal instructions.
2. It’s Ok to ask for help.
3. If someone asks for help, help them!
4. Celebrate spiritual victories.

Let’s look at these in a little bit more detail. The first one, “God gives us direct and personal instructions” is fairly self-explanatory. Sometimes these instructions come through our friends, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul and also through our co-workers, spouses or friends. This reminds me of that great Mark Twain quote, "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." We do know what God is asking us to do. He has made it abundantly clear. 

The second principle “it’s ok to ask for help” is easy to know but hard to do. We don’t like to admit that we are weak. Barak was up against 900 iron chariots – what are you up against? I think that most of us don’t realize where the battle comes in against us in our spiritual lives. The daily tasks of forgiving, loving and showing kindness are our battleground and many days it seems like there are 900 ironclad reasons for withholding these from those who have offended us. This is when we need to ask for help. ““If you will go with me, then I will go” – ask someone for prayer. Ask someone for help. It’s not only ok, but it is biblical – Ecc 4:8-9 is one example, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another
to lift him up.”

This leads to the third principle, “If someone asks for help, help them!” In studying this story, I came across some excerpts from Sandra Glahn’s book “Java with the Judges” – she had this to say about the story of Deborah, “is there someone in your life whose faith you can bolster by your presence?” let me ask that again, “is there someone in your life whose faith you can bolster by your presence?” We need each other and we really need to help each other without finding fault – the way that God says he helps those who ask for wisdom. If someone is humble enough to come to you for help, the last thing he/she needs is a lecture or a sigh or an “I told you so.” 

We all need help and the truly strong ones among us are the ones who are able to see and admit where they are weak. Romans 14 gives great instructions on how to help and support one another in a way that is non-judgmental, I highly recommend taking some time to study it this week. The first verse of the next chapter concludes the passage: (this is the Message version) “Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, ‘How can I help?’” 

The last principle is to “celebrate spiritual victories.” I think that it is easy and natural and human to see faults or failures, but I think it is good, hard spiritual work to see victories and growth. Israel went through 7 cycles of failure and success and I think sometimes I go through that many in one day! We will again and again do what is right in our own eyes or do what is evil in the sight of the LORD just as Israel did. But we have to celebrate those victories, small as they may be, when we make right choices. When we don’t say that snarky comment. When we recognize grace or maturity or kindness. The song at the end of the story recounts all parts of the recent events – the good and the bad. The power and majesty of God is recognized as the primary source of victory. The song rejoices in God and gives Him praise and credit for deliverance.
 
I love to study these Old Testament stories and find treasures of spiritual truth. These 4 principles are essential for life together.
 
You know what God is asking you to do. I mean, I mostly always know what God is asking me to do in any given circumstance – turn the other cheek, do unto others, don’t let unwholesome talk come out of my mouth, just to name a few of my recurring instructions. If you don’t know what God is asking you, then spend some time in the word and in silence and he will tell you. 

Once you know what it is that you need to do, ask for help. Identify a few people in your life that you think you could ask and then swallow your pride and go ask. You will be glad you did.

And when someone asks you for help, help them. Don’t mock them or talk about them or ignore them, just help. Pray for them, encourage them, ask them how it’s going.
 
And then, when you or your friend has successfully forgiven or loved or shown kindness or whatever it is, celebrate! There is nothing more encouraging than recognizing where we have grown or where we have succeeded where we used to fail. And sometimes we are too close to see it. So if you see growth in someone – tell them! If you see where someone is succeeding, show them! I was lost but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. Sing it from the rooftops.

Sing with Deborah and Barak, “let those who love God be like the rising of the sun in its might.”Amen.

Groundhog's Day Spirituality

When I was a young girl, I went to camp every summer. One year, during bible study, my counselor was talking about bullies. She said, "The lion with the loudest roar has the biggest thorn in its paw." This has stayed with me all these years and reinforces what the bible says in I Samuel 16:7 "The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” This insider information about bullies made me realize that there is insider information about nearly every situation. It was an invitation to big picture thinking and compassion that has helped me in dealing with conflict and reconciliation ever since. The Ian Maclaren quote "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," has also reinforced this idea.

Kindness doesn't come naturally to me. I am a quick reactor and often focused on behavior or justice. I find it hard to ignore the whisperers at the movie theatre or children being unkind to another child – even if I don't know them! I want to jump in and correct and set things right.

Being honest about my struggle and asking for help is a key to growth. Living in community has taught me the most about how unkind I am! That along with marriage and parenthood! Community has also caused me to be transparent with my neighbors and friends and ask for help when I need it. It is an amazing luxury to live with people who are also concerned about your growth and maturity.  But it is a challenge to accept help and to keep accepting advice and correction – it can be tiring at times when you are caught in a Groundhog's Day spiritual battle and living with people 24/7 in the midst of it.

If you have never seen the movie "Groundhog's Day" then you don't know what I mean by the statement "Groundhog's Day spiritual battle". In the movie, Bill Murray's character is trapped in the same day, February 2, seemingly forever. He wakes up to the same day over and over and over. He goes through the stages of loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, in his seemingly never ending Groundhog Day journey.

I like this as a metaphor for spiritual growth, because somedays it feels like I will never overcome some of my life dominating sins, ruts, and patterns and I feel like I'm trapped in the same spiritual "day". I think this is why it often gets harder instead of easier to walk with God, live in community and not become weary in well-doing.

We never arrive, and often our flaws and shortcomings become more pronounced instead of less as we get older. And if we are living in community, a small town or attending the same church for decades, people know us! really know us! and that is such a gift and an un-gift! Like family, the people that we are close to see us probably better than we see ourselves.

Parker Palmer – an author and educator who, among many other more recent honors, titles and degrees, was named one of the thirty most influential senior leaders in higher education and one of the ten key agenda-setters of the past decade back in 1998 by the Leadership Project, tells this story about his mom:

Mom had a hard time understanding how I could earn my living by working independently as “a writer and traveling teacher." For her, a REAL job meant having a title at a company, dressing in a suit and tie, and going downtown to an office, just like my Dad did for sixty years. It did NOT mean spending half of one’s life pecking out words on a keyboard while dressed in pajamas and a robe—and the other half flying around the country doing God-knows-what!

When Mom was in her late eighties, she asked me once again, "Parker, exactly HOW do you make your living? I don't get it, and frankly, my friends don’t either!”

I said, "Well, Mom, I spend half my time at home writing books and articles, hoping to communicate with people about things that matter to me. Sometimes, people read what I write and invite me to give a speech or a workshop where we can talk face-to-face. And… Um… Well... I guess that's about it.”

I can see her now, sitting in her wingback chair, cane planted firmly in the carpet, looking regal and annoyed. After a bit, she said, "So, you make your living by TALKING to people. Is that right?"

Knowing this was not going to end well, I threw in the towel. 

"Yes, Mom," I replied. "That's a fair way to sum it up."

She thought for a moment, then said, 

"Well, Parker, I don't MIND talking to you. But I certainly wouldn't pay for it!"

The grace and kindness I receive from the people I live with is the best reminder of why and how to be kind. But grace and kindness often arrive in strange wrappings.Kathleen Norris talks about grace like this: “If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.”  Or, in the case of letting ourselves be known and vulnerable, grace might come in playful teasing from a friend until we can laugh at ourselves, in a gentle or not so gentle word of reproach, or a look that means "you're doing that thing again."

Ultimately, Bill Murray's character breaks the cycle by learning to be kind, to let go of his selfishness and to be loved.

Several years ago I had a head injury – I fell down the stairs in our building and landed right on my head.  After several weeks, I was still having headaches and memory problems. My doctor prescribed "cognitive rest" – no reading, no screens of any kind, no long conversations – "I tell my athletes to stare at a blank wall," he said. So for two weeks, that is what I did. I took naps and baths and short walks and I tried to not think about anything too complicated or worrisome.  I had been learning about the practice of silence right before this happened, so I also tried to listen to God's voice. It was an amazing gift – this rest for my mind – and it started to change me. Dallas Willard had this to say about solitude, which is a key part of silence: "Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all. You will find yourself, and God will find you in new ways."

So what do these things have to do with each other? Well, I have always wanted to be kinder and to be able to step back from a situation to see the underlying causes and to believe the best about others, but I usually failed miserably: my quick reactions overriding my desire to be kind. What I was lacking was this silence. This ability to quiet myself.  And I definitely haven't arrived, but I know that a few moments of silence can help to right things again when I feel off balance. Not empty silence – but practicing the presence of the eternal God.

When I sit silently before God, I can find that bigger picture more easily. Everything else fades away and I am forced to think of eternity and meaning in a way that brings everything into perspective. And I stop taking myself so seriously. Spending time with the God of the cross, I can talk to Him about my pain; I can talk to Him about being misunderstood and mistreated. And He knows. Hebrews 4:15-16 from the Message Bible tells us that "We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help." v16 in the NIV says it like this "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

And once we've found that grace, we can extend it to others in their time of need. Like Groundhog's Day, sometimes music gets in our heads and plays over and over and over. And often, it's not music that we particularly love, but for some reason it's stuck firmly in some remote part of our brain. There is a song that runs through my head often that I couldn't even listen to all the way through while preparing for this sermon with its 80's electronic music and dramatic vocals, my apologies to anyone who likes this song, but the chorus says "it's your kindness that leads us to repentance O God; knowing that you love us no matter what we've done, makes us want to love you too."

And although it's not a tune I want in my head, it is a message that I want to play on repeat. and maybe, like Bill Murray's character, I will be changed little by little by little, day after day as I pursue kindness and I know that one day I will awake to find the lover of my soul by my side in a new day that will never end.

Use Your Words - a reflection on John 8

Then they all went home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.  At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

As I was studying for this sermon, many commentaries brought up the fact that the woman should not have been brought there alone. As one commentary put it "adultery is, after all, a team game." That the woman is brought there alone felt significant. So I tried to read it with that fact in mind and then I started to see echoes of the story God has been telling all along.

Marriage is a metaphor that God uses from the very beginning to describe His relationship with His people, Israel. Adultery is a metaphor that God uses starting in Deuteronomy and continuing throughout the entire Old Testament to describe the way His people will act towards Him. Over and over again we see Israel as the harlot, the prostitute, the adulterous or wayward wife. In Ezekiel, God says "I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery…I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers; they will strip you of your clothes and bring a mob against you, who will stone you..."

The accusations are swirling around Jesus' head and the woman is standing helpless and accused. Jesus writes in the dust of the temple court. The first covenant was written in stone by the hand of God. It established the covenant relationship between God and Israel. These marriage vows that were meant to unite God with His people became a list of do’s and don’ts.

How did we get here? How did our relationship get so broken? When God is talking to Jeremiah about his unfaithful wife Israel, He says "“How bitter it is! How it pierces to the heart!" God loves and longs for His unfaithful bride.

Then Jesus stands up and faces the crowd. When Jesus sees the crowd of accusers, He sees and hears THE accuser: the one who accuses us before God day and night. Later that same day He will say to the crowd, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning." Jesus knows who the real enemy is.

After He says to them "anyone without sin can cast the first stone," He bends down to write a second time. He is beginning a new love letter. A letter that will be written on our minds and hearts. A new covenant that will make the first one obsolete.

When Jesus stands up, He is alone with the woman. Such a powerful and intimate scene.

where are they? has no one condemned you?

no one, sir

then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.

Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself. I will promise to make you Mine forever. I will take you as My bride. I will keep My promise and make you Mine. Then you will know the Lord. It shall come about in that day,” says the Lord, “That you will call Me my husband."

God uses language to speak to us in ways that we can understand. He used the imagery of the wayward wife in order to communicate to the nation of Israel in terms that they could relate to. He does not use this imagery to shame, but to communicate His desire for His people. All through the Bible God uses different words to describe His relationship to us:  He is a Bridegroom, a shepherd, a king, a door, a Father running to meet us on the road, a bird, a rock, living water, the bread of life and the Light of the World.

This all reminds me of another story: The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. Let me read to you just a few pages:

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”

If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,“ I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.”

“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny, “I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you.”

“If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,” said his mother, “I will become a mountain climber, and I will climb to where you are.”

This goes on like this for several more pages until the conclusion:

Shucks,” said the bunny, “I might just as well stay where I am and be your little bunny.” And so he did.

Over and over again in the Bible, we see God like the mama bunny telling us how He will meet us at every turn. And like the mama bunny, He desires for us to give up our rebellion and wandering.

So what is our response? Can you see yourself as the woman in the story? Can you stand before the living Christ just as you are? Caught in the act.  Filthy, naked, exposed. In the presence of Jesus our guilt is revealed; we have no defense.

Only the one without sin has the right to cast the first stone. Only Jesus is in the position to condemn. But instead of condemning, He rescues. Instead of accusing, He intercedes on our behalf. He knows we are guilty but He wants us to be free from shame. Brene Brown, in her study of shame and vulnerability says this: “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither...language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.”

Hosea, the prophet who married the harlot, writes these words: “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously" And God responds “I will heal [your] waywardness. I will love [you] lavishly.”