23rd Sunday After Pentecost

Judges 4:1-9,14-20; 5:2-3, 6-9, 12-13, 24-27, 31

After a couple of weeks off, the women are back in our lessons and we get some truly great ones over the next couple of weeks.  And I bet this one we read today was pretty unfamiliar.  How many of you have ever even heard this story?  Especially about Jael.  It appears absolutely nowhere in the regular lectionary.  I bet some of you were vaguely aware of Deborah.  Deborah is a pretty common name so there is probably at least some awareness that it is biblical.  Some may even know that she was a judge engaged in battle.  She at least made it into my kids’ children’s story bible.  And I am pretty sure I taught her story at VBS at some point.  But Jael’s story is almost never told.  Maybe it’s the intimate nature of her activities, or the obvious violence (though rarely a problem in Biblical stories featuring men), but her story just doesn’t make the rounds much.  It rarely gets told. 

But today we get to hear both their stories.  In fact, we got to hear them twice.  First as a prose narrative and then in place of our regular Psalm, we read the Song of Deborah, the remnants of the folk song that originally passed down the legend.  Often written by and preserved by women, The Song of Deborah, like the Song of Miriam, and the Song of Hannah we will hear in a couple of weeks are believed to be some of the oldest material in the whole bible.  They are based on millennia old oral history preserved by centuries of women singing their stories down through generations in their tents or around their cooking fires.  And so today we get the stories of this pair of valiant women, who in some way couldn’t be more different, and in some ways, seem to be two sides of same coin.  Saviors of Israel and models of leadership.

Now the Book of Judges where we find these stories covers the time between the entry of Israel into the promised land under Joshua until the rise of the prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel which ushers in reign King Saul and King David and the start of united kingdom of Israel.  It is a time when Israel seems to have functioned a loose confederation of tribes, who went through cycles of faithfulness and sinfulness, where Israel would turn away and worship other gods, get attacked by outside forces, suffer, and eventually turn back to God.  And then God would raise up a Judge who would save them from oppression and then they would live in peace for a while until they turned away and it all started over.

And Deborah was one of these prototypical Judges.  A Woman leader who is most remarkable to me for how unremarkable she is except for being a woman, for how unfeminine she is.  Don’t get me wrong, she is unmistakably a woman, the name, the pronouns, everything points to that, but she occupies a singularly male role in the story.

Here comes Deborah and she is just so casually introduced in the exact same way as the male Judges that come before and after.  Even her title which hear as “wife of Lappidoth” is probably mistranslated.  Remember how we learned with Eve that there is no word for wife in Hebrew, Deborah is just ishah a woman and by the word order and context it is more likely that Lappidoth is a place not a person or since Lappidoth is very closely related to the word for lamp it could also be an honorific for her role as a prophetess, it could read “At that time Deborah, a prophetess, woman of illumination, was judging Israel.”

And then she goes and does all the same things as the male Judges.  She settles disputes, declares war, appoints a general, makes a battle plan, accompanies the army, gives a Brave Heart style inspirational speech and successfully executes the battle plan.  She fulfills role of a Biblical Judge to a T.  Ironically, I guess had she been male we may have paid even less attention to her and not remember her any more than other Judges like of Ehud, Shamgar, & Jephthah, none of which you have probably ever heard of.  Deborah simply does what God calls her to do and fulfills the role given to her regardless of her gender.

And this is part of the reason I love that her story is paired with Jael’s.  That victory is assured by not 1 but 2 women who couldn’t have been more different.  While Deborah ably fills a role normally occupied by men, Jael is all woman.  She is clearly identified foremost a as wife, who is dedicated to fulfilling the traditional wifely duties of her culture, pitching and maintaining the tents and the functioning  of the encampment while her husband is off suppling the foreign army.  And when Sisera arrives, she does exactly what is expected of her and offers hospitality and sustenance to the fleeing general.  She lulls him into a false sense of security with food and comfort (and as we will learn with Ruth based on the covering and uncovering with blankets maybe a little more).  She fulfills the traditional woman’s role perfectly. 

And in doing so she accomplishes something that no man could.  She slays the illusive general and finally saves Israel from oppression.  She is clever and resourceful.  She allows Sisera to underestimate her and uses that to her advantage.  Personally, I suspect this is may be why this story is so much less popular than others.  Some may say it is because of the obvious violence, but I doubt it because it uses the same basic set-up as David & Goliath which is probably the most popular story in the whole Old Testament.  Instead, I suspect we don’t hear it because this story makes people (especially men) uncomfortable, because women acting like women and using it to defeat men is scary.  It messes with the social order.

But here is the thing.  God doesn’t ever seem very much invested in our social orders.  God, all over the Bible calls people to be who they are created to be and to do the thing they are called to do, regardless and often in defiance of their gender or social position.  The Church and all of society like to proscribe roles for people to fit into.  Priests should do this and be like this, Deacons should be like this, lay leaders like this. Women should behave in this way and men in this way.  Children should do this, adults this, elderly folks this other thing.  Marriages should look like this, families like that.  But if we have learned anything at all today or over the last year, it is that when we look closely at the Bible, this is not actually God’s way at all.  God just isn’t all that into all these structures.

God calls Deborah to fill a role traditionally filled by men and in the same breath he calls Jael to a task that could only a be accomplished by a skilled woman.  And both are essential to the salvation of Israel.  And as we have seen, this happens all over the Bible.  Women called to all sorts of roles, minorities and outcasts elevated way above their station, unexpected characters, last week powerful men called to not be rulers but servants of all, even Jesus, son of God, humiliated and killed. 

And God continues to do this to the day, and across a lot more than just gender divides. God calls all kinds of people to all kinds of things.  Just because it hasn’t been done in that exact way or by people who look or sound or act just like you doesn’t mean it’s not a call.  Some of us are called to be like Deborah, some of us are more like Jael, some of us are Barak and just along for the ride.  But we are all called to something.

When women first entered the priesthood 50 years ago, they were encouraged to act as much like men as possible, to speak in deeper voices, to wear the same exact clothes and vestments no matter how ill-fitting, to downplay their roles in their families and outside obligations.  And I am willing to bet that this was probably the same for many women of that era who were newly entering male dominated fields.  I’ve seen 1980’s shoulder pads.  And there was nothing wrong with the women who broke those boundaries, some of us are called to be Deborah.

But don’t forget, some of us are also called to be Jael.  So maybe its also time to elevate women’s traditional roles as well, caring, loving, teaching, keeping things running, being clever resourceful and creative.  Using what is available to us to make real and lasting change.  Those are important roles too.  These stories deserve to be told, these contributions deserve to be honored too, just as much as the stories of the Deborahs of the world. 

So maybe the question we leave ourselves with today is this: Can we find a way to honor both stories?  And all the stories in between.  To find equal footing and equal respect in the church and in the world for all who follow God’s call no matter what role they fill?  Amen.