This sermon is the third in a sermon series this July where both Donna and I are preaching on Kings and Queens of the Hebrew Bible. Although not technically a Queen, Deborah, is one of the most remarkable women that we hear about in the Hebrew Bible. She certainly had many talents and she used these talents in such a way as to better her community. She was considered a prophet for God and so served as a consultant and judge on all sorts of matters both civil, political and military. As we heard in today’s reading she not only instructed folks on when it was time to go into battle she also was clear that God accompanied the Israelites in battle.

Here is what one pastor in ministry in the United Church of Christ happened to write about Deborah this past week: “Those who have trouble with women's leadership in religious institutions (or political ones, for that matter) could use to spend a little time with Deborah. She's awesome: the most powerful prophet of her day (read: she knew what God was saying), she was also its judge (read: everybody did what she said). They called her the mother of the nation. She was such a force that Barak, the best general in Israel, would refuse to go into battle without her by his side. The story says that through her leadership, God gave the Israelites victory over their enemies, and peace for 40 years.” (Rev. Quinn G. Caldwell)

Much of what we read in the Hebrew Bible seems to suggest that women rarely played an important role in anything public… With rare exception the Hebrew Bible seems to go with the implicit assumption that it was only a “man's world.” Yet, as we hear in today’s reading – not only was Deborah a force to be reckoned with, it is also clear that there were other bright, intelligent, and crafty women who used the gifts they had been given even when it meant tricking a leader into taking a nap which lead to his death at the hand of that same woman…

Although we live in a time and a country where women have the same legal rights and opportunities as men, we do agree that even after many thousand of years we still must work at full equality between men and women – even in our culture…

Our reading for this morning tells the story of the defeat of the Canaanite king Jabin, and his commander Sisera. We get the sense from today’s reading that the situation in the “promised land” seems to be only a little better than it was back in Egypt. Although the “promised land” had been promised as a place of security, peace and prosperity, ‘a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey’, in the book of Judges we hear that once again the Israelites are experiencing a time of testing and oppression. All we really know of this particular piece of history is that the Israelites had been oppressed for twenty years by the Canaanite King Jabin. The Israelites were more than ready to be out from under that oppression.

The Book of Judges reveals that the Israelites had not been faithful to God who had brought them into the ‘promised land.’ The people of Israel had not been able to resist worshiping the gods of the other tribes and peoples that they had encountered along the way – the text says over and over again “The people of Israel kept right on doing evil in God’s sight.”

The Book of Judges is all about this slide into a time of chaos and an increased loss of faithfulness to God. In response to the fulfillment of God's promises the people had been expected to remain faithful and obedient to God and this they had not done. The people’s lack of allegiance to God, lack of obedience to God’s commandments, and their breaking of the covenant came to head at this time in their history… The book of Judges tells us of this historical time when God sent persons that were called judges to be a bridge from God to the people… The judges, like Deborah, were go-betweens to let the people know what to do and how to live better lives so that the right relationship with God could be resumed.

In the Hebrew language the title judge indicates someone who would bring others into a right relationship.

Deborah was a woman whose gifts, skills, and faithfulness brought her into the role of judge. She was considered a prophet and judge - one who could bring people into right relationship with each other and with God… In spite of a time of great transition and upheaval for the tribes of Israel, Deborah brought order and calm into the storm of her day. I believe today’s text has something for us to consider here for our lives here in 2010…

Much like this tumultuous time that we live in here in the early 21st century, Deborah’s time presented itself as a place of new patterns of life emerging and things in great flux. The political systems and the social systems of the time were all being called into question… As William Butler Yeats fretted about in one of his famous poems (The Second Coming):

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Living in an in-between time (whether in a church setting or a cultural setting) can make us quite uncomfortable… During such times it is often easy to blame others or to find fault with everything as we seek to find something that is familiar and comforting… Like the Israelites of Deborah’s time we too seem to be live in a time where the rules keep changing, where is increased frustration in our political world, where economics are complicated and threatening, where we yearn for clarity and find clarity difficult to come by… Times like these can make us both uncomfortable and fearful… We may cling to what is familiar and comfortable rather than daring or preparing to try new things and new ways…

We too, like Deborah’s generation, wish and yearn to live in right relationship with God and God’s creation. Yet we find ourselves unable to find times of peace and joy… With the national and international economies moving through great upheaval, with a political system getting more and more polarized, with environmental disasters like the oil spill in the Gulf and its tremendous impact on the entire Gulf Coast (if not the entire country) we are reminded with each day that life is full of uncertainty and that life is full of things falling apart…

The events of this world make us confront our own complicity and enormous dependence on vast quantities of oil as a nation and as individuals… Our national obsession with waging war continues in too many places around the world and threatens peace and justice for everyone…

… Deborah is the only woman (that we are aware of) who served as a judge during those extended years of turmoil in Israel and she did that work as a servant of God. She sought out God’s help with all of her judgments and consultations and made it clear that God inspired her.

One message from today’s reading from Judges is that one person can make a difference… Deborah made a difference in a time of great turmoil and brought about peace for 40 years! Any one of us can do remarkable things… Each of us has the potential to make a difference! Perhaps many of you watch the nightly news broadcast on NBC where each night, night after night, we glimpse individuals who “make a difference” with their gifts and skills – one person at a time!

Another message from today’s lesson might be that our identity as children of God needs to be focused on who we are in the eyes of God, rather than on who we are in the eyes of other persons around us… (repeat)

Another message we might take away from today’s lesson might be that there is always an ebb and flow to our spiritual lives. Our relationship with God is not a static thing… Our relationship with God is not something that gets settled once and for all at some mystical time in our lives… Like the entire story of the Israelites (from the book of Genesis right thru the book of Judges) we too must choose God again and again… Our faith needs to be a growing thing, a growing thing that we need to nurture and pay attention to – just like a garden in a hot and dry summer - we need to water and feed and pay attention to our faith!

Go out this week to consider how you might and can make a difference! Amen