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.’”
***
My father is an American
History professor, and growing up we went to battlefields, lots of
battlefields. Do you know how many battlefields there are in the US? Lots, and
my dad knows them all, seemingly by heart, the dates, who fought, who led, who
won, the terrain and the little stories like some general’s breakfast
interrupted and left on the table. The four of us would uncrumple out of the
packed car and onto the field, my dad pointing up some hill, or over the
Potomac, or across a bridge and explain, “Washington crossed this river on
Christmas Eve,” and my sister and I were to notice the river’s width and
imagine the dark of night and the icy winter current, but alas, I tended to
notice the tire that was polluting the water, or the freshly manicured grass -
as my sister and I judged battlefields not by their historical significance but
by their susceptibility to cartwheeling. And so, in reading Judges, I imagine
the battlefield both as a place of war and place of play.
I imagine the writer of
Judges a little like a one sided amateur history buff describing the play by
play and ascribing morals and meaning beyond conclusive evidence. It is often
the victors who write history, and this instance is no different. I imagine him
pointing, saying, ‘The battle took place in a pass between Megiddo and Taanach, near the confluence of
streams which form the river, the Wadi Kishon. The land was fertile and the
route one of trade, and therefore the area was prized. The Israelites, lead by
Deborah and Barak were on Mount
Tabor, and the Sisera,
the general of Jabin’s army, was in the low places. The the amateur author
summarizes and surmises, ‘The people stopped following God - so they were
oppressed, they found a godly leader - so they won in a battle and were freed.
Specifically, Ehud died, and the the Israelites did what is evil in the sight
of the Lord. The Lord sold them into slavery and they cried for help. The Lord
sent the prophetess and judge Deborah, who sent out the armies and leaders to a
position at Mount Tabor, saying, “I will draw out Sisera, to meet you by the
Wadi Kishon with his chariots and his troops; and I will give him into your
hand.’ What Deborah had was strategy, this can be proved, what cannot is that
God was on one side or the other, or part of the fighting at all.
Likewise, in our own culture,
it would be easy to look at the American Civil War, and believe that God
destined the North to win because of slavery, and while slavery is evil, so is
war. Just as I don't see God in the oppression, I don’t see God in the
fighting. Perhaps this too comes from my dad. He would describe, the battle of Gettysburg, “It came in
1863, in the middle of the Civil War, the Southern Army under Lee invaded the North.
Now, what is important to know is that Gettysburg
has a series of ridges and hills in the shape of a fishhook, the curve facing
north. The Union was on the heights, and the
South under Lee kept attacking, in a three day battle. The last part, later named
Pickett’s charge on Cemetery Hill, was up a gentle slope on open country.”
These are the facts, but then my dad had a way of making history real. He’d
continue, “You sit on top of that hill and you realize, there was no way the
Confederates were going to make it, and you imagine what it would be like to
try and be massacred, and you imagine being the Union up there with a panoply,
13,000 guys charging up the hill toward you. Some might say it is a place of
victory, but paramountly its a place of death.” Looking back, I am
surprised he let us cartwheel on battlefields across the country. But perhaps,
understanding the weight of history helped him see the value in peace.
He would say, “War and battle
are traumatic, obviously. As far back as the Greek poet Homer centuries
before Christ, we can read of stuff that looks like PTSD. So people try to
cope with the trauma of war in various ways. Societies do so by assuring
themselves that the war achieved something worthwhile. In the case of the Civil
War North, the achievements seemed clear and compelling--emancipation and
preservation of the Union (and with it,
democratic government.) Lincoln
summed this up masterfully in the Gettysburg Address.” My dad would say
admiringly, and then admittingly, “Other times, like World War I, after awhile
what exactly had been achieved seemed much more problematic.”
“For the Israelites, the
achievement was that they survived as God's chosen people, with that
implied. Moreover, victory offered comforting proof of the power and
steadfast love of their God. In the brutal world of that time and place,
these were marvelous things. But to many of us (long before I ever came
along),” My dad humbly injects, “Jesus changed that equation. His times atop
hills were spent teaching us how to live, praying and finally of course dying
for us.”
In writing this sermon, I
laughed thinking that somehow those countless battlefields we visited were
finally coming in handy for understanding the battle strategy of this
scripture. Little did I know, my dad was the one preaching all along, because
and what could have been more a sign of peace then two little girls
cartwheeling on what was once a battlefield. After the battle at Mount Tabor
and the Wadi Kishon, Deborah sings poetry, “Lord I will sing, I will make
melody to the Lord, the God of Israel.” and the finale of the whole song
recounting the battle ends with, “and the land had rest forty years.” I imagine
Deborah’s singing was my sister and cartwheeling, both signs of peace, to be
preached from hill tops
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