SUNDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2005
ABOUT THE READINGS
Judges 4: 1-7. According to the biblical story, following the Exodus from Egypt, the forty years in the wilderness of Sinai, the death of Moses and the leadership of Joshua into the Promised Land, the Israelite people began the difficult task of occupying and settling in to this land where there were already other people living. It was no more true then, three and a bit thousand years ago, than it was following World War Two, that this was a land without a people for a people without a land.
Scholarly opinion nowadays is that rather than arriving in Canaan in one great swarm of people as the culmination of an exodus from Egypt ?± which itself may or may not have historically happened as described in the Bible ?± smaller bands of inter-related Semitic clans came into the land at various times over many years. As the presence of these clans grew, the local inhabitants became increasingly threatened and reacted violently to these interlopers. And so the settlement in Canaan of the people who became the Israelites became a matter of frequent battles and bloodshed.
There was no designated leadership of the whole Hebrew people. Rather, from time to time leaders emerged who have been given the name "judges". They were arbitrators of differences between the various Hebrew tribes, and often also were war leaders, raising armies to combat the inhabitants of the land. One of these judges was a prophetess named Deborah. Her story is told in chapter 4 of the book of Judges, and again in chapter 5 where it appears in poetic form, as a song. The lectionary compilers set only the first seven verses of the story, but in doing so introduce four of the five main characters of this story: Jabin, king of the Canaanites and Sisera the commander of his army, Deborah herself, and Barak who was to command the Israelite army in a battle with Sisera.
1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11. 1 Thessalonians is probably the first of Paul??s letters to be written, and therefore if it is, it??s the earliest written record we have of Christianity. When the letter was written, Christianity was still very young and the first generation of Christians were still alive. The letter reflects the conviction of the earliest Christians that Christ would return during their lifetime. Paul is writing to the little house-church that he founded in Thessalonica about that day and time, which will come unexpectedly and so all need to be ready for it and to live lives worthy of it.
SERMON
The book of Judges is a good example of history theologised. To what extent its contents actually reflect historical events as we understand that term is unclear. But it does give a more realistic picture of the Israelite occupation of the land of Canaan than does the preceding book of Joshua, which presents the ?´party line??, as it were, of the children of Israel moving from exodus into an en masse occupation of Canaan. The book of Judges reflects something of what the scholars imagine really happened ?± groups of Semites moving around the Fertile Crescent or coming out the desert nomadic lives they have been living, and beginning to settle in Canaan. It is part of a movement from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer culture to the beginning of a more settled agrarian culture and was happening in many other parts of the ancient world around this time in human history. The desire for arable land brought different peoples into conflict either when both sought to settle the same piece of land, or when one already-settled group found others trying to muscle in. Sometimes different peoples lived in relative harmony and peaceful coexistence, but more often they fought and sought to wipe each other out.
The book of Judges theologises these very common patterns of human settlement and conflict. The book consists of a series of short stories that follow a four-fold theologised pattern reflecting the see-sawing relationships between a people already in a land and a people trying to take possession of the land. First, each story says, Israel sins. What the biblical writers saw as Israel??s sin was invariably their accommodating or even adopting the religious practices of the people amongst whom they have settled. So, secondly, God punishes Israel by having the people amongst whom they are settled oppress and persecute them. The beginning of our reading this morning spoke of Israel doing "what was evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord sold them into the hand of King Jabin of Canaan ?ñ (who) oppressed the Israelites cruelly twenty years.
Thirdly in this pattern, the people of Israel cry out to God for help, and, fourth, God raises up a saviour in the form of a judge, who leads Israel against their enemy. Or, in non-theologised terms, eventually someone emerges who is able to rekindle the religious and tribal vision and unite the Israelites for a time, sufficient to defeat the oppressing ruler. Usually this person was both a prophet and judge (or arbitrator) on one hand and military leader on another.
This story is about a woman who displayed what were usually male characteristics and prerogatives of hearing and speaking for the divine, and an ability to wisely settle disputes for Israel. Rather than raise and lead an army, she selects someone else to do that, and tells him that God will make him victorious. Here, rather unkindly, the lectionary leaves us. The rest of the story is a good yarn, albeit the kind of yarn you wouldn??t want your small children to hear. I will tell you the story.
Barak is rather sceptical ?± neither he nor any of the people have heard God speak. He has only this woman??s word for it. So Barak tells Deborah that he will go fight if she comes too; if she won??t, he won??t. If she will stake her life on this alleged message from God, then so will he. Deborah mocks his hesitance and rather ominously replies: "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 the story gathers momentum. Sisera, the commander of the Canaanite army, hears of Israelites massing at Mt Tabor. In his haste and his arrogance ?± after all, he does posses the latest and most feared military invention, iron chariots and nine hundred of them at that ?± in his haste and his arrogance he leads his chariots down the wadi, a dry riverbed. When the Israelite army swarm down the steep slopes, the chariots have nowhere to manoeuvre, and a general massacre of the Canaanite army ensues. Sisera flees, and while fleeing comes upon an isolated encampment of people who have an alliance with his king. He thankfully accepts an offer of hospitality from Jael, the wife of the Bedouin chief, has something to drink, and lies down to rest.
Jael, while fulfilling the all-important law of hospitality in the desert, is in a quandary. She knows who this sleeping man is, she knows the Israelites have obviously won the battle and can??t be far behind, and she knows they won??t take kindly to someone sheltering the enemy commander. She also knows what happens to women who are on the losing side, even if her husband is a descendant of Moses?? father-in-law. So while Sisera is asleep, she takes a hammer and a tent peg, and drives the tent peg through his head, pinning him to the ground and leaving him to die a convulsive death. There ?± I told you this wasn??t a story for children.
As expected, Barak and his soldiers turn up. Jael takes Barak into the tent, "and there," reads the biblical text, "was Sisera lying dead, with the tent peg in his temple." The passage and the chapter conclude, "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."
There is nothing particularly edifying about such stories from the Old, or First, Testament, except in as much as they remind us of the huge shift in understanding that has taken place ?± well, for some people anyway.
When Deborah summons Barak, it is not just to end the persecution of their people that she makes him Israel??s war chief. She is commissioning him in God??s name to conduct a holy war, a jihad, a crusade. It is not just freedom for themselves that is sought, but also annihilation of the enemy. "Then the hand of the Israelites bore harder and harder on King Jabin of Canaan, until they destroyed King Jabin of Canaan." Destroying King Jabin of Canaan means also destroying his people by crushing them into submission. This also meant destroying their culture including their religious practices.
What is tragic is that this kind of attitude and behaviour is not confined to the pages of earlier human history. This kind of behaviour persists in the twenty first century of the Common Era.
We see it most clearly in the terrorism of al Qaeda. Militant Islam ?± which is a small minority of Islam ?± isn??t interested in peaceful coexistence and pluralism, with different religions and cultures living together in harmony. Its long-term goal is the Islamisation of the world, and thus a holy war is needed to particularly overcome the evil Christian West. In this it is no different ?± except, significantly, in the manner of its methods ?± than fundamentalist Christianity. The Christianisation of the world means the annihilation of other religious systems. It is an attitude of mind which ranges between the lunatic ranting of televangelist Pat Robertson in the United States, calling for the assassination of the President of Venezuela, and the equally lunatic concern raised by a Presbyterian minister in Auckland about the number of what he calls "idols" in the shops in his suburb operated by people of other faiths and cultures.
Anything except for respect for other faiths and their adherents opens the possibility of that sense of exclusivity which sees my faith as superior to all others, and at its most base levels imposes restrictions or prohibitions or persecution on those who are religiously different. Any rational mind knows that the claim of exclusive hold on truth for one religious system is impossible. Because of the potential for indiscriminate destruction of innocent people, as we already see with al Qaeda??s actions, there is no room in a civilised society and world for the kind of blind loyalty to one religion that characterises the holy wars of Deborah and Barak, or of Osama bin laden and Pat Robertson.
For most of human history, human beings have been involved in a struggle for the survival of the fittest. For most of human history, survival for oneself and one??s descendants has required loyalty to the family, the clan, the tribe, the nation and the faith, at the expense of other families, clans, tribes, nations and faiths. The Israelite occupation of Canaan was a pattern reflected in all parts of the earth, wherever there were human beings, as people sought to gain more land to meet the needs of their tribe or nation.
In more recent centuries it has been called colonisation, and was less frequently accompanied by wholesale massacre of other peoples or races than in earlier times, even if the level of subjugation of the original inhabitants was as complete. Occasionally it even took on the veneer of being terribly civilised and open-minded, such as in signing a treaty with the people of the land about to be taken over. As events subsequent to the Treaty of Waitangi show, the difference between the invading Israelites in Canaan and the colonising British in Aotearoa New Zealand was only a difference of degree. The original occupants of the land became an increasing obstacle in the face of the pakeha need for land. It is really only a difference of a few degrees between the shonky land sales and the compulsory acquisition of M?ѬÅori land, and "the hand of the Israelites (bearing) harder and harder on King Jabin of Canaan, until they destroyed King Jabin of Canaan."
There are only a few degrees of separation between debating issues in the United Nations and raising international forces to maintain peace and harmony, and the survival of the fittest, winner-takes-all approach of the book of Judges, or the waves of invasions by Angles, Saxons, Danes, Jutes and the others which produced the English, that peculiar mongrel breed from which many of us are descended. But as the genocide in Sudan demonstrates, and the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi not that long ago demonstrates, and the big wars of the twentieth century demonstrate, the degrees of difference can quickly evaporate.
But, let??s not despair. Despite the apparent current amount of danger in the world ?± the various conflicts in the Middle East, the threats of terrorism, and so on, the world is apparently safer now that ever before, according to the results of a recent study from the University of British Columbia. This study was supported by five governments including those of Canada and the United Kingdom, and was launched at the United Nations. It claims that "there has in fact been a marked decrease in political violence since the end of the cold war. The number of armed conflicts has decreased by more than 40%, and the number of major conflicts (which it defines as resulting in 1,000 or more "battle-deaths") has declined by 80%. Among its other conclusions, it finds that interstate wars now comprise only 5% of all armed conflicts, far less than in previous eras; that the numbers of people killed in individual wars have declined dramatically in the past five decades; and that the number of international crises fell by more than 70% between 1981 and 2001. The report also says that the number of autocratic regimes, noted for their systematic attacks on human rights, is decreasing." (1)
Let??s pray, on this Sunday closest 11th November marking the end of the First World War, the so-called "war to end all wars", that this study??s conclusions are correct. Let??s pray that the primitive survival instinct of Deborah and Barak, and the narrow focus of blindly loyal religion is being replaced by an instinct that says my survival and that of descendants and my people now depends on cooperation and peaceful coexistence, and on mutual respect and openness to other ways of life, other ways of thought, other ways of faith.
We can read such stories as that of Deborah as a salutary reminder of the vicious instinct for survival that is implanted in human beings, and of the grave dangers of blind faith and religious exclusivity. They are stories that belong to our human past, and need to remain in our past if in this increasingly inter-dependent world we are to grow and flourish as human beings and if there is to be a future for our descendants. Such stories tell us where we have come from ?± not that long ago ?± and the mistakes of attitude and behaviour we need to avoid if there is to be continued human life on this planet. Sisera??s nine hundred iron chariots have been replaced by weaponry far, far more sinister, capable of not just wiping out a threatening collection of foreign tribes, but the whole of humanity.
Hear, then, what the Spirit is saying to the church, and to the world, through the story of Deborah.
(1) "A world becoming more peaceful?" http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict/report_2927.jsp