Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Deborah:  Brave Dame of the Bible "
Date: November 13, 2005
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Judges 4:1-10

When I was at General Synod in Atlanta in July, the leader of my group Bible study asked those of us who were ministers how much do we move around in the Bible in our preaching texts.  He said in his career, he tried to preach 40% from the Gospels, 30% from Old Testament Hebrew texts, and 30% from New Testament Epistles.  I didn’t take the time to survey the lessons for all 1,288 sermons I’ve preached over 32½ years, but I did look over the texts for the past year.  I found I preached 50% from the Gospels, and 25% each from Old Testament and Epistles.  Frankly, I surprised myself.  My preaching from the four gospels is a little lower than I thought, and the Old Testament a little higher.

Nevertheless, since I’ve preached 75% from New Testament sources in the past year, I think that mirrors the fact that as Christians, we sometimes don’t pay enough attention to Old Testament characters and themes.  The stories may be too long and involved.  There are too many bloody battles.  And the names!  Who can keep track of who they are, let alone pronounce them?

So it was that I was struck with the story of Deborah when I reviewed this week’s texts.  Her story only entered the lectionary some nine years ago in its last revision, and I’ve never preached on her.  Deborah is a common enough name, or at least it was around fifty years ago, when all five Deborahs in our church membership were born!  The meaning of the name in Hebrew is “honeybee”.  Deborah is the only female judge in the book of Judges, and we, too, have a Judge Deborah in our membership.

Today’s text calls special attention to Deborah, saying that she was a “prophetess,” literally, a female prophet.  This feminine Hebrew word for a prophet is used only six times in the Old Testament, and the comparable Greek word in the New Testament only twice.  Early prophets were figures who spoke emphatically for God, sometimes out of dreams.  Their prophecies were not always popular with people who sometimes wished to live and worship another way or another god.  Familiar early prophets were Moses and Samuel.  Obviously, from the little use of the feminine word “prophetess”, it was largely a male-dominated business.

So I thought for balance I might start an occasional sermon series:  “Women of the Bible.”  I couldn’t think of a catchier title until I discovered Susan Issacs wrote a book, Brave Dames and Wimpettes.  “A brave dame,” according to the author, “is a dignified, three-dimensional hero who may care about men, home and hearth, but also cares—and acts—passionately about something in the world beyond.”

Old Testament names and places can be confusing, and I hope you didn’t get too lost in today’s story.  For it isn’t about keeping track of the names; it’s about what the “brave dame” Deborah does in the story.  Basically, it comes down to this:  the Israelites are the good guys, and the Canaanites the bad guys.  “Good guys” is somewhat subjective, for the story begins by saying, “The Israelites did again what was evil in the sight of the Lord…”  God sold them off to the Canaanites out of anger.  At any rate, twenty years have passed and the Israelites cry out to God for relief.  Besides, the Canaanite commander Sisera had 900 iron chariots to use against them in battle.

People came to wise Deborah, both a judge and a prophetess, for her guidance.  She tells the Israelite commander Barak to take ten thousand troops and where to go.  I don’t know if he was unsure, apprehensive, or a wimp—not a wimpette, but he replies that if she goes with him, he will go.  However, if she doesn’t, he won’t go.  That’s an interesting turning point in the story, for this male commander won’t go into battle unless he is accompanied by the female prophet.  She agrees to go, but predicts he may win the battle, but a woman will ultimately score the victory over the enemy Sisera.

Good thing she’s there, for later in the story after Lorie finished reading, on the day of the battle, it sounds like Deborah shakes Barak awake and sends him off:  “Up!” she commands.  “For this is the day on which the Lord has given Sisera into your hand.”  Barak’s army is victorious; all the enemy is slain, except for Sisera who escapes.  He is invited into the tent of a woman named Jael.  While he sleeps, she drives a tent peg all the way through his temple into the ground, thus fulfilling Deborah’s prophecy that “the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”  That’s the rest of the story, and that’s the reason this particular lesson was read after the children left, instead of before!

You may want to read the whole chapter when you have time.  The fifth chapter that follows, is the same story told as the song of Deborah.  It is believed to be one of the oldest portions of the Old Testament, and is even older than the narrative story told in verse four.  And if you glance at the beginning of chapter six, you will find it begins the same as chapter four:  “The Israelites [again] did what was evil in the sight of the Lord…”  That seems to be the story of humanity’s relationship with God and with one another:  one step forward, then one step back.

What does the brief story of Deborah’s intervention in the future of the Israelites say to us?  First, it shows a person of faith, of assurance, of determination.  Judge Debbie sat under her own palm tree and imparted holy wisdom to her people.  When she declared, “The Lord, the God of Israel,” had commanded something, more than 10,000 Israelites listened and heeded her advice.  This kind of wisdom does not develop in a soul that is obsessed with shallow victories and fairy tale endings.  This kind of wisdom blossoms in a soul that seeks God’s will.

Second, the story lifts up the value and role of women in ancient Hebrew life, and our own.  Donna Strom, professor at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Northern India, laments that women have, in the main, been involved only in increasing the human population, and done so little (“except for a rare Margaret Thatcher or Indira Gandhi” she interjects) to join men in ruling the earth.  So she writes of Deborah:  “What Deborah’s example obviously teaches is that women should not be excluded from any levels of decision-making, religious or political.”

In Wednesday’s Bible study when we studied this text, we thought of women who have been influential in politics and society in our lifetimes:  Eleanor Roosevelt, the afore-mentioned Margaret Thatcher, Madeline Albright, Condoleza Rice.  Former First Lady Barbara Bush, a formidable woman herself, once delivered a commencement address at Wellesley College.  “Someday someone will follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president’s spouse,” she declared.  “I wish him well!”

While women have always had an influence on the operation and success of the institutional church in this country, some denominations have been more progressive than others.  The Congregational Church first ordained a woman in 1850; the Episcopalians waited until 1975.  When I entered seminary in 1970, there was not one women enrolled at the Episcopal seminary across the street.  Now, half of the students in most Protestant seminaries are women.  Ordained women have advanced to the positions of senior minister in many churches, as they have to positions of conference ministers and bishops across several denominations.  One of the foremost Episcopal preachers of the last decade is Barbara Brown Taylor of Georgia.

Third, Deborah does not act alone to ensure victory for the Israelites.  There is a remarkable display of teamwork throughout this tale.  First, Deborah and Barak work together in planning, presence and action to defeat the Canaanites on the battlefield.  Then, after Sisera’s escape, the third member of this “team” becomes Jael, not an Israelite but from a neighboring tribe with whom they were at peace.  It is her hand, not Barak’s, not Deborah’s, that kills Sisera and leads to Israel’s final freedom.

Teamwork is something we should comprehend and participate in, whether in our home activities, school or work life, our staff here at church, or what we together accomplish for good as a congregation.  It is not what any one minister, or any one church member, does alone.  It is what we all seek to do together in Christ’s name.

When we look at Deborah’s life, we see a person who models what’s needed in our lives.  When we’re not into power and control, when we know our place in God’s world, when we understand that God will do as God desires, when we’re available to God and others, when we’re a doer and not a worrier—when all of that comes together as it did for Deborah, we’re going to be at peace:  with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors.