Women of the Bible: Deborah, Diana Prince, Bravery and Presence A sermon by Rev. Aaron Fulp-Eickstaedt At Immanuel Presbyterian Church, McLean VA On July 16th, 2017 Judges 4:1-10 Today our summer sermon series on Women of the Bible continues with a look at the prophetess and judge Deborah, whose story is told in the book of Judges. Judges during this time in ancient Israel were not people who sat around in black robes and decided on cases and sentencing. Rather, they were individual men—and in the case of Deborah, a woman—whom God chose to lead the people of Israel out of bondage to their enemies. Now these judges could in fact be wise—but not all of them were, Samson being a case in point—and, sometimes, as in Deborah’s case, they were sought out to decide disputes among people. But, at least in the time of the book of Judges, what it meant to be a judge was to be an instrument through whom God brought deliverance to the Israelites. Deborah’s story is told in chapter 4 of the book of Judges, which is followed by a song she sings in chapter 5. Listen now to the first 10 verses of chapter 4. Pay attention to how God uses Deborah to make a difference. 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 for 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 judgement. 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 you hand.” Barak said to her, ‘If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.’ And she said, ‘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 Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh. Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and ten thousand warriors went up behind him; and Deborah went up with him. Thursday evening, Judith and I went to see the movie Wonder Woman. I’m not generally a fan of comic book superhero movies—too much violence and the characters are too broadly drawn—but I felt compelled to see this one. Part of it was knowing that I’d be reflecting today on the story of Deborah, the ancient Israelite prophetess and judge who helped lead the people into battle against the Canaanites. Part of it was that all of my friends who are women have been telling me “You have to go see this movie.” Deborah was not exactly a superhero, but like Diana Prince, the Wonder Woman character, she exhibited a bravery and battle presence—a kind of no-fear, I’ll go with and ahead of you into battle— that comic books and Bible passages don’t typically associate with female gender identity. It’s not that women aren’t brave in the Bible and in comics. It’s just that scripture passages and action movies tend consign their bravery to quieter, but no less important, things like Mary saying yes to bearing God into the world, or Rahab (who we will talk about next week) hiding the Israelite spies, or the Hebrew midwives defying Pharaoh’s orders, or the Syro-Phoenician woman boldly challenging Jesus to heal her child, too, or, for that matter, the women being present at Jesus’ crucifixion when all the male disciples have run away. There are plenty of examples of women being brave in the Bible. Just not so many examples of them going with men to the front lines of battle. That’s what makes Deborah sort of unique among Israelite women. She is brave in battle. I have a number of female clergy colleagues who have written and spoken about how moved they were by the movie Wonder Woman, to see this Amazon Diana Prince going toe-to-toe with the men, the World War One German soldiers, ready to take on even the war god Ares to end war forever, seeing it as her mission to engage in the struggle as a strong female presence. She doesn’t take any guff from anybody. She is not relegated to the sidelines, she is not a damsel in distress. She is right in the thick of things and out in the lead. There’s a marvelous scene where Diana Prince is in the trenches of World War I with the British soldiers, right next to her male friend, the American spy Steve Trevor. She is asking him why they don’t engage the Germans across no man’s land from them. Steve Trevor responds. “This is no man's land, Diana! It means no man can cross it, alright? This battalion has been here for nearly a year and they've barely gained an inch. All right? Because on the other side there are a bunch of Germans pointing machine guns at every square inch of this place. This is not something you can cross. It's not possible.” Wonder Woman replies, “So... what? So we do nothing?” When Trevor protests that they ARE doing something and that they just can’t save everyone in this war, that that’s not what they came to do, she tells him that’s what she’s going to do. Then Diana Prince, Wonder Woman, rushes out of the trenches, with her shield and arm bands deflecting the hail of bullets coming at her, using her golden whip and her sword to take down her enemies on her way to try to get to past them to the German High Command and an eventual face to face battle with Ares. When Diana goes first, when she goes first, when she takes the lead, Steve Trevor and the rest of the men pour out of the trenches behind her. I couldn’t help but think of the prophetess and judge Deborah when I watched that scene. Because she, not Barak the Israelite general but Deborah the prophetess and judge, is the one who demonstrates what it means to be brave. Deborah is the one who tells Barak to go into battle, and when he protests that he won’t go unless she goes with him (which is an echo, by the way, of what Moses tells God in the Book of Exodus), she does. She goes with him. She goes ahead of the people. She goes to fight the power that had kept them oppressed for 20 years. How did they get in that pickle to begin with? As the Book of Judges tells it, in typical Deuteronomic fashion, the people of Israel had done evil in the sight of the Lord so that God had handed them over to King Jabin of Canaan for twenty years, and they needed someone to deliver them, so they cried out to God, and God sent them a leader. A quick aside here. When I say “typical Deuteronomic fashion,” and maybe some of your eyes glazed over, what I mean is that from the book of Joshua through the book of II Kings, the one who compiles the narrative of Israel’s history casts it in a theological framework. There is a pattern that plays out over and over again. The people of God cry out for deliverance, a strong leader helps them overcome their enemies, things go well for them for a time, then they begin to falter and be disobedient to God, and then a new foreign power overtakes them. After a period of oppression, they turn to God again, and God sends a leader and the pattern repeats itself again and again. They forget God, are vanquished, they return again to God, and God sends a leader, over and over. Now there is a value in this kind of theological framework because it names our tendency as individuals and as groups to forget God’s grace and provision, to wander away from God’s guidance, and to face consequences, only to turn again to God and receive God’s help. Sometimes that’s the way it works. There is a value to that kind of theological framework. Sometimes you do good and you get good. Sometimes you do bad and you get beat. But that’s not the way it always happens, right? So the danger in that kind of theological approach is that it can lead to victim blaming. If bad things happen to you, then you must have done something to deserve that. And that is certainly not always the case.