Judges 4:1-7
Proper 28 (33) - Year A
Jabon and Sisera are used by G*D to punish Israel. Deborah is used by G*D to punish the punishers, Jabon/Sisera, for their 20 years of punishing. And around we go.
In regard to punishment, how is G*D using you? Are you to help punish someone G*D is mad at? Are you to punish someone who has been one of G*D’s past punishers? Is punishment a helpful category?
If we posit an eternal reciprocal engine that runs on punishment, stroke-by-stroke, what would cause us to look for an alternative energy source since anger seems to be eternally renewable?
On the flip side, we wait for G*D to set life up for us. We spend our time and energy attempting to get ourselves in the right position to take advantage of G*D’s setup. This attempted readiness seems, more often than not, to have some ritualistic element to it according to the wisdom of the day about how to get on G*D’s good side.
Barak had it easy. Just go and wait and G*D will manage to have events conspire in your favor. We continue to look for this sort of intervention—that G*D finally has set things up for us to win. No lottery odds for us—we want to know G*D is on our side and has actually arranged for us to win in the short-run—none of this pie in the sky, by and by, stuff.
We find it very easy to be over-reliant upon G*D, exempting ourselves from any responsibility for the events of life. Zephaniah’s phrase, “rest complacently on their dregs”, fits well here. We can also fall into despair that allows us to simply keep on keeping-on in the easiest manner possible—G*D not seeming to do anything, either healing or violent.
Being willing to do our part to partner with G*D—to encourage, and push G*D along and even go so far as to set things up for G*D—would shift this eternal punishment model. Come, let us counsel together that we might short-circuit our respective knee-jerk responses to life.
In regard to punishment, how is G*D using you? Are you to help punish someone G*D is mad at? Are you to punish someone who has been one of G*D’s past punishers? Is punishment a helpful category?
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
After twenty years of oppression, Deborah, to whom the Israelites went for "justice," calls forth Barak to do "battle."
While we sometimes equate these two as we "fight for the right," it is important to keep clear on their differences.
Justice is looking to bind people together; battle is blindly knocking them apart.
Note that "battle" goes back through Gaulish gladiators who fought with a helmet having no eyeholes - think pinata and silly. This is a different use of blindness than our myth of blind justice able to distinguish between important differences without falling prey to the cultural/economic/power issues swirling around.
Bats appear to fly blind, but they have an alternative sound vision.
May your spiritual disciplines provide you "sound vision" to avoid the obstacles of blindly battling injustice and finding the course of call to respond to injustice without instituting the structures that always fall apart and cause their own subsequent injustice.
It is tempting to image ourselves after another dark knight struggling with how to respond to the trauma of parents being killed and coming up with battling injustice - Batman. However, we will be better served to ask what drew people to Deborah as a dispenser of justice and gave her authority in Barak's life. In today's world, what qualities do we need to develop to be recognized as a justice of the peace, one who builds community, without instituting our attendant limitations as ruler of all?
Are progressive Christians more attuned to a time of the Judges than a time of the Kings? Is that why we tend to be more inefficient in our processes of intervening in justice issues - because we are oriented more to the ad hoc than to the structures of the time?
With a nod to the day, of what Justice issue are you a veteran? of what Battle are you a veteran? And, as important, where are you currently enrolled?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/november2002.html
We often wait for G*D to get things set up for us. We spend our time and energy attempting to get ourselves in the right position to take advantage of G*D's setup. This attempted readiness seems, more often than not, to have some ritualistic element to it according to the wisdom of the day about how to get on G*D's good side.
Barak had it easy. Just go and wait and G*D will manage to have events conspire in your favor. We continue to look for this sort of intervention -- that G*D has things finally set up for us to win (no lottery odds for us, we want to know GOD is not just on our side, but has actually arranged for us to win in the short-run - none of this pie in the sky, by and by, stuff).
We find it very easy to be over-reliant upon G*D, exempting ourselves from any responsibility for the events of life. We "rest complacently on our dregs". We can also fall into despair that allows us to simply keep on keeping on in the easiest manner possible -- G*D not seeming to do anything, either healing or violent.
Finally the United Methodist Bishops are moving beyond waiting for some deus ex machina and publicly fulfilling some of their teaching function. They recently spoke against a Judicial Council decision denying membership to those who are homosexual read here and are now standing against the Iraq War read here. A question comes about our willingness to join them and push these matters further, with no assurance that G*D's setup is complete.
Are we willing to do our part to partner with G*D -- to encourage, push, G*D along and even go so far as to set things up for G*D? Where does G*D behavior become our behavior and where do we need to join saints of old shaming G*D into doing what is right?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/november2005.html
Life has been given into our hands. Some have received one gift; some another.
What to do with gifts is a perennial issue. The way we use a gift this year may be different than the way we were called to use it last year. It is difficult to keep up with a Living G*D.
The doing of evil may be as simple as continuing to use a gift in a manner no longer called for. Persistence of evil might be seen as a persistence of behavior beyond its time with no new listening, learning, or living.
It is this persistence of past talents that can be the same as burying them in the past and protecting them from being invested in the present and future. Thank goodness for communities that continue to challenge and support us in our use of gifts - for challenging us when we keep repeating ourselves past usefulness and for stimulating and encouraging us to new uses of given gifts.
- - -
a thousand years
swept away like a dream
and we complain
we bewail
we are at wit's endthe pull of habit
is strong
persistent
insistent
desiredeven if there is new grass
growing through cement
we cling to our cement
claiming it to be life
in the presence of real lifemay the light of day
keep us from SAD
cast a beam upon our path
warm our waning days
and lead us to one anothera thousand days
pfftt
gone
no regret
today's enough
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html
Jabon and Sisera are used by god to punish Israel. Deborah is used by god to punish the punishers, Jabon/Sisera, for their 20 years of punishment.
In regard to punishment, how is god using you? Are you to help punish someone god is mad at? Are you to punish someone who has been one of god's past punishers? Is this a helpful category?
If we posit an eternal reciprocal engine that runs on punishment, stroke by stroke, what would cause us to look for an alternative energy source since punishment seems to be eternally renewable? Is simple inefficiency enough to move us off-center?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html
Ai yi yi! Oi! Gevalt! Again evil? What chutzpah. Meh keyn brechen!
Today’s Palm Tree Deborah - where are you?
Barak? Who? The doubter requiring Deborah’s presence and later elevated to the rank of ever-so-faithful by the writer of Hebrews - this Barak who could be you or I or me or them?
In seven verses “the Lord” discards the Israelites and picks them to win. Hard to keep your head from spinning. What does being thrown into outer darkness mean in light of an equal and opposite rotation of forgiveness? It’s enough to pause yin and yang.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/11/judges-41-7.html
Doing nothing (according to the parable) is evil in "the sight of the Lord". This is a difficult spot to be in. Who can ever do enough and if we do the rubric quickly switches to being done in for having done works righteousness.
Don't do nothing. Don't do more than enough. Do only what you are told. Do only enough to bring praise to G*D. Reflect back on the Pentecost Room where fear froze folks. Is that the measure of doing in every situation?
With another Church Year winding down, These pericopes may be more about evaluation of the past year, than prescriptions for a next. So, what was your return on investment this year? How was your proportion of doing to not-doing?