Rev. George
Miller
August 16,
2020
Judges
19:27-28
Today’s message starts with
audience participation. What famous character
said “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Dorothy
Next- who said “As God is my
witness, I’ll never he hungry again?” Scarlett
3rd- what actress
said “Mollie, you in danger girl!”
Whoopi Goldberg.
Finally, what infamous female
proclaimed “He has brought down the powerful from their throne, and lifted up
the lowly.”
These are not the words of
Joan of Arc, Mulan, or Xena: Warrior Princess.
They are the words of Mary,
soon to be the mother of Jesus.
The above statements are from
a girl on a journey, a southern belle taking control, a trickster caught up in
a conspiracy, and a maiden who’s about to be the biggest motha of them all.
Each of these women a force
to be reckoned with.
The Bible is full of brave,
bold women who embark on journeys, fight for their life, and STICK IT to the
patriarchy.
The Book of Judges starts
with 3 such women.
In chapter 1, we meet Achash
who rides in on a donkey. As she steps
down, Achash demands that her husband and dad give her the southern part of
Judah as a present.
In ch. 4 there’s Deborah, the
head judge of Israel. Leaders from all
over the country come to her for council.
Deborah sends and receives
visits from military heads, gives instruction to a general, and walks beside
him as 10,000 soldiers march behind.
Then there is Jael, a stunning
Trickster who single handily wins a war by inviting the enemy into her tent and
driving a stake through tyrant’s head.
Judges stars strong women
who are the equals of, and sometimes superior to, the men…but then something
happens.
Judges, often called “The
Book of Weeping”, details the coming apart of Israel, and how quickly the people
of God forget that they have chosen God and that they have chosen Life.
Judges shows what happens
when a group of beloved children fail to do justice, love kindness, or to walk
humbly with the Lord-
They become a dysfunctional
family in which no one is safe from abuse and women and children are victimized.
In Judges, we meet the enemy
and “the enemy is us.” (Pogo)
Let’s take a look at perhaps
the most traumatizing story in the Bible.
It starts with a concubine who
runs away from her husband, back to where her father lives, in Bethlehem.
The man goes after her, using
the sweetest of words to woe her back.
Days later, they leave, but’s
it’s getting dark. The man refuses to spend the night in Jerusalem because it’s
full of foreigners, so he assumes he isn’t safe.
So they go onto to Gibeah,
where the tribe of Benjamin live. They
sit in the town square hoping someone will take them in. But no one does, until an old man, after
working a long day in the field, comes by and offers them shelter.
That night, men from the town
come to the old man’s door. They demand
he hand over the stranger so they can rape him. The old man refuses, offering
his daughter and the concubine instead.
The husband grabs the concubine,
shoves her outside and goes to sleep while she is brutally attacked all night
long.
In the morning, barely
alive, she crawls to the front door, falls upon the stoop.
Her husband steps outside,
says “Get up, we’re going”, puts her on the donkey like an object, a thing.
He takes her body, carves her
into 12 pieces, sends a part to each tribe.
With that, he starts a Civil War in which the nation fights against the
Benjaminites, killing and raping their women also.
How did we get to here?
How do we get from Achsah
boldly stepping off a donkey, demanding land, to a violated wife being barked
at and placed on a donkey’s back like a sack of barley?
How did we go from Jael who
takes down one of the most powerful men in the world, to a woman who runs away
for her own goodwill, yet ends up being victimized by both her husband and
father?
How did we get from Deborah
leading an army of 10,000 men to the concubine being raped by an entire town?
It makes no sense.
We are not in Kansas.
God does not seem to be a witness.
Molly, and all women, are in
danger.
This story is not meant to
soothe, it is meant to shock.
Its actions are not to be emulated,
but to be avoided at all costs.
This story is not a
testimony to what God wants, but what happens when the call to do justice, love
kindness, and walk humbly is violated by the very folk who are supposed to know
better.
A woman flees to Bethlehem
and her body ends up being destroyed and an entire nation torn apart…
…So where is the Good News?
The Good News begins by us
sharing her story, because as difficult as it is to hear, it needs to be told; it
needs to be known.
One way to offer healing and
recovery to this unnamed woman is to name the harm that’s been done.
She needs to be remembered and honored, as do all the other women who have experienced sexual violence.
The other part of the Good
News comes from this-
Though today’s story features
the breaking apart of a female body through shameful acts, in which her reproductive
system is violated for sinful human purposes,
there is another biblical story
that tells a different narrative, with a different outcome.
For in the Gospel of Luke, we
hear “He has brought down the powerful from their throne, and lifted up the lowly.”
These words sound like the
words of a mighty warrior, one who understands what God is really about.
These are the words of Mary
that she boldly speaks when visiting her cousin with a belly blossoming with birth.
Like the concubine, Mary had
an experience via her body, but unlike the concubine, her body is not broken,
but treated as sacred and holy.
Her womb is honored to become
the means through which the shame of sin is defeated.
The concubine’s body is dishonored
to tear apart the nation of Israel.
But Mary’s body is used to
bring the nation of Israel back together; and not just Israel, but the entire
world.
Once again we witness how radical
our faith is and what a life lived in Christ is about.
God so loved us that God
would enter into our humanity the exact same way we do, and that God would do
so through the sacredness and the life-giving force of the female body.
Jesus could have come to us
fully grown; he could have arisen from the sea, or appeared from a pod.
But that’s not what
happened.
Emmanuel, God With Us, came
to us via the vessel of the Sacred Feminine, forever honoring the role of the MOTHER
and all women in our lives.
The fact that Christianity
has strayed from this reality is one of our greatest sins.
The fact that we have not
always honored and respected the lives of women is cause for great weeping.
Today, let us leave this sacred
time and space aware that although one woman ran away to Bethlehem and had her
life destroyed, another woman made her way to Bethlehem and made ALL of our
lives enriched.
As followers of Jesus, the
child born from her body, may we each do our part to soothe the weeping of the
world.
To show compassion and
passion. To stop sleeping through the
pain and suffering of the innocents.
In Christ, no one should
feel far from home, go hungry, and live in danger.
Our daughters, our wives,
our sisters, and our friends all deserve to be safe.
Amen and amen.
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