Rev. George Miller
Aug 1, 2021
Judith 4: 9-13
Today we begin a new book, one you may not have heard of before.
Judith is not in the Protestant Bible or part of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Judith is in the Catholic Bible with other books called the Apocrypha.
So why study Judith?
1-
We always do well when we are learning something
new.
2-
August is Women’s Equality Month, and it feels right
to celebrate it with a female character who kicks butt.
3-
Judith has much to say about God, faith, prayer, and
struggle.
Before fully immersing ourselves into the world of Judith, there’s some
things to know. So, think of today’s
message as less of a sermon and more like Seminary 101.
Modern scholars agree that Judith is not historical, but a piece of fiction.
The author gets people, places, and dates so wrong that folk believed the
author did this purposely to let us know this is a story to enjoy.
Think of Judith the same way you think of “Gone With the Wind”, “Titanic”
or “NCIS”.
It’s make-believe with enough of today’s headlines to make it feel real.
Judith is set around 500 BCE. The exile
that the Jewish people endured is over, but the trauma of the loss lives on.
As the Jewish people try to rebuild their lives, there comes along a foreign
king, named Nebuchadnezzar.
This King is power hungry. He
thinks he is a god. He wants all the
nations around him to fear him, worship him.
He wants all the attention
He starts a war with a smaller kingdom expecting other nations to join
him.
He issues an ultimatum- fight with me or else.
All the other nations look at this hot-headed power-hungry king and say “We
are not afraid of you; you’re only a man.”
This hurts the king’s feelings, and we all know how fragile the male ego
is.
So, after being turned down by every nation, the king swears that he will
kill all who wouldn’t play war with him, from the east coast to the west coast.
Which he does. The king gets his
revenge against every region that did cower before him like a god.
He has his top general take 132,000 soldiers and calvary, and like a
swarm of cicadas they cover the land, killing, looting, burning, destroying all
crops.
The people of Judea hear about this.
Picture it- they have just returned to the sanctuary after being in exile. They have just resumed having in-person
worship.
Their altar and sacraments are just now being used again.
They people of Judea come to a consensus-
“We are not going through another loss.
We will fight for what is ours.”
So the people of Judea come together as one to protect themselves.
They create a plan. They put security in place. Then they pray.
Under this very real threat, the people pray and they pray and they pray to
God. They cry out. They fast.
Every citizen, every immigrant, every animal, wears sackcloth.
They lay before the Temple. They
drape the altar. Give offerings.
With ashes on their heads, they cry out to the Lord, and the Lord heard
their prayers and regards their distress…
This is where our story stops, for today, in the face of great danger.
Within the first 4 chapters of Judith, there are at least 3 themes we can
parse out.
The first- the difference between fact and truth.
That’s a topic that’s important to us at Emmanuel. We, as a denomination, have a saying that while
we take scripture seriously, we do not always take it literally.
At Emmanuel UCC, we say that there is a difference between fact and truth.
A fact is something that’s concrete, direct, and provable. A fact is something you can measure.
A truth is more like an idea, a thought- a poetic way of expressing something
that is more abstract but no less true.
For example- a fact is that this is one of the hottest summers on record.
A truth is when I say that it’s been so hot that alligators are fanning themselves
with sandhill cranes.
A fact is that it’s rained so much that I mowed my yard 3x in 2 weeks.
A truth is when I tell you that it’s been raining cats and dogs to the
point that my front lawn has become a jungle.
A truth is not a lie. It’s just a
creative way of saying something.
Knee high to a grasshopper.
So although Judith is not historical fact, it is full of truthful lessons
we can learn and applied to our faith.
Second theme is this- who is God?
Not “what is God like?”, but “Who is God?”
When things get difficult and danger comes your way, who and what do you
ultimately place your trust on.
Last week we talked about the person emerging from the wilderness,
leaning on their beloved.
One scholar stated that whatever we lean on becomes our god.
So, “Who is God?”
Is God the King Nebuchadnezzar who appears to have all the power and has
mastered the art of war and fear?
Where is our true allegiance to? Who
or what do we worship?
A King? A nation? Is God 132,000 foot-soldiers and chariots?
Is God a cause of fear and destruction?
The final theme from today’s reading- prayer.
In Judith you’ll hear how prevalent prayer is.
In 16 chapters there will be at least 14 instances of prayer, all kinds
of prayers- spoken, symbolic, physical, repentant.
Today we see men crying out, women and kids laying on the ground, servants
donning sackcloth, the priests making offering after offering after offering.
Prayers, prayers, prayers abound all throughout the Book of Judith- prayers
for deliverance, prayers for help, prayers for strength.
We will witness much prayer. We’ll
see how those prayers manifest themselves into both action and inaction.
How some will prefer to pray for deliverance, while at least 2 women will
act to make salvation possible.
So, as we wrap up today’s Seminary 101 class, we have 3 points.
We know this story is not fact based, but we know it is full of truth.
We ask ourselves who is God and who or what do we truly turn to when most
in need.
We also open ourselves to the role of prayer. What can prayer accomplish? What can it look like?
When we pray “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,” whose Kingdom are we
actually talking about- the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of men like
Nebuchadnezzar and his general?
For all these things we think, we ponder, and we come back next week ready
to explore these ideas a bit more.
Amen.
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