Even before last night’s news about Iran, I have been thinking, praying, wrestling with the amount of violence in our daily news cycle. Today I will share with you a story from the Book of Judges that I hope will be helpful. The point is rather simple: that Christian can be realists with respect to all of the violence in the world; that we may have a variety of opinions about what political and military actions are best; but in the midst of it all the violence, we are called to be people who promote, work for, and speak in ways that encourage peace. In these days the world needs some good, strategic, humble peacemakers. As we approach this morning’s story, it’s important to say directly that some Bible stories are not morality tales. There are many kinds of literature in the Bible, and some stories are not trying to show us an example of how to live our lives. In fact, sometimes quite the opposite is true; some Bible stories grab our attention by describing a world we should not want to live in, and a God we do not want to believe in. This may be one of those stories… So what’s the story, and what does it have to do with us? Let’s start on a somewhat lighter note with the idea that elements of this story are meant to be comedy…at least in the classical sense. The ultimate point of this tale, as with so many Bible stories, is liberation for a vulnerable and oppressed community, which is part of why a woman, in this ancient tale, is the deliverer. There will be a moment when the female savior in the story, a homemaker named Jael, she is forced to hide the opposing General Sisera in her home; the story’s listeners get to laugh when he commands her, and the sense of the original Hebrew is, ‘If anyone comes to the door while I’m hiding, just tell them, There are no real men here!’ And you can imagine Jael chuckling as she agrees. (McCann, “Judges” in Interpretation, 54) On some level the story has to be funny to hold our attention because, as we are about to see, it is a violent and troubling story. It is a story about broken people living in a very messed up world. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The story starts with a prophet named Deborah, whose story is told in the book of Judges, chapters 4 and 5. Today’s reading, the appointed one from the lectionary of suggested readings, is Judges 4:1-7, but this is just the introduction. I’m going to tell you the rest of it; some verses that don’t always get read in church. As the story begins, we learn that there is once again an age-old problem among the people of Israel—”they have done what was evil in the sight of the Lord;” which is to say that they’re placing their trust in money or possessions, a foreign king or false god, they’ve been tempted away by the trappings of the world, and have forgotten who they are—we’ve all been there. At that time, Deborah was a judge over the people—their trusted guide and leader, and in this time, she is the one who will help the Israelites find their way back home. In those days, the Israelites were battling a neighboring people, led by a General named Sisera. Deborah calls upon her best general, a man by the name of Barak and sends him to battle with Sisera. And Deborah says that a woman (v.9) is going to be the one to defeat Sisera. Barak knows he is outmatched by Sisera, but he goes because the faithful Deborah promises to go with him, and Barak obliterates the armies of Sisera—it says “All of the army of Sisera fell by the sword; no one was left.” And Sisera goes on the run. Sisera flees to the house of Heber the Kenite, someone he thinks is a friend; only Heber’s wife Jael is home, and Sisera goes in to hide and tells her to keep watch. But Jael is on the side of Deborah and Barak, and when Sisera falls asleep, Jael takes a hammer and a tent peg and drives it through Sisera’s head. This story is really violent, and sadly, that’s probably the main reason that the story is relevant, because its violent in ways so many of our daily stories are violent—so I fear that we read a Bible story like this and perhaps barely even notice how violent it is. Listen to what one biblical scholar, J. Clinton McCann, wrote about this story—he wrote this two decades ago about its relevance to modern life. In 2002, McCann wrote that “[we contemporary people] have recently lived through the most violent century in the history of humankind…” and that we “currently live in one of the most violent societies in the world. To the older generation [among us] who lived through World War II and the Holocaust, [not to mention the many other conflicts since] “the details of Judges 4-5 [will] not be all that shocking. To younger parents whose children go to schools where students regularly bring in guns and knives and bombs, Jael’s murder of Sisera with a tent peg…[will] not be so surprising. And to children who have seen literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of murders on television and at the movies and in video games, the story of Deborah, Barak, and Jael will probably seem,” McCann says, “pretty tame, maybe even lame.” End quote. (McCann, Ibid, 50) Isn’t that reality deeply, deeply sad? Is it possible that this story is pretty tame, and maybe even lame to many of its hearers? It contains a battle story that involves what we moderns would call war crimes and perhaps genocide, followed by a gruesome murder that still would be rated R…and perhaps most troubling of all, the whole story seems to be sanctioned by God. Clinton McCann wrote about it 20 years ago, but of course there are obvious resonances to the suffering of Palestinians and refugees, victims of violence in Ukraine, in Africa and in China among the Uighurs, and in all kinds of domestic circumstances as well. So…is it true what I said at the top of the sermon? Is this a story meant to show us a moral example to follow, or is it more likely a shocking story about how we should not live? Let me respond to that in a couple of ways: First of all, any decent biblical scholar will say this story is anything but a morality tale. It is not an ethics lesson at all. Most Bibles stories like this one, and there are a bunch of them, served a very different purpose. In the ancient world, they say, basic daily survival was a priority on a scale modern people can hardly imagine, and so exaggerated stories about “us vs. them” were told often to strengthen community identities and help people survive. I can buy that scholarly argument. The problem is that, throughout history and still today, there are people who read stories like this one and treat it like a morality tale. They understand it as a mandate to carry out violence on people of other nations and ethnicities, and to do so in the name of God. That is so far from acceptable; and that thinking has become so widespread that we desperately need a better reading. I have to stop, notice and take exception to the violence in this story. I have to look at this story, and at violent circumstances in the world around me and say, this is not what God has in mind, and it’s not the way I want to live. I like to think that I am a realist when it comes to the existence, and sometimes necessity of violence in the world. I am not a pacifist. So at this moment I want to say next: You don’t have to be a pacifist or a bleeding heart liberal to take exception to all of the violence out there. Here’s an example. Last week, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan reflected on the growing culture of political violence in our country. No stranger to the necessary use of law enforcement and the armed forces, Noonan took great exception to some of the rhetoric President Trump has used of late, appearing to take joy in the use of force to control protests in Los Angeles, claiming that on the world stage, American soldiers exist to “chase you down, crush you, and cast you into oblivion.” Noonan wrote, “American presidents don’t promise to bloody rioters heads. [Presidents are] supposed to be reluctant to use force, not eager.” Using a phrase she claimed as old fashioned but still worthwhile, she said we need to look at this kind of talk about violence and say, “We don’t do that.” (Noonan in WSJ, “America is Losing Sight of its Political Culture,” June 12, 2025). If you prefer a quotation from the NYTimes, here’s what their Editorial Board had to say this week with reference to the political violence in Minnesota; they claimed has become so commonplace we are at risk of barely noticing it: They wrote this: “When we move on too quickly from an attack…, we normalize it. The next shooter, the next extremist, sees a society that accepts violence. Forgetting is dangerous. It encourages repetition. The opposite is true as well, however. When we take time to remember… We give meaning to what is otherwise senseless.” (Editorial Board of the NY Times, “The Nation Encourages Political Violence by Allowing it to Seem Normal,” June 20, 2025). I cannot tell you how dearly I wish I could preach about something else this morning. I did not get into this line of work to talk about violence. I have basically zero interest in spending sermon time in reflection about our President or any other politician. I’m aware that plenty of you don’t want to hear it. What I could not escape in my prayers and studies this week is the extent to which we are becoming numb to all the violence around us. I believe stories like this one of Deborah and Barak are supposed to arrest us with its violence and cause us to think, “We don’t do that.” But I’m afraid that we barely notice. This story is supposed to remind us that Christians are peacemakers, and that we speak for a better way. And we should be feeling that way about so much of what we see in the news cycle around us. We have to notice. This story is a call to action for all of us. Did we notice the first verse of today’s story: that the people “had again done what was evil in the sight of the Lord”? This is the kind of Bible story that gets told when things are not the way they are supposed to be. This is a story that should make us yearn for the peace-loving God who created us and from whom we far too often fall away. We gather here to worship the God who created the world and called it good, the God who is our Shepherd who makes us lie down in Green Pastures, the God who tells us that “blessed are the peacemakers.” This God cannot believe that good is achieved by killing an entire army by the sword or driving a tent peg through the head of their general. We must be called to something better. Perhaps the most hopeful thing about our current circumstances is that today’s world presents so many opportunities for us to do better. Almost everywhere you turn, there is an opportunity to be a voice of peace in the world. Whether your issue is how we speak and act in response to strife in the Middle East, neighborhood gun violence, or the development plans for Hyde Park Square, we all have so many opportunities around us to cool our jets and be voices of maturity and humanity in a world where the language and action has all become way too hostile. I have a colleague in ministry who used to advise that anytime we walk into a difficult or testy situation, perhaps it’s a good practice to stop for a moment and pray the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. So much is testy out there this, morning, and I could think of no better way to end today, so let’s try it. Slowly. Perhaps some of you will recognize the prayer: Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace; Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console; To be understood, as to understand; To be loved, as to love; For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life… In the coming weeks, I’ll be offering some additional reflections on how the stories of the prophets help us to both stand up for what we believe in and do so in ways that are humane and that encourage peace. People: our world has plenty-enough voices of violence these days; it desperately needs voices of peace. How is God calling you to be a peacemaker? Amen.