Life Between The Trees: Palm - Judges 4:4-10




As we have been exploring “Life Between The Trees,” I’ve been hoping we’ve been learning to be a tree-hugger.  It has been pointed out to me that my disappointment with the response to my weekly question about tree-hugging may be because I’ve been asking it wrong.  So rather than ask if we have any new tree-huggers, let me ask it this way: how many of you, because of God’s call to care for His Creation and the importance that we find throughout God’s Word from Eden to New Jerusalem, are ready at this point to be proudly called a tree-hugger?

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life found in Eden remind us of the precious gift of Free Will that God has lovingly given us, and our tendency to misuse that gift by choosing the path of death over the path of life.

The dove returning to Noah with the branch of the Olive Tree reminds us of God’s faithfulness when we feel overwhelmed by the floodwaters of all that we are experiencing, just as Jesus saved us from the overwhelming flood of sin in our lives.

Ezekiel’s image of the mighty cedar God plants reminded us that God’s promises are never voided, even by our sin…and that God will restore us from our fallenness, not simply for our own sake, but in order that all the world may come to know that God is God.

Last week we looked to the oak tree.  The oak called us to practice the radical hospitality of putting others before ourselves—reflective of Abraham’s offering to the strangers under the oak tree and Jesus’ offering of himself, not just to strangers, but to those who would be considered enemies of God.  Remembering that as we offer hospitality to the stranger, we are offering it to none other than God Himself.

We continue to travel through the trees today…coming to the Palm Tree.

It may not be fair to Barak, but as I thought about this passage, I thought about some of the trips that Joshua and I have taken to BJ’s.  Now most kids don’t like to go shopping, and Joshua is one of those kids, unless we are going to BJ’s when we know they are going to have samples.  It used to be part of our Friday routine: I’d pick him up from school and then head over to BJ’s.  I’d shop, he’d snack, sometimes trying food I’d never get him to try at home.  It has gotten to the point that many of folks at those sample carts recognize us when we come through—enough to the point that a week or so ago when we were there, one of them who was getting ready to close up her stand brought Joshua a snack on the aisle that we were on.  That’s not what reminds me of Barak.  What brought our trips to mind are the times that we have gone through all of the samples and Joshua wants another cup of something he liked.  Sometimes I would stand at the end of one aisle and tell him, “I’ll watch you, you go on back up there and ask.” He would look up at me and say, “I can’t, unless you go with me.”

Deborah, prophetess, judge of Israel—pretty much both Israel’s High Priest and Commander-in-Chief, calls for Barak, leader of Israel’s army and delivers a message from God to Barak.  Deborah tells Barak, “God has said for you to go and take up position at Mount Tabor.  God has further said that He will bring out Sisera, head of Jabin’s army, out by the river bed with all of his men, and that he will give you victory over Sisera and the Canaanite army.  Barak looked up to Deborah and said, sounding very much like Joshua, “I can’t, unless you go with me.”  Actually Barak said, “If you’ll go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.”  Deborah’s response, “Wrong answer.  Of course I am going with you, but since you responded in the way you have, you will not get credit for this victory.  The claim of defeating Sisera will be given to a woman.”  We read later on, that while Barak was able to command the Israelite army to take out Sisera’s army, Sisera got away, fleeing to one of Jabin’s allies.  There he sought refuge in the tent of Jael, a Kenite woman, and while in her care, he died of a massive headache.

So what did Barak do that was so wrong?  All he did was say that he would only go if the leader of Israel’s people would go with him.  The problem is that Barak was not taking God at His Word.  God has promised that if Barak would go, God would give Barak the victory.  Barak’s halting response was that he was not trusting that God would bring the victory, but instead wanted to rely on the presence of Deborah to bring the victory.

I mean if we consider who Deborah was, we can understand why.  Deborah had to be a woman of great courage and exhibited great confidence in God, amazing confidence in God, considering where she was.  She lived in a male dominated world, a world in which men ruled and women were nothing but pieces of property to be handed from father to husband so they could bear children and produce little boys that would grow up to be men who were fit to be rulers.  Yet here is Deborah (and to emphasize how male-oriented the society was, despite Deborah’s position, her identity in many translations is still tied up in her husband, identified as “wife of Lappidoth,” though she could just as easily have been identified as “woman of fire” in the Hebrew).  Deborah was the premier leader of Israel.  She was the one whose role it was to convey the words and will of God to the people of God (a role traditionally held by men).  She was the one who was there to settle any disputes between the people of God (again a role traditionally held by men).  And, as I said before, she was the Commander-in-Chief of the Hebrew Army, relaying the directions of God, to the unit and division commanders.  Imagine the courage and trust in God that she had to have to accept the role God had given her to lead God’s people in this way—knowing the ridicule and judgment she probably faced every day not only from those outside of Israel, but those inside as well, because she was not a man.

Contrast that courage and confidence in God with Barak, “I know that God has said go, but I’ll only do it if you’ll go with me.  I know that God has promised me the victory, but if you won’t go with me, I’m not going.”  His confidence was more about the presence of Deborah than the promise and direction of God.  That’s the problem.  God wants Barak to trust in Him, to understand that God Himself is the source of security and victory.  Barak’s sin is that he considers Deborah’s presence the source of strength and security, rather than trusting in God for the already promised victory.

The contrast of Deborah and Barak under the Palm tree calls us to consider whether or not we place our trust and confidence in God when God sends us out to battle the enemies of His people found in the world. As we commit ourselves to God in professing or confirming our faith, God calls us to confront evil and injustice in whatever forms they present themselves, or as we continue the ministry to which Jesus felt Himself called, we are “to proclaim good news to the poor…to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind… to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[1]

God calls us to confront the injustice of poverty—to take on the task of making sure that those whose economic resources leave them without the necessities of food, shelter, and health care have what they need not only survive, but to thrive.

God calls us to take on the evil of racism, sexism, or any other means of holding a person captive because of who they are, treating them differently or holding them back from opportunities offered to others.

God calls us to bring sight those blinded by the darkness of depression and despair or by the bright lights of fame and fortune, helping the former to see a future filled with hope and the latter the call to a life of humility.

God calls us to free those oppressed by the evil of addictions, whether that addiction is to alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, shopping, sweets, or anything else.

God comes to us under the Palm tree and sends us to face the mighty army of evil, injustice, and oppression in this world.  We might feel outnumbered and outgunned, much in the same way that Barak did, we might want to put our trust and security in something or someone tangible, (now God doesn’t want us to do it alone, remember, Barak was leading a whole army), but God calls us to trust that he will bring the victory…and though this is the first Sunday in Lent, we live on the other side of the tomb, and we know that God has already won the ultimate victory and we can trust that He will bring victory wherever we go in His Name.  May we faithfully, confidently, and readily go and do battle wherever God sends us, as we live life between the trees.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.





[1] Luke 4:18-19

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