Sermon – Preaching in Holes: Called, Not Exceptional
Philippians 3:3-9; Judges 4:1-18
6/21/26
Last week, we considered what it might mean for a woman to be a leader of a church or a witness to the gospel. We saw how the very first witness to the resurrection in all the gospels was women. God seemed to really want a special witness for such a special event. That gift of witness continues today, but we too often discount the witness of women. This idea was a hole in my preaching. I have never ever preached on women being witnesses to the good news or leaders in churches, and that is my fault. It is a hole that I have tried to fix.
This week, we consider something completely different. We have the story of Deborah and Jael, two women at the center of the plot of this narrative. It would be tempting to think that God is trying to show us, again, the value of women in God’s work, but that is not entirely what this is about. It is less about the virtues of women, and more about the value of the people God calls, whomever they are.
You have decided to go to one of those amazing, motivational seminars on how to become a new person in a new career if you only know the secrets of the trade. Let’s say it is an exclusive audience learning how to become a millionaire through trading creative, homemade bread recipes. The two keynote speakers say that they have both done it themselves, and they are ready to wow you. The first one is a man who came from a very wealthy family and went to the best schools and started out with lots of funding, and so many things seemed to go his way. The second motivator is a woman who grew up in poverty, never had it easy before getting out to work in the school of hard knocks. She has fought for, and sometimes failed, but learned every step she took. She also reached her goal of being a millionaire by building her own business. And it is truly her own business that she built from scratch. Now, which speaker do you think might be more convincing, more influential, more motivating?
I would think the woman who did it all herself, who did not have all the advantages, who had to figure out things for herself. The same notion is easy to imagine in ministry. If we had a revival type meeting with two preachers and one of them came from all the wealth and ability and privilege and family, and the other found their heart in God through struggles that we cannot imagine but still dedicated their life to service because God was there for them when no one and nothing else was, we might find the second a bit more compelling. That has certainly been my experience. Those who know God’s grace can witness to God’s grace.
Having said that, it is absolutely fascinating to hear the amazing Apostle Paul completely destroy the things that should make him special in the Jewish culture of his day. People love to brag, especially when they are trying to impress. Paul desperately wants the Philippians to be convinced that he is the real deal. He wants to be their authority, their teacher, and their coach. He needs them to trust him over what others are saying, but every shred of “standing” that he might have, every qualifying quality that makes him a “somebody,” he completely throws out of the window. All of the things that the world might consider important for worth are all trash, garbage, worthless.
What makes his life special and his voice so important is Christ in him and his being in Christ. He had so many other distinctions and distinctiveness, but none of it matters in the eyes of God. In fact, God seems to go in the opposite direction. If you have ever thought about the kind of people that God calls for the big jobs, it is not the ones who you might expect. Moses was murderer in hiding who did not have speaking ability and tried very hard to get out of the call God was giving him. He was unpopular among the people and did not have a background other than shepherd. David was a child, also a shepherd, but his zeal for God drove him to kill to the point that he could not build the Temple himself. He was really bad at relationships, destroyed Bathsheba’s family, and failed his children to the point that lives were lost among them. What did Abraham and Sarah or anyone in their family do to merit their place in the story? Ruth was a pagan, Rahab was a prostitute, and Esther was a pretty face – none of them obvious picks for God’s call, and Mary is the biggest head-scratcher of them all. She was a random good girl in a random backwater town engaged to a random man who would not even be around for long in the story. The only story we have as them as parents has Jesus lecturing them.
The 12 disciples were all unlikely candidates – one of whom even betrayed Jesus. Paul was a violent persecutor of the church – literally the worst background you could have for a church planter. None of them made sense, yet they were called. None of them were exceptional in their own right, but God gave them important jobs.
That goes for Debroah, also. Debroah is an interesting case. One the one hand, she is very exceptional as she is the only female judge in the entire narrative. She is singled out among so many other judges – some of whom only get a sentence or two. She has two chapters, including a song. She speaks for God and leads for God, but there is no evidence that her being a woman is the reason. She was the right person, and the Bible dares to tell her story. The reason we are even having this sermon today is that we fail to tell her story or anyone else like her. We create strange heroes out of a certain group of people who were really not terribly heroic. We celebrate certain people while whitewashing how complicated and troubled and difficult they were.
In Deborah’s case, she was a successful female judge which in itself was a problem in a male dominated culture. She speaks for God, however, and the men listen. You get the cultural piece when she tells Barak that he will not be getting the glory. The story is about God using women to save the people, both her and especially Jael who was just some random wife who had a tent. I stopped reading there because it becomes one of the most gruesome passages in the entire Bible and would be difficult for sensitive ears. Suffice it to say: Sisera, the enemy general hiding under a rug, never leaves. This passage is dominated by strong women who have always been the bane to male dominated society, but the writers there in that male dominated society added their story because we need them, also.
We need everyone because God calls us all. No one is ready or good enough. God does not need you if you have no need for God. Our Heavenly Father loves those who are “works-in-progress,” those who have a ways to go before they might be considered a “somebody.” God is not interested in puffing up human egos but making us vessels of grace. That will mean that any of us, literally any of God’s children, can be someone here. This means that we all have a place in God’s work and God’s call. We are not exceptional because of who we are but because of what God does with us. Yes, we are precious in God’s sight from the very beginning of our life, but the magic is what God does with us after we tend to make a mess of our lives.
The world is so oriented around appearances and the semblance of status and success. It is sad and tragic that we value one another based on image, and we skew approval to those who have a good image, those who seem the most exceptional. Deborah would not have looked that way. She would have seemed jarring and confrontational as a leader back then. Paul would have looked very good when he was a rising star as a leading Pharisee, but when he was branded a traitor to everyone and lost his path to glory, he had to find a different value. When he was a terror to the church, Christ called him, the worst pick imaginable to build the church.
Jesus could have fixed the world all by himself with a snap of his fingers, but he chose a bunch of social rejects to be his agents and to help. They were even critical to his mission. The most amazing witnesses to God’s gracious love are the people the world would never expect – many of whom are right here. We do have a beautiful purpose in God’s story, each and every one of us, not because of what we have done and accomplished but because of what God has done through us. The moment you say God would never use me is the moment you catch God’s ear in that special way. When you are called, please eventually say yes.
To God be the glory. Amen.