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Whose Glory?
Deborah, a prophetess, used to sit under a palm in the hill country of Ephraim. She summoned Barak and said to him, “The God of Israel commands you, ‘Go, take position at Mount Tabor; I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you with his chariots and troops, and I will give him into your hand.’ Nevertheless,” Deborah continued, “the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for God will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” (Judges 4:4-9 excerpted, NRSV)
Actually, Barak gets his share of praise in the post-battle victory song of Judges 5. So does Deborah, for her role in laying out God’s battle plan to Barak.
Then the victory song celebrates Jael, the woman who brought refreshments to General Sisera with one hand and a deadly tent peg in the other.
But beyond the Book of Judges, Barak is barely mentioned; Deborah and Jael aren’t at all. Ultimately, the victory over Sisera is a small detail within the larger story of God’s covenant with humanity.
I suppose most of our “victories” in life are small like that: noticed only by a few, remembered by even fewer, but pivotal to us in the moment. The victory of self-restraint over temptation. The victory of integrity within our work. The victory of peace in a season of turmoil.
Sometimes, the victory is getting out of bed. Sometimes, the victory is defeating the bad guy. Either way, tomorrow will bring a new share of struggles and triumphs.
It’s just fine if folks don’t break into a song after we’ve risen to the occasion; if our name isn’t remembered for all time because we’ve faithfully followed God; if a path of glory isn’t laid out for us after we’ve battled our inner demons or triumphed over injustice. The road doesn’t lead to our glory, Deborah reminds us. It was never meant to.
Prayer: The glory is yours, O God, for the miracle of this breath and the mercy of this day. Guide me through success and failure so that I remain forever on your path.
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional (ucc.org)
Praise
Praise the Lord! Praise God, sun and moon; praise God, all you shining stars! Praise God from the earth, you sea monsters and creatures of the depths, you fire and hail, snow and frost!
(Psalm 148:1-2 & 7-8, NRSV adapted)
What makes the T-Rex dinosaur a scientific fact and the Loch Ness monster an ancient myth?
It’s a rhetorical question, mainly. To a large extent, I believe the distinction doesn’t matter. It’s certainly not worth fighting over. It doesn’t make much difference in the daily lives of millions of people.
But the question of science vs. myth points my spirit toward something important: faith needs fiction, perhaps far more than it needs facts.
By which I mean: faith needs imagination. Wild and wondering and expansive imagination. Faith needs the unimaginable and the improbable. Faith needs awe. It needs questions that cannot be answered; it needs stories that reach beyond the limits of knowledge.
While faith might long to claim certainty, it does its best work when it claims surrender. When it gives in to hope. When it opts for unearned trust. When it lives in dreams and aspirations beyond what can be proven. When it tells stories.
Madeleine L’Engle wrote in Glimpses of Grace: “Myth is the closest approximation to truth available to the finite human being.”
Somewhere in the chasms of the oceans, there are sea monsters praising God. The Bible tells us so, although we may never know whether the psalmist was writing about a cousin of Loch Ness, a descendent of T-Rex, or a creature of the psalmist’s own imagination. The provability of the monster isn’t the point.
The point is creation’s praise for God, which is beyond imagining. In fact, creation’s praise of God is so vast and wild that it can only be told in fiction.
Prayer: Praise to you, O God, for the praises too mystical and magical for me to perceive!
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional (ucc.org)
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