- Please reserve your seat or takeaway meal for our Harvest Supper on November 2nd at 5:30 by next weekend. Enjoy Harvest Soup, Pork, Roasted Fall Vegetables, and more!
- Next Death Cafe is on November 16th at 4pm.
- Watch the recording of today’s Reflection HERE (posts later Sunday morning or early afternoon).
I opened a big kettle of worms this week. Instead of back tracking, I kept on going. Dumping out more worms. I’m pretty sure they are still crawling around on my desk. That sometimes is a good metaphor for life. It’s messy and maybe that’s okay.
We went to visit the Women’s Rights National Park in Seneca Falls. We visited the church where the first conference for women’s rights was held in 1848. It wasn’t until 1920 that women got the right to vote. Only one woman from that first conference was alive to see women gain the right to vote. She died before she was able to cast her vote.
It started when Elizabeth Cady Stanton had gone to London with her husband several years earlier to fight against slavery. Once there, the conference spent the first day deciding whether women should be allowed at the conference. It was decided they could stay and listen, but on a balcony, out of sight. A humiliating moment when you realize that all human rights are entangled with everyone’s human rights.
I share this because it sets the stage a bit.
We went to Detroit and while we were there, visited the Institute of Art because I wanted to see a painting from one of my very favorite artists, Artemisia Gentileschi. She was an artist in the early 1600’s. She was one of the first women to make a living, a good living, as an artist. She was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia of Art in Florence.
The painting we saw was Judith and her Maidservant. Fair warning: it is a gruesome painting, sometimes life isn’t pretty.
After the trip, I decided to reread the Book of Judith. It’s always important to go back to the actual texts and see what’s actually written there. When we tell the story orally, it is often said that Judith disguises herself as a prostitute (among other things that aren’t in the Story).
She is not a prostitute nor does she disguise herself as one. She is a respectable widowed woman who pretends to seek refuge with the army about to destroy her city. This was not unusual for women and children to do. Also, to be clear, trickery was also a fair and valid battle tactic–it’s was not simply some woman’s unfair trickery.
Judith is wise. She is devoted. She is courageous. One of the morals of the Book of Judith is that faith in God is unconditional. Hers is the story of the triumph of deep faith and trust in God. The name Judith means Jewish. It might be a metaphor for faith itself. It might be a story that the beauty and wisdom of faith, with a touch of deep courage, can overcome the greatest of armies and the most hopeless of times. It might be considered a David and Goliath type story… reminding us that our faith is one that is of the people. The small, meek, humble, and gentle people. It is a faith of the poor and the downtrodden.
So, let’s take out our Bibles and look at the Book of Judith. I’ll wait….
Here’s the next kettle of worms. The Book of Judith isn’t in all of the Bibles. Sometimes, you’ll find it in the Apocrypha, the “other” books. Sometimes, not. It was removed because it was said to be “historically inaccurate”. Ruth, Esther, Judith, and Susanna…only Ruth and Esther (part one) consistently remain.
Once upon a time. 200 years in the past. A thousand years ago. There are often the beginning of stories and tell us that a story is timeless. Another way to do this is to offer a story that is deliberately exaggerated and written to be historically inaccurate. It tells us that the time and place do not matter. These are Wisdom stories. They are relevant in any time and in any place. It is what makes them sacred.
I’ll give you a brief overview of Judith…
Once upon a time, there was a king with one of those wonderful biblical names that we can’t pronounce, Nebuchanduezzar. He wanted to be worshipped as a god. He wanted to be God. He sits back in his throne, boasting of his might and greatness, and sends out his armies to destroy anyone who will not worship him.
Perhaps this is a story of the battle between our selfish human ego and our surrender to something that is bigger than ourselves.
If Nebuchanduezzar strives to be God, perhaps his general, Holophernes, is seeking to be the right hand of God.
General Holophernes takes the army and begins to conquer the world, eventually coming to Judith’s land. He is warned that these are faithful people, protected by God, and so long as they are faithful and true, they are unconquerable. Holophernes laughs at this and cuts off the water supply to the city and waits.
Inside the city, water begins to run out and the people pray for rain, which does not come. The people are begging for an end. Finally the priests say that they will give God five more days to fix things and if he doesn’t, then they will surrender to the enemy.
Here comes Judith, a widow, small and beautiful. Maybe she comes in like faith…small and beautiful. She says that you cannot test God this way. You either have faith in God’s great plan or you do not. You cannot put a human timeline on God. They are humbled and she prays and is called by God to act.
She takes herself out of mourning clothes and dresses herself beautifully and leaves the city with only her handmaid. She is escorted by the enemy to Holophernes where she claims to be seeking refuge. She is so beautiful and wise that he lets her stay. Each night she goes out to pray with her handmaid before returning to her tent. Eventually, Holophernes invites her as his guest of honor to a feast, where he hopes to (putting it politely) woo her. Perhaps a metaphor for the desire for faith, wisdom, and beauty without the work of devotion and practice.
He eats and drinks and drinks some more and passes out. He is left alone with Judith who then…cuts off his head. As I said, it’s a bit gruesome—life is messy and sometimes what we’re called to do isn’t easy (metaphorically speaking, I don’t expect any of us to be chopping off heads for God and if you think you are…pray some more first).
Judith and her handmaid stuff his head into a bag and they rush back home with the head of Holohphernes. The army is left humiliated and without a leader and is in shambles.
Through Judith’s wisdom and courage, her people are saved, but (here is another important point) she takes no credit. She is simply a child of God, trusting in God’s wisdom and beauty. It is God’s work…through her.
While Nebuchanduezzar is boasting of his might, Judith is boasting of God’s Glory. While Nebuchanduezzar is basking in his ego, Judith is resting in her community of faith and her connection with and love of God.
This story shows us that power and violence can be struck down by faith and wisdom and beauty. In a world filled with glorification of the individual, the self made man, violence, money, war, and power, we are shown that it doesn’t take courage to sit back and send out our armies to destroy one another. What takes deep, deep courage is to be with one another, to live simple lives filled with faith, wisdom, and beauty. That the smallest of us can change the world.
Judith is one small being. She is the gentle humanity within grace. She becomes the hands of God, the words of wisdom and the work of faith. She is filled with God’s courage and she is not alone. She has her handmaid and she has her people behind her. Most of all, she always has her God.
A story of beauty as faith. Wisdom as faith. Deep courage as faith.
In these short Books where every word and line matters, I leave you with these final thoughts about the closing of this story: Judith never marries again and she gives her maidservant her liberty.
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