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Judges 5:24 "Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, of tent-dwelling women most blessed."

 

This is the tent peg to the skull story again! (See Know What You Deserve). In this song of Deborah, Jael is called "most blessed" because "[s]he put her hand to the tent peg and her right hand to the workmen's mallet; she struck Sisera a blow, she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple." (Judges 5:26).

 

At a parish discussion group over Advent, a conversation arose about Matthew 11:12, what it meant, and whether violence is ever appropriate in the Kingdom of Heaven. Someone who was arguing it is not brought up the Crusades as an example of "not a good thing", which caused others of us to briefly try to explain the Crusades, but the subject was quickly changed. (Later in the week, this post popped into my X feed, and one of my fellow crusade-defenders told me I should read it at the next discussion group, (which I did not, in a possibly cowardly attempt to avoid "violence").

 

Violence is, unfortunately, sometimes necessary. When it is done not for personal reasons but in service of the Kingdom, it should be lauded. Jael exhibited tremendous courage in doing what she did. I imagine she took no pleasure in this act, and that she felt great trepidation as she carried it out, but she did it because she saw it was the right thing to do and that only she had the opportunity to do it. The judge Deborah recognized all of this by calling Jael "most blessed."

 

To be blessing the violent seems to fly in the face of "Blessed are the meek" or "Blessed are the peacemakers". But Jesus made a whip and cleansed the Temple (John 2:13-16); He told His apostles to buy swords (Luke 22:36); and He said that that men of violence take the kingdom of heaven by force (Matthew 11:12). 

 

God is more complex than we can ever imagine, and things are not as black and white as we'd like them to be (especially when we are tempted to avoid confronting difficult situations by hiding behind the mantra of nonviolence). When violence is needed but eschewed, it is the kingdom of evil that thrives, not God's.