“The First Diss Track”
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Reading: Judges 4:1-24
It is often charged that religion has a gender problem. There is truth in the criticism. If I had an editing go at the Bible, I’d make clearer that lots of Jesus’ first disciples are women. With an edit I’d make some of the monarchs in Israel women—if it worked for their majesties Eleanor and Victoria and Elizabeth, why not in biblical times? But I don’t have an edit. I do have the responsibility to draw our attention to this: there are powerful women in the book of Judges. And they are the ones doing the judging.
Our story opens with Deborah as a judge in Israel. She’s the successor to such ancient greats as Moses and Joshua, the predecessor to kings like David and Solomon. She’s doing the work the boys do, only backwards and in high heels. The author wants to make this unmistakable: “Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth.” She has a woman’s name, she’s a female seer, she’s a wife. See? Judges shows, women lead.
She orders her general Barak to go to war against Canaanite occupiers who have been making Israel miserable. But this general won’t fight. Not without a promise that Debra will come along. She does promise, but prophesies this: “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you lead will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Interesting it takes a female prophet to foresee glory for another woman. This is why we need diverse folks around every table—not to be politically correct, but to be wise—to see clearly.
We’re in a series this summer on the book of Judges, subtitled “there are no heroes.” Judges shows what we human beings do with power left to our own devices. We abuse it, abuse one another, abuse creation. But Judges also holds out hope. Because God doesn’t abandon us to our devices. In fact, when we human beings are at our worst, God is working overtime, precisely there, to bring good.
Pastor Dayle gave me the title “the first diss track.” A diss track, I’m told, is one rapper writing a whole song to make fun of another—like Kendrick Lamar having a go at Toronto’s own Drake. We tried to get our friend Shadrach Kabango to preach on diss tracks but he’s away, he'll come in the fall instead. So unfortunately, I’m your guy for a diss sermon, instead of an award winning hip-hop local artist. Shad’s family came from Rwanda. There’s a genre of village music there that’s like a diss track: ‘I’m the baddest guy around, look at my cows, your cows are scrawny.’ Just something human there—talking trash. Judges shows us something human too: we do violence to one another. And Judges shows us something divine: God wrestles a blessing even out of our violence.
If you’ve listened to any of these sermons on Judges so far, you already know the cycle: we the people misbehave, things go badly, we cry out, God hears, sends a leader, and we return to faithfulness. That cycle repeats here too—God sends a series of leaders—Debra and Barak and Yael. And Israel smashes the occupying Canaanites. Scripture imagines Israelite soldiers on foot chasing Canaanite chariots—our humans are faster than your horses. Another diss.
Sisera, the enemy general, flees, and thinks he’ll find refuge with the Kenites, they’re Canaan’s allies. And Yael pleads with Sisera to come into her tent. “Have no fear,” she croons. It’s a sort of seduction—going into a tent with a woman you’re not kin to, can mean only one thing back then. Sisera comes in, asks for water, she gives him milk. She covers him with a blanket, tucks him in, like a child.
We’re in a strange moment for gender roles in our culture, aren’t we? The 1920s saw our grandmothers insist on the right to vote and so they became political agents in their own right. The 1960s saw women insist on their power to earn in whatever field they wanted. Now, their granddaughters wonder, what does it mean to be a woman at all? Feminism said I don’t have to get married or have children. Fine. Well, what should I do? For some, the implicit answer is do all the house and family work and work professionally too. Not sure that’s what we meant by liberation. We’re in a strange moment for masculinity also. Over against women’s newer access to every part of society, we have a massive backlash of toxic masculinity. Teens hear they need to be more manly, put women in their place—often with violent overtones. Then they wonder why no one is attracted to them. If the Bible has a gender problem, it’s not like our culture has sorted it.
In this Bible story we have image after image of femininity: Yael is in charge of her tent. To put together a tent was women’s work. Men fought wars and sat at the city gate; women were in charge of the domestic front. So, Yael would’ve been really good with a mallet and tent peg, her hands would’ve known what to do without her brain having to ponder. Bad news for poor general Sisera.
Artists have enjoyed re-presenting this scene of Yael taking out pitiful old Sisera. It’s almost like every artist is required to depict this scene of domestic violence at some point. Here’s another go from the middle ages. Poor Sisera wakes up at an unhappy moment in this one.
I got to sit with a rabbi friend this week and ask what he makes of this story. He agreed with me there’s some girl power in it. But then he asked, how come a woman has to act like some sort of black widow to get a story in the Bible? Like a young professional today who has to pretend to be more man than the boys, and also mind the home front, to get ahead. Then the rabbi said this: I find women often struggle to find the balance between being nurturing and being fierce. Wow. One commentator points out that Debra means “bee” in Hebrew—she has honey for her friends, a sting for her enemies. You can see both here—luring Sisera to come in for milk and a nap on the one hand, nailing him to the ground on the other.
One might think folks come to church for sage advice on how to live. And one would be wrong. The gospel is not council on a more fulfilling life. The gospel is an announcement: God in Jesus Christ has made creation new. So how do we read every story in that light, the light of Christ’s resurrection?
One of the earliest glimpses of the gospel comes already in the book of Genesis. God is doling out punishments for Adam and Eve: you, hard labour. You, hard labour (the other kind). Both of you: enmity with the serpent. And God specifies:
I will put enmity between you and the woman
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
In older translations that’d be rendered, “You will strike her heel, and she will crush your head.” This prophesy got our forebears to thinking about Christ’s victory over evil. He crushes the serpent’s head for us. Or his mother does. This contemporary icon depicts Mary, mother of Jesus, comforting Eve, mother of the living. Eve is still sad, clutching the fruit that brings our ruin, the snake coiled around her leg. Mary offers comfort: without your sin, mother, this grace would not have come. Feel my swelling belly. That’s our redeemer. Come because of your fault. Rejoice. And while Mary offers this comfort, she’s crushing the serpent with her bare foot. Every multi-tasking mom can relate: terrifying intruder? [STOMP] I got this, no problem, don’t even need shoes.
Yael is praised in Judges’ next chapter:
24 Most blessed of women be Jael,
the wife of Heber the Kenite,
of tent-dwelling women most blessed.
25 Water he asked, milk she gave;
she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.
26 She put her hand to the tent peg
and her right hand to the workers’ mallet;
she struck Sisera a blow;
she crushed his head;
she shattered and pierced his temple.
27 Between her feet he sank, he fell,
he lay still;
between her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank, there he fell dead.
By the end of that ancient diss track the artist is just sort of mumbling: he sank, fell, lay still, dead, he died, super dead. Sounds better in Hebrew, I guess. Did you notice that first line? “Most blessed of women be Jael ...” Those are the same words we Christians apply to Mary: “blessed art thou among women.”
We might be used to a view of Mary bordering on the saccharine: a polymer saint capable only of sweetness. This story shows Mary’s foremother was Yael: luring the enemy into her tent, then nailing him to the floor. Our Lord’s mother has plenty of toughness to go with her tenderness. As she sings
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
Is the gospel good news? It depends on where you sit. If your life is happy and fulfilled, the gospel might upset that. If your life is difficult and frustrating, the gospel might upset that. When it comes to God, we should expect the unexpected. God tends to work differently than we anticipate. Not how we’d have guessed. But way, way better.
In a previous generation’s masculinity, soldiers wanted to be memorialized for being brave. On the battlefields I’ve visited, a horse with one leg up means that officer was wounded on that field. A horse rearing with both front legs up means that leader was killed. Before Samuel L. Jackson appeared in the Star Wars prequels, he wanted a contract that stipulated a cool death, he didn’t want to die like some sucker. George Lucas complied. Sisera slips away from his shattered army into an allied people’s tent. He’s tucked into bed with milk like a child. And then he dies like a fool. Yael takes his head in her hand, her mallet in another, and drives it into the ground. This is death by woman’s work. Like death by ironing board or knitting needles. No rearing up statue for Sisera. And Debra the judge’s prophecy is true—Barak gets no glory for victory over the Canaanites. God gets all the glory for delivering Sisera into the hands of a woman. Barak comes running up, sword in hand, looking to finish off his opposite number, and Yael says ‘look, I already did your work for you.’ Nailed him. You’re welcome.
So, what do we make of this story?
It’s full of action, no doubt. U2’s founder and lead singer Bono says the Old Testament is the Hollywood movie of the Bible—all car crashes and shootouts. One thing we can clearly see it’s not is morally exemplary. There is no way to turn this into a children’s sermon. ‘Now we shouldn’t drill our opponents through the temple with a tent peg, now should we children?” What then?
I do think there’s something spiritually salutary in knowing our ancestors weren’t all choir boys and girls. Israel writes these stories down and calls them scripture, for us to read forever. Most of our family trees are tidied up. My country, the USA, likes to tell our history as one glorious victory after another. We don’t do tragedy well. Israel, all it does is tragedy. ‘And then we did this awful thing. And then, ah, can you believe it! We did this. Ugh this is humiliating, then this.’ The Old Testament is relentless on this point. Why? To show how great God is. That God would love and choose to wed a people like this.
Think of how my fellow Americans would tell the story of the fight with King Jabin and his general Sisera. ‘And then we defeated them, because we’re so freedom-loving and they’re so freedom-hating, of course we won.’ When President Trump says he can’t remember ever praying for forgiveness because he can’t think of anything he’s ever done wrong, that’s about the most American religious sentiment I’ve ever heard. Perfectly righteous over here, thanks very much, no saviour needed. Not Israel. She says, ‘We had a woman judging us. And a male soldier who wouldn’t soldier without her. And we won. But our guy didn’t finish off his opponent, no. Another woman drilled him in her tent with a hammer.’ Thus endeth the lesson.
God doesn’t call people because we’re good. God doesn’t use us because we’re holy. God calls those who are not good. Not holy. To accomplish things we could not have on our own. This is great news. If you think you’re too compromised or illegitimate for God to call, love, and work through—perfect. You’re exactly who God is after.
Johnny Cash is my favourite country singer, not so much for his music, which I do love, but for his story. I mentioned Bono earlier—Bono tells of going to the Cashes’ house for dinner. And Johnny said grace with a long, beautiful King James prayer. They all said amen. And then Johnny said, “still miss the drugs though.” Dig in. As a kid on the farm in Arkansas his older brother died in an accident. And somehow in the confusion Johnny came to believe that he’d murdered his brother. Imagine growing up with that self-horror? So when he heard a gritty gospel that says Jesus dies for murderers, he said ooh, yeah, that’s good news, I want that.
Israel isn’t good because she’s morally more wholesome than anybody else. I mean, you’ve heard these stories. She’s good because God chooses her. It’s the same for us, church. We’re not good on our own—despite all our history and esteemed people and our gifts. We’re good because Jesus chooses us. He is all we have going for us. And he is enough.
Dorothy Day was a great saint among the poor in 20th century Catholicism. She came to faith because her socialist friends talked about the poor. But you know what poor people are drawn to? The church. Her beauty. Jesus. She started a newspaper still printed today called The Catholic Worker, to counter the Daily Worker, a communist paper. She was showing the church is the real revolution, not anything Marx or Lenin cooked up. And poor people started showing up at the printing press. ‘You write that you’re for the poor because Jesus is. Well, here we are.’ Someone put some soup on. And Catholic Worker houses were born. You can find them nearly anywhere there are poor people, sort of like the Salvation Army, they’re there. Not to fix the poor, but to be with them. Because they’re Jesus. Day was asked to write an autobiography late in life. She tried. She’d been a celebrated writer. But she couldn’t do it.
I try to think back; I try to remember this life that the Lord gave me; the other day I wrote down the words ‘a life remembered’ and I was going to try to make a summary for myself, but I couldn’t do it. I just sat there and thought of our Lord, and I said to myself that my great luck was to have him on my mind for so long in my life.
One thing necessary—Jesus Christ, and he’s enough. There’s a shot of Dorothy Day at a protest. She looks like Yael, our mother in Israel of old. She’d drive a tent peg through your temple. If Jesus hadn’t got a hold of her first.
In the middle ages, there were some options for women in leadership we don’t much have today. Most women became mothers, blessedly, or we wouldn’t be here. But some became nuns, and some of those nuns became abbesses, powerful figures, equivalent to bishops. St. Catherine of Sienna in the 14th century was convinced her church was in grievous error for having the pope housed in France instead of Rome. And she got in the pope’s face about it. ‘So you’re some sort of coward hiding here in the wrong place? Aren’t you bishop of Rome? Maybe go and do your job?’ The pope’s courtiers muttered: ‘can’t this woman’s husband come take her away?’ ‘Sorry guys she has no husband other than Jesus, and he’s egging her on.’ That’s what happens when you have biblical figures like Yael inhabiting your imagination.
With stories like this, the church squints, and sees Jesus. Not to fix the Old Testament or to say it’s bad. No, we do it because Jesus is absolutely everywhere in his creation, so of course we also see him in his Bible. It’s his book after all. The one Mary taught him to love while she bounced him on her knee. So, we can see a glimpse of Genesis’ promise in this story: that the snake’s descendants will strike the heel of Eve’s descendants, and her descendant will crush the snake’s head. Yael re-presents that promise as she crushes the enemy’s head in her tent. Mary does as she strikes down injustice, raising a son who’ll rule the cosmos with a cross. There is something nurturing in mothers—sustenance and safety and tenderness. But there’s also something fierce: a mama bear, protect-these-kids-at-all-costs severity. As for how to strike the balance between tenderness and toughness, I don’t know, we men have probably been advising women for too long already. I just know I see that combination in many of you. I see it in Mary, in Yael, in Catherine, in Dorothy Day, our foremothers in faith. And I want more of it, please Lord.
You may know that the church itself has been imagined in feminine terms. Or I should say, the church herself. We are Christ’s bride, Zion’s daughter, Eve and Mary’s successor. The baptismal font is a womb in which new believers are birthed. These walls are the home in which we’re raised in faith, taught the basics of language and manners, launched into the world to do good. This is one reason we’ve concentrated on meals lately as we’ve worked to Awaken Community: mama feeds you. Then assigns chores to get the housework done. We live in a gender fluid age and that’s brought us many gifts. Trust me, I wear a dress in here to work most weeks, we’ve all gotten used to it, but it's weird!
But there is a powerful woman at the heart of our faith, sort of like Eve, sort of like Mary: it’s mother church, who nurtures us all into fullness of life. She cares for us, feeds us, loves us, and raises us to adulthood in faith. Her honey is for us, her sting for the enemy. May her tribe only increase. Amen.