Judith 12:1-6: a reflection

1He commanded that she should be brought in where his silver vessels were set, and asked that his servants should prepare some of his own delicacies for her, and that she should drink from his own wine. 2And Judith said, “I can’t eat of it, lest there be an occasion of stumbling; but provision will be made for me from the things that have come with me.” 3And Holofernes said to her, “But if the things that are with you should run out, from where will we be able to give you more like it? For there is none of your race with us.” 4And Judith said to him, “As your soul lives, my lord, your servant will not use up those things that are with me until the Lord works by my hand the things that he has determined.” 5Then Holofernes’ servants brought her into the tent, and she slept until midnight. Then she rose up toward the morning watch, 6and sent to Holofernes, saying, “Let my lord now command that they allow your servant to go out to pray.”

Deep in the enemy camp, at the table of the very general she has come to defeat, Judith is offered his rich food and wine. And she quietly refuses: I cannot eat it, lest it be an offense; I will eat from what I brought with me. Surrounded by the enemy, far from anyone of her own people, in a place where compromise would have been easy and unnoticed, she keeps her convictions and will not defile herself.

Notice where her faithfulness holds: in the enemy camp, where no one of her own faith was watching, where it would have been easy to bend just a little, to eat the food and blend in. Precisely there, in the hostile and compromising setting, Judith held to her convictions. Her faithfulness was not just for when she was safe among her own; it held even surrounded by those who did not share it, even where compromise would have gone unseen.

That is a searching example for the compromising settings we find ourselves in, the places where we are surrounded by those who do not share our faith, where bending a little would be easy and unnoticed. It is one thing to hold our convictions among fellow believers; it is another to hold them alone, in the enemy camp, where no one of our own is watching. Judith did. Ask God for that kind of integrity, that holds not only when it is easy and observed, but in the compromising places where you stand alone. Faithfulness that only holds when others are watching is not yet faithfulness.

Lord, deep in the enemy camp, where compromise would have been easy and unseen, Judith held to her convictions and would not defile herself. Give me that integrity, that holds not only among fellow believers but alone, in the compromising places where no one of my own faith is watching. Keep me faithful where bending a little would go unnoticed. Let my faithfulness be real, not just for show when others are watching.