I’m a bit of a Marvel movie junkie. DC I’m not to sure
about, or the stuff put out by Sony because they had the rights, but the Marvel
studios stuff is great… The Avengers, Guardians of the galaxy, Thor, iron man,
captain America, ant man. I know it’s not deep engaging serious cinema… its
blockbuster fantasy written to a formula: With cheesy one liners, moments of
pathos, facing down overwhelming odds then snatching victory in the face of
imminent defeat. Moments of self-doubt
and then hardened resolve. Moved to great feats by altruistic resolve and
tempted by the corrupting allure of power. Pulp psychology character
development moments interspersed with spectacular fast paced, special effect driven
action scenes. The obligatory cameo by Comic book legend Stan Lee and that
little something extra, the teaser scene at the end of the credits… to want to
make you come back next time. I love it for entertainment and relaxation but
not for my theology.
It is easy for us to contemplate biblical characters through
that mythic lens and see them as super human or heroic figures, rather than
ordinary people like you and I, that we can relate to, who God has called and
given his Holy Spirit to enable and empower them. One of the people in the Old
Testament that I think epitomises that is Gideon in the book of Judges; a very
real human flawed person whom God uses to save his people. A man whom
commentator Lawson Younger Jr says is characterised by fearfulness and
reluctance but who God sees as a mighty warrior. A man who speaks to us of what
Christian courage is; our weakness and God’s power.
Leading up to Pentecost this year we are looking at the Holy
Spirit in the Old Testament, how God has been with, spoke to and moved through
his people Israel by the Spirit. It’s a whirlwind survey, moving from the
Spirit hovering over the water in the creation narrative at the beginning of
Genesis to the Spirit being poured out
on all the believers at Pentecost in fulfilment of the prophecy in Joel chapter
2. It’s not exhaustive or comprehensive,
but I hope it gives us insight to the working of the Holy Spirit then and how
that changes with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and what it
means for us today.
The book of judges covers the period in Israel’s history
between the conquest and settlement of the land God had promised to Abraham, to
the establishment of a king in Israel. It talks of a cycle in Israel’s early
history of Israel forgetting the covenant, and falling into worshipping the
gods of nations around them, and God who is faithful to his covenant, doing
what he said would happen and Israel is oppressed. Then the people will cry out
to God and God would show mercy and sent them a deliverer, and Israel would
come back to worshipping their God.That cycle continues again and again As a
book it sets the scene as does all the Old Testament scriptures for the need of
a saviour like Jesus Christ.
The Gideon story fit in that cycle. Israel has once again
turned to worshipping the God’s of the people round them Ba’al and Asherah.
These were fertility God’s who worshippers could manipulate to give a good
harvest by pagan rituals and who did not demand the kind of just society that
YHWH, called Israel to be. The Midenites
came and raided and terrorised Israel, they would wait for Israel to plant
their crops and just as harvest time came they would swoop in from the desert
and take the lot. They had a technological advantage which made them hard to
combat… Camels. Camels allowed for swift mobility and the ability to strike out
of the desert lands. They have just recently remasters Lawrence of Arabia and
you can see that Bedouin tribes were able to use that kind of mobility in the
desert to attack the Turks, where they least expected them. In the face
of this the people cry out to God. Unlike in previous cycles, God first sends a
prophet who tells them why thing had gone wrong and calls them back to worship
the Lord their God. But also we have God going to call Gideon to be the person
he would raise up to defeat the Midenites.
The passage we read today is God’s calling of Gideon. Unlike
other call narratives in judges, this one is in the form of a theophany: we
have this mysterious figure turn up who as the story goes on Gideon realises is
none other than the Lord himself. The word angel can mean a spiritual being, or
simply a messenger, but in Ancient Near Eastern society the messenger from a
king was treated as if that king himself was present and speaking, they were an
extension of their rule and power.
Lets face it Gideon would not be your natural first choice
to be a military leader. We meet Gideon in a wine press threshing wheat. A wine press was a pit in the ground used for
treading on grapes to get wine. Gideon is threshing wheat there because he is
hiding it from the Midenites. It was usually done on t a threshing floor which
was out in the open and easily visible, and the Midenites would see the harvest
being bought in and processed and sweep in and grab it. Gideon is afraid of
them, but the Lord’s greeting is mighty warrior. Now Gideon may have justified
to think God was saying mighty worrier.
God tells Gideon he will
save his people. Gideon gives a series of three reasons against that idea. The
first is that while he knows the story of God bring his people out of Egypt and
through the wilderness, he does not see God doing that sort of thing today. In
fact Gideon and his family and village were syncretic in their worship, in the
part of Judges 6 we didn’t read today it talks of his family have Asherah pole
and an altar to Ba’al, that Gideon destroys. He says that he is the least in
his family and his clan is the least in the least tribe of Israel, who am I to
do such a thing. He doubts what he has
been told and so seeks a concrete sign, a reoccurring thing for Gideon.
Each time God’s response is the promise of his abiding
presence, of his power being with Gideon, and finally in an act of burning up
the offering that Gideon prepares with fire. Gideon finally get it that this is
God speaking and so begins to obey, and act.
In our reading this morning we jumped to the forces of the
midenites and all the people from the east with their wonderful hard to
pronounce names getting together to
attack Israel, and Gideon who had learned to trust in God, is filled by
the Spirit and blows a trumpet calling Israel to gether and go to war. In fact that are all arrive first class... as you could say Israels army is Shofar driven... Sorry bad joke). In God’s
presence he has found real courage. Of course, spoiler alert, Gideon does
become a mighty warrior, he defeats an army of overwhelming numbers with just
three hundred men. Not with superior weaponry or technological advantages but
with the first example of psychological warfare, in the night they panic their
enemies with trumpet blasts, lamps and shouting. And the sword of the Lord, a
non-deplume for the Holy Spirit causes the midenites and their allies to think
they are being attacked and fight each other and run away. It’s a victory that
could only be God.
What does this have to say to us today? How does it connect
to the Holy Spirit moving in our lives?
Three things.
Firstly, God still calls people like Gideon, people like you
and I to be about bringing his salvation and Kingdom to his people and world. Jesus
commissioned his followers to go into all the world and make disciples, to be
his witness in Judea Samaria and to the ends of the earth. People like us, you
and me, with our fears and our flaws and our reluctance and excuses and reasons
why not, our demands, our wish for a concrete sign, our questions and doubts.
One of teaching that has stopped many people experiencing the presence and
power of the Holy Spirit and seeing God move is the same one Gideon had. But
That’s all way back then not here and now. Like Gideon we’ve bought into the
God’s of the people round us and we can’t think of God doing something beyond
the natural world, moving in us by his spirit.
We can say who are we! How can we make a difference, I’m
only one small voice. I’m from the wrong people, a small country. We forget Paul’s
words in 1 Corinthians that God uses the weak things of this world to defeat
the strong and God uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.
The picture that comes to mind is a tired weary seamstress on her way home on
the bus across Montgomery Alabama refused to give up her seat because of the
segregation laws in that state, and Rosa Park was the spark of the civil rights
movement. Her statue is in rotunda of the state building in Washing DC she is
the only one seated. A elderly Maori women setting out with her grandchild in
hand on a long walk to the capital, wellington, to call for the upholding of
treaty land rights for her people, dame whina cooper. Others just want a
spiritual experience and will go from this place to that place to seek it, and
forget that the manifestation of God’s Spirit is for the manifesto of God’s
Kingdom, witness, healing, salvation, peace , justice.
In our New testament reading Paul writes to his young intern
Timothy, who is in his first solo position in Ephesus, Timothy is timid by nature,
unsure of himself and I know from personal experience daunted by the task
before him, aware of his short comings and faults. You know I may just be
projecting my own issue on Timothy there. Paul encourages him to fan into flame
the gifts he has been given, to join paul in suffering and serving the gospel
and encourages him by reminding him that God has given us a spirit of power,
love and of self-control.’ Paul reminds him of God’s presence with him.
Power, love and self-control together paint a great picture of the Spirit of
Christ being with him, don’t they? Power without love and compassion can soon
devolve into tyranny and oppression, we’ve sadly seen that in the history of
the world and church. When it is used with Love and compassion as the focus, it
is to see healing and wholeness and good for all. Self-control, a fruit of the
Spirit’s work gives us the wisdom to know how to combine both.
Lastly, it is good to have hero’s of the faith people we
admire from scripture and history and the world around us that inspire and
motivate us. It’s even ok to like super hero’s and if you’ll excuse the play on
words marvel at what they can do, but the call of God is not simply on our
hero’s it is for the ‘here I am’s!’ the
‘here we are’ ordinary people that God is calling to be his witnesses
who he has placed his Holy Spirit upon his spirit of power love and
self-control. Who with all our fears and doubts and failings and faults
will be willing to hear God’s call and obey, knowing that God is with us and
that makes all the difference, not just blowing our own trumpet, but to step
out with Christian courage aware of our weakness and trusting in God’s powerful
presence.
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