Let The Judges Speak, Part Two: "Gideon - Clothed in the Spirit"
God's Spirit is what makes us extraordinary
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, February 5, 2006
Text: Judges 6:25-40
Her name was Ruby Bridges, and she was only six years old when she lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. The time was the early 60s, and the Federal Court judge had made a very important decision: Black children could go to school with white children in the city of New Orleans. He mandated a form of integration that was to take place immediately. Upon hearing this news, many of the parents from the white schools decided to withdraw their children from the school. In fact, every single one of them did that, but every day, six-year-old Ruby Bridges, along with two armed guards, walked to school and attended class. The only people there to greet her were the teachers and the caretakers - there were no other students. The rest of the black community was too frightened, and the whites were boycotting the school, but Ruby, she went to school.
When writing about this some years later, Robert Coles, the noted Harvard medical school professor said: “In this life, there are those who will debate what is good and what is not. Some will argue what is right and what is wrong. But then, there are some others who will simply risk their lives for what they believe to be true.” Ruby Bridges was one such little girl. There are times, my friends, when extraordinary measures are required, when extraordinary people can do extraordinary things. They can rise above the mire of critique or rejection, and they can do the splendid, the marvellous, the right and the just.
In some ways, the character that we are looking at this morning from the Book of Judges was one such person. He demonstrated great courage. However, there are other times when ordinary people do extraordinary things, without meaning to do so. They simply get swept along by history or the tide of events and they are reluctant heroes.
There is the story of a ship's captain who held a great, big dinner in the dining room of his cruise ship, inviting all the people on board. So all the staff and the passengers went to this great, big dinner. He served the best wines, the best caviar and fish and meat. It was a glorious occasion. At the head table sat the object of all their praise and the reason for the dinner - a 70-year-old gentleman. The night before, a woman on the ship had fallen overboard into the dark, cold and icy waters, and this man was there in the water with her, saving her by putting his arms under her until a life ring was dropped down and the two of them were eventually pulled to safety.
This man, then, was being honoured. There were trumpets, there were magnificent songs and speeches, and everyone was praising the courage of this gentleman. Finally, the highlight of the evening came: A word from the hero himself. So, everyone sat in awe waiting for the 70-year-old man to speak. The hero got up to the lectern in front of all the dinner guests, looked out upon them and said, “I would like to know just one thing: Who pushed me?”
So, sometimes, there are reluctant heroes, who get swept away by the tide of events when they have no will or intention to do anything heroic. Now, Gideon is a little bit of Ruby Bridges and a little bit of the 70-year-old man, because he definitely demonstrated great courage by being willing to lay down his life for the sake of what he believed to be true, but also because he was moved by events. He was given direction by God, and in some ways, Gideon was a reluctant hero.
But, why are we, this morning so many, many years past the time of Gideon, spending our time finding out what he had to do and to say?
First of all, a bit about Gideon: He was born in a place call Ophrah in an area called Manasseh, which was in a part of the world that we would now call Somaria. He was born to a well-known man called Joash. Gideon grew up and became so famous that he was given another name - Jerubbaal. In what is really a confluence of two different Old Testament stories, we are told about the courage of this man. One day, while his country was being dominated by the invading forces of the Midianites, he was given a special mission. At the time, he was threshing wheat in a wine press. Yes, you heard me right - in a wine press. He had to do it there because he wasn't allowed to bake bread and thresh wheat without Midianite permission, but still, he went ahead and did it in secret. And so, as he was threshing wheat in a wine press, he had a vision from God. God gave him very strict instructions: “You are to follow me, and you are to do something marvellous and majestic for me.” As a result of hearing this, Gideon did two things: he made a sacrifice to God, a classic Old Testament response to God. Then he did something dangerous, which is the crux of the story: He cut down a pole that had been made an idol to worship a god called Baal.
Baal was a god of the Midianites, not of the Jews. The problem was that the Israelites had started to worship this idol. They said that it didn't matter, we like our idols, but we will also keep our belief in God as well. Gideon was given the message: “No, you cannot have both God and your idols. You have to put away your idols and only worship God. You can't have both.” This, of course, raised the ire of many of the people who had become attached to these idols. They enjoyed worshipping them and bowing down before them. So, they said, “We will execute Gideon.” They went to his father, Joash, who had been responsible for building one particular idol, and said, “We are going to kill your son.” And then, in a brilliant twist of logic, Gideon's father said to them: “Why bother killing my son? If you believe in Baal, why don't you just let Baal do it for you?” Leave it up to the god to do it!
And so the story unfolds that of course Gideon was not killed. On the contrary, Gideon became a strong military leader, and he went into battle and fought the Midianites and won. Afterwards, unfortunately, Gideon fell from grace. But, for one brief moment, the time when the nation needed a strong leader something great happened to Gideon. I think what happened to Gideon has a meaning for our lives, and particularly for those of you who are bringing children up in the Christian faith and all the dangers and challenges of our world.
There are some things about Gideon that made him great. The first is that he was given strength for the occasion. When you look through the Bible, you notice that all the great leaders, whether prophets, kings or judges, had something happen to them before they did something great. We read in Gideon that when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him (and I like the traditional Hebrew word which is “to put on a garment”), God put a garment of his Spirit on Gideon. You know, there is an old adage that we sometimes forget: “What really matters in life is not what we possess, but what possesses us.” Let me put it this way: It does not matter what we possess in this life, but what, or should I say who, possesses us. For Gideon, the Spirit having come upon him enabled him to do great and wonderful and prophetic things. Without the Spirit of God, Gideon would not have been able to overcome his fears, his difficulties and his challenges. It was the Spirit of God that enabled him to do great and extraordinary things.
Now, my friends, we all face moments when we need to be extraordinary. We face challenges and difficulties. We face struggles and all sorts of obstacles that we have to overcome, at home, or at work or elsewhere in the world. We do. But the message from Gideon is that no matter what we possess, no matter what powers we might have, if we are not possessed by the power of God, we do not have the strength to overcome these obstacles. Gideon was clearly a man who had fears. He was not a hero; he was someone who became possessed by God.
He reminded me a little bit of a story about Nikita Khrushchev. When he had taken over from the leadership presidium that succeeded Stalin to lead the Soviet Union, he made a presentation before a great gathering in Moscow. Hundreds and hundreds dignitaries and powerful people were present. One by one, he went through all the ills of the Stalin regime. He criticized his predecessor; he pointed to the injustices and the murders; and, as the new leader of the USSR, he pointed a finger at Stalin and his regime. After he had finished his speech, a voice came from somewhere in the audience, and it said, “Mr. Khrushchev, seeing as you were a member of Stalin's government, why didn't you do something about it at the time?”
There was a long silence, and Khrushchev said, “Who said that?”
And there was silence. Khrushchev said, “Now you know why! Fear!”
Fear can be a powerful thing. Sometimes, the only way to overcome fear, in fact the only true way to overcome fear, is to have the power of the Spirit of God in your life. My friends, it doesn't matter what you possess; it doesn't matter what power you have; it doesn't matter how wealthy you are; it doesn't matter how charismatic your personality; how numerous your family; how great your name: In the end, what makes us extraordinary is the power of God's Spirit. Gideon knew that, but he also gained a whole new perspective for the occasion as well.
Many years ago, when I was in prison in South Africa, one of the only things I was given was a volume containing the New Testament and Psalms - I have mentioned this before here - a Bible, put there by a group called the Gideons. If you go to a hotel and you do not know what to do at night and you are bored, open the drawer beside the bed, take out the telephone book and, underneath, you will find the Gideons' Bible. The Gideons call themselves that precisely because they see themselves like the men who fought in Gideon's army against great and terrible odds, following a man who was overcome by the Spirit of God.
Gideon, more than anything, was able to see that the one thing that really stood in his people's way was their idolatry. St. Augustine had a wonderful definition of idolatry: “Idolatry is worshipping any thing that ought to be used, or using any thing that ought to be worshipped.” My friends, idolatry is not just a pole to the honour of Baal, idolatry is any thing that we set up that becomes our god and determines our allegiance. Now, the amazing thing about the stories of idolatry in the Bible is that the idols were never able to do anything. The gods personified in the idols were powerless because they didn't exist. All three of Judaism and Islam and Christianity maintain there is only one God, not a group of gods who are competing in the heavens. One God. All the others are fabrications. All the others are pretenders. All the others are figments of the imagination of men and women. Is it then surprising that when we turn to those gods, they fail us because they don't exist?
Yet, we do make gods. Oh, I don't suppose you worship a pole at the end of your garden every day, but your god, your idol might be, for example, yourself. You might, unknowingly, worship yourself. A. W. Tozer, a great Christian writer, once wrote: “One of the great idols in life is our self-love.” He says that this is a heavy burden to bear, and this is really insightful:
Think for yourself whether much of your sorrow in life has not arisen from someone speaking badly of you. As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal, there will be those who will delight to offer an affront to you and your idol. How, then, can you hope to have inward peace? The heart fears efforts to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honour from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind rest.
We often set ourselves up as our own idols, and when we do this, we are amazed that anyone can slight us, say anything negative about us, because we are like a god. No wonder we are so ill at ease, no wonder we feel so affronted, our god has actually become offended when someone slights us or says something about us.
Sometimes, we set up others as gods. Sometimes we worship other people and elevate them to positions of power and authority well beyond their status, because we think that somehow they will lead us into a promised land or will help us along life's way. I have a confession to make to you today. I am looking forward to the Super Bowl like never before. The reason for this is because I have been a Pittsburgh Steelers fan for 25 years. Now, here they are in the Super Bowl. Do I care who wins today? You bet I care who wins today! Do you think I have been praying for whom I want to win today? You are darned right I am praying for whom I think should win today, although the Rev. Fritz wants the Seahawks to win. So, we will see whose prayers really do work in this place!
Have you noticed how we build up sports people as our heroes and our idols, and how we worship at their altars? How we look to people to solve our personal problems, rather than taking responsibility for dealing with them ourselves? How we place the love and the affection and the wisdom of others above the word of God or above the power of God's Spirit? Oh, we make idols of others, all right! But they can never save us; they can never give us strength; they can never heal us; they can never help us feel like Gideon.
Lastly, sometimes we make objects of our gods. We worship things - the things that we possess. If there is an idolatry in North America at this time in our history, it is the idol of materialism. It is the idol of bowing down before things that will decay and die and pass away before our God. And then, we wonder why we don't have peace. My friends, let me tell you straight: No matter what god we build up or worship, that god will not have the power to save. The prophets of Baal called upon their god when Elijah was on Carmel and said, “Come on down and save us!” And nothing happened. The people of Israel built a god to Baal, and they were oppressed. But when Gideon was filled with the Spirit, God was glorified, and the people of Israel were saved. This is a message for us all. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.