Gideon - Becoming People of Valor

Preached a number of times in 1976-77-78 when I was in Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, and last Sunday, January 7, 2018 slightly rewritten (about 10% modified).

The back part of my seminary where the dorm was.
 There are four floors. My window is farthest right.
The third floor. You can just barely see it.

This was my "default" sermon when I preached in little churches where the pastor was away or in churches that didn't have pastors: if it wasn't Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter or something special, I wrote it when I was 25..

Scripture readings: Judges 6:1-32; John 14:27

“The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

The words shot through the hot harvest air and startled a man who was anything but mighty.

Now, since the Hebrew word for “mighty one” can also be translated as “hero”, let’s look with all the eyes of hero worship so we can understand that brave hero, Gideon.

We catch him, first, standing hunched over beneath the spreading oak tree, at Ophra. He bends over the stones of the winepress, not sharpening a warrior’s sword, but thrashing out the wheat: the food that he wanted to hide from the marauding, desert tribesmen who were strangling his people.

Getting ready with some fellow students to sing  Messiah.
It was with the Community Choir performing at the "U".

Dust and chaff stick to his clothes, and hair, and sweat. He’s jumpy; worried about being spotted and robbed of the food and the seed his family need to survive.

Was there a hero’s fire in his eyes?

They were only bloodshot. He was exhausted and there was that sweat running into his eyes. It could be the sparkle of fear. If Gideon had ever had childhood dreams of being some kind of superhero, he had grown up out of those dreams long ago. He was using all his powers to cope with each new day of danger. Every day was dangerous.

Then something happened. Gideon was startled by a loud voice from behind. He jumped and turned. He was afraid to see who had found his hiding place: afraid of anyone who would be so cold as to sneak up on him from behind and yell “boo”, and mock him.

He knew he was no hero. The heroes had all been killed.

Me dress for a Halloween party.

The figure sitting behind him on the big rock was a stranger; and a very strange stranger at that. Gideon tried to choke down the shivering sense that this was no ordinary person. In meeting this stranger with the powerful voice, he felt he was meeting something from beyond this world. The face was more than royal, as if he were in the presence of God.

I wonder if Gideon shuddered at the thought that this one calling him “hero” and “brave” was actually calling him to become just that: to do more than he had ever dared.

The word of God, in the Scripture, is the voice of God speaking to you with the Spirit, or the breath, of God in it. So, the voice of God says: “Good morning you brave heroes.” Yes, you!

Have you ever heard a preacher say that God gives a gift to some people so that they can preach, or teach, or sing in the choir, or knit sweaters for mission children, or, at least, give a warm smile to your neighbor? I’ve always wondered a little about the warm, smiley part. Does a smile really matter very much? But, I’m much too serious for my own good.

The truth is that it matters very much. It can be harder to do than most people think: not just the smiley part, but everything that goes with a real and serious smile.

We are taught, as children, not to talk to strangers. We learn to fear the sorrows and the sufferings of others. It’s hard to give ourselves, to overcome these old obstacles; but, if we do, we may become heroes.

Spent summer serving in Carter Lake, 1977.
The only part of Iowa west of the Missouri River.

If you’ve ever felt lost, or alone, or confused, or frustrated; and someone, anyone, stopped to notice, care, help, and encourage you, then you know how important this mission is. If we can do this for others (give them a sign that love and hope are real) we will be doing a hero’s work.

The truth is that God calls us to be heroes. God calls us to give ourselves for others as he has given himself for us, but how often do we find ourselves stopped in our tracks, reluctant to be what God has made us to be? Like Lazarus, the dead friend of Jesus, called from the tomb, we are alive, but we are bound in layer after layer of shrouds, like an Egyptian mummy.

In the transformation that comes from Jesus, we are like patients recovering from a long, bed-fast illness, and we’re afraid of taking our first step. We aren’t prepared for how good a physician our Doctor Jesus really is.

Seminary party. Two teams competing to blow a ping pong ball.

Maybe the change is like being in a body cast for a long time, and Doctor Jesus has to break away the cast, or unwrap it layer by layer. The bands of cloth are our old confinement: obstacles to the giving life to which God calls us.

We may find ourselves wrapped in the same layers of resistance as Gideon was. As Gideon needed God to do for him, we need the Lord to remove our obstacles to the giving life (the hero’s life), one by one.

The first obstacle, or mummy wrap, that kept Gideon from the heroism to which God called him was that he was overwhelmed by an experience of hopelessness and abandonment.

There’s a story of a hiker making his way, all alone, through a wilderness area. At the end of the day, he made camp and slept. Something awakened him in the middle of the night, as moonless, silent darkness surrounded him.

Did "Itinerant preaching once or twice a month.
I think that's Rewey WI ahead.
It's not much of a town.

Have you ever felt an aloneness and quietness so strong that it seemed like a physical presence? The hiker felt this.  In the blank, dark silence, the whole universe was there, watching, listening, and he wanted to cry out: “Friend or foe?”

In the face of sufferings, failures, illness, and grief, some people, in the old days, would call our world a “vale of tears”; a deep shadowy valley, beyond which they looked forward to finding the sun shining on the high country: heaven and its king. Doubts, frustrations, and worry cloud our ability to see that there is hope, that we are not alone. It’s hard to see beyond a veil of tears; changing the shadowy valley to a cloak that wraps us in darkness.

For Gideon, this veil became a shroud, wrapping and confining him. If he were alone in the blank silence of the night, he would relate to the presence hidden there as an enemy, not a friend.

The economy of Israel was in shambles. There was no leadership in the country, no security of life. They were a broken, invaded people. God had abandoned them.

The church at Rewey.

Somehow, the strange presence that Gideon met, that day, was slicing through his veil of tears. “The Lord is with us! We have hope!”

Maybe you’ve felt this for yourselves. In the face of an unmeetable deadline, or a seemingly unsolvable problem, you felt that you could meet it. You could solve it, or survive it, in order to begin again. God was giving you the gift of hope as he gave it to Gideon. God opened the veil and you marched forward through it.

One barrier was removed, a second barrier was uncovered.

“Lord, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest one, and I’m the least in my family?” Now, Gideon was just too small and weak to do what God called him to do, and to be what God called him to be.

How often do we tell ourselves that we would like to do this or that, something worthwhile, that would help others, and then we turn away, saying: “No, I’m not good enough,” or, “It’s too late now,” or “maybe later, I’m not ready yet.” Some opportunity arises (and God is the designer of all opportunities, visible and invisible), but we know it must not be the right one. God must be mistaken.

Gideon objected to the Lord’s opportunity, but he got an objection back from God. God said: “But I will be with you.” Gideon had focused on his own weakness rather than on God’s strength.

We did a prank. Some women students knitted the hat & scarves.
I just did some essential reconnaissance.

All the ads and commercials tell us, with authority, that only the newest, strongest, and best will do; and that we have to leave “Brand-X” behind. When we buy that idea wholesale, we risk re-applying it from products to people.

But, when you look at them, you find that people with “grade-A” goodness, wisdom, talent, and beauty are rare. You may find that most of your friends, relatives, associates, and that you, yourself, are what the advertisers call Brand-X.

God’s standard is completely different. One of the great things about the Bible is that there are no glossy heroes there; only human being like ourselves.

God chooses and calls the least likely people. People who know they are human are more likely to respond. They know they need help. They know they need God.

Internship the fall of '77 thru summer of 78.
Incline Village NV Presbyterian Church.

Scripture tells us that “Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6) The Lord came for the sake of our smallness and weakness. The Lord came so that smallness, and weakness, and unworthiness would no longer be a barrier to following him on our new road.

There was, and is, one more barrier, or mummy layer to remove. This still kept Gideon from responding freely to the new life God opened to him.

All through this interview, Gideon was asking himself: “Is this really happening?”

It wasn’t joyful unbelief. It was another form of fear that questioned whether this was God, himself, or something else. “If I have found favor with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me.”

My glamorous lodging at Incline Village.
Middle of second floor.

An explosion of fire evaporated Gideon’s offering on the rock, and it seemed to completely erase the visitor: the visitor with the voice and face of God. Gideon thought he was going to die, because he had somehow blown his interview with God. Gideon asked for a sign, but not for anything like this.

Gideon’s secret fear was God himself. Gideon was afraid of God. Perhaps, more than we would like to admit, something about God frightens us, even when we think we believe in him.

The Hebrews wondered about what it meant for a human to meet face to face with the Lord of Hosts; the Lord of the Angel Armies. God was so different: so holy and powerful. God was too good, and too smart, and simply much too much for us. It must be more than a normal human being could stand. Something had to give. Something would break. Gideon expected to die.

A bit of my middle school group hiking up Mt Rose.
The peak was about 10,000 feet.

Can we identify with Gideon’s fear?

A feeling comes, at times, that there is an unbridgeable gap between us and God, and that we can never come close to him and expect a moment’s peace. People expect saints to have either sad or sour faces.

Is this true? Gideon was, at the moment, very near to God, and he was, also, very unhappy.

We may fear God as a judge. In our imagination, God may appear in robes like a judge. His throne is his judge’s bench, and heaven takes on the appearance of a courtroom.

This is not a comfortable picture. If there is any good in it, it’s only because it helps us remember that God cares about us in some great sense. God cares about what we do and the values we have. We, in turn, care about God’s caring. We want to be in harmony with the purpose and the values of a God who knows us to the core and who is very holy and loves us never the less.

Thanksgiving Vacation 1976.
With some seminary friends visiting a graduate.friend.
Youth pastor at Winterhaven. Fl/

Gideon did ask to know if he had found favor in God’s sight, if God’s deepest motives were mercy, and kindness, and generosity. God’s fiery explosion was a booming and blinding yes.

It was not a normal yes. God was so hot with favor for Gideon. And that made Gideon more afraid than ever. God’s love was too much for him.

Have you ever known someone to be afraid of love? It happens.

God met Gideon’s fear without hesitation: “Peace!” “Peace! Don’t be afraid. I want to help, not hurt you.” “Peace!”

Gideon, wrapped up tight in a mummy layer of fear, needed peace as a resource to respond to God. Now peace, or (in Hebrew) “Shalom” is a feeling, and yet something much, much more. We might feel peaceful, quiet, undisturbed. We might also say that we feel rested. But, if we say this on a beautiful morning, after a good night’s sleep, we don’t mean we’re ready for a nap. We mean that we’re fresh and fit for the new day. That’s what peace is like. And, again, it’s much, much more than that.

Easter vacation staying at a friend's parents' house.
Austin TX, 1977. Wonderful house and pool.

Peace is trusting that everything is going to fit together. Nothing that matters can fall apart or collapse. It’s all going to work. Now you’re ready to help make it all work.

That’s peace. Peace is a sense of wholeness and being put together and ready for anything: being ready for whatever God brings your way; being ready to grow. Being ready to give.

Jesus, knowing how, in a few hours, he would be swept into a storm of betrayal, cruelty, injustice, and death on the cross, said this to his friends: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you, let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27) Jesus freely offers us his peace, his own peace, worked out for us with all the love of his life, all the dedication of his death, all the grace of his sacrifice, and all the indestructibility of his resurrection.

Me playing pastor in a frontier museum town.
Near Phoenix AZ, end of summer '77.

It began to dawn upon the fearful heart of Gideon that the Lord’s first thought for him was full of mercy, peace, love, and hope. This was offered to him, as totally unheroic as he was. The Lord’s peace was stronger than any fear of abandonment or despair at his own smallness and unworthiness. Let come what may, that ultimate gift of peace came down from God.

The barriers were down. Gideon was ready to answer the call of the Lord.

He was called to be a hero; just as we are. Gideon was called to open himself up to his people’s problems, to do something that would set them free from despair, weakness, and fear. He would do it, and become a hero.

But, he would never be perfect in this world. Sometimes he would be just plain silly. Sometimes he would be terrible and much worse than he was before his calling changed him. Gideon remained human. And so do we, when God calls us.

Graduation '1978, shaking hands with Dean.

To be ready for tomorrow, we need the rest that comes from faith: the confidence that comes from going forth, yet being in the hands of God’s peace at the same time. Have you ever tried to get a small child to do anything which that child absolutely refused to do: like going to bed so that they can rise and shine tomorrow?

That’s the kind of job God has with us. He knows what he’s doing, and he loves his children, so we know he won’t give up and turn his back on us in dismay.

As Gideon stood before the Lord, he experienced that persistent love. That enduring love removed one layer, one barrier, after another. Think how you stand face to face with the same persistent, loving God, as we know him in Jesus, as we know him on the cross. That God calls to you: “The Lord is with you, you mighty people of valor!” Do you hear that call?