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SERMONS

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 4, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

Judges 6:11-24a
Psalm 85:7-13
1 Cor. 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a man named Gideon lived in Israel. The scene we are given in today’s first reading finds Gideon threshing wheat “in the unlikely locale of a winepress.” And he’s threshing wheat in a winepress for one very good reason - to hide it from the enemy. You see, at the time this scene takes place, Israel was under siege by the Midianites and other tribes, and had been for seven years.

So, for the past seven years, Gideon and his fellow Israelites have suffered repeated invasions by “marauding desert tribes,” including the Midianites. When the enemy invaded, they destroyed and stole all the crops and livestock in Israel that they could find. This resulted in widespread devasation, economic and otherwise. Things had gotten so bad that the Israelites took to hiding out from the Midianites in mountain caves! So, as you might have guessed, the Israelites had gotten lots of practice at hiding grain and livestock from invading armies.

So it comes as no surprise that Gideon, when we meet him, is doing just that – he is hiding grain from the invaders! So there is Gideon, minding his own business, threshing grain in secret so as to keep it out of the hands of the Midianites. Then, lo and behold an angel of the Lord appears “under the oak at Ophrah.” The angel says to Gideon: “The Lord is with you,…mighty warrior.” But the angel’s words don’t make any sense to Gideon. What the angel says – that Gideon has the Lord’s favor – simply doesn’t comport with what Gideon is experiencing – life under constant invasion by hostile forces. So Gideon challenges the angel.

Gideon asks, “But, sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?” Why, Gideon asks, can’t the Lord deliver us from this oppression like he delivered our ancestors from the oppression of the Egyptians? Gideon’s question to the angel would be known “in the technical jargon of theology [as] a damn good question….” But all that the angel says in response to Gideon’s questions is “Go.” “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.”

Somehow, I don’t think that that was the response that Gideon was hoping for! Gideon seemed to be simply pointing out an inconsistency between what the angel said and what he was experiencing. He was pointing out the problem, rather than offering himself as the solution! After all, Gideon is in hiding, hiding from the enemy – not exactly “mighty warrior” material!

And, in fact, Gideon asks the angel,“ … how can I deliver Israel [when my] clan is the weakest…and I am the least in my family?” In other words, Gideon says, Can’t you pick somebody else for this job? I’m not your man! But it seems that the angel will not take “no” for an answer, nor will the Lord. The Lord himself says to Gideon: “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.”

But Gideon still has doubts. He still does not trust the promise of God to be present with him and to help him to orchestrate the defeat of the Midianites. So Gideon asks for a sign – a sign of God’s favor and proof that it is God who speaks to him (and not just his fertile imagination). Gideon goes back to his house and brings out some food to the angel – some meat, some cakes, and some broth. And the angel touches the food with his staff and sets it on fire, then vanishes. And Gideon is convinced. He now believes that the angel is real, and that God’s promises are real. Then he falls to his knees and says “Help me, Lord God!” And the Lord God says to him “ … do not fear; you shall not die.” And that’s where our reading ends.

But, that’s not the end of the story! Here’s what happened next: Gideon organized a fighting force of Israelite men to attack the Midianites. Now Gideon’s band of men numbered about 300, while the Midianite forces were so numerous, they couldn’t be counted - they were “thick as locusts.” So, clearly, Gideon and his men were outnumbered!

And if that weren’t bad enough, listen to what the Israelites were armed with. They attacked the Midianites, armed only with three things: trumpets, empty jars, and lit torches inside the jars. Then the Israelites broke the glass jars, blew the trumpets, and attacked the Midianites in their camp. At the sound of three hundred trumpets blowing all at once, God turned the Midianites on one another, and in the chaos that followed, the Midianites fled the camp, screaming with fright. It is perhaps the most unlikely victory in military history! Gideon trusts the promises of God, and, lo and behold, against all odds, the promises of God come true. His tiny band of barely armed men run the enemy out of their camp.

So that’s the story of Gideon’s defeat of the Midianites. And the truth is that most of us have only heard about Gideon in one context: Gideon Bibles! When I read this lesson for the first time, you know what my first question was: Does this Gideon – the guy in Judges – have anything to do with the Gideons who put all those Bibles in all those hotel rooms? Is there a connection?

The answer is yes. The Gideons named themselves after this Gideon, and I’ll tell you a little about the founding of the Gideons, so you can see why they did. It is a story that starts with two traveling salesmen.

Once upon a time way back in 1898, two traveling salesman checked into the Central Hotel in Boscobel, Wisconsin. These two men did not know one another, but they also did not know was that there was a convention going on in the hotel. It turned out that these two salesmen had “stumbled into a raucous convention of lumberjacks.” Yes, lumberjacks. They were stranded in a Wisconsin hotel with bunch of lumberjacks, and the hotel was so crowded, they were forced to share a room.

Thus stranded – one can only imagine!! – the two men began to talk. And as they talked, they discovered that they had something in common: they both loved scripture. From this chance meeting in a Wisconsin hotel grew an organization that was originally known as “the Christian Commercial Travelers Association of America.” And they began distibuting Bibles to hotels and motels and places where traveling salesmen might find themselves. Later, the organization was renamed the Gideons, after this Gideon, who led Israel … to victory over the Midianites” against all odds. They admired his obedience and his faith in God.

Since their founding, the Gideons have been literally spreading God’s word all over the world. They distribute Bibles all over – in hotels, hospitals, prisons, planes, trains, and ships. They have distributed well over 500 million Bibles in 181 countries and in 82 languages. And the Gideons’ work continues. Next time you find yourself in a hotel, look in the drawer of the nightstand. Pull out the Gideon Bible, and look at the seal that’s on the front of the Bible. It’s a circle, containing a jar with a lit torch in it! That’s the mark of the Gideons. And to think it all began with “raucous convention of lumberjacks!”