"Brad always tried to share where he was. He wanted others to know what he was feeling...and facing. So many people with cancer turned to him, and he'd say, 'I've got the same thing. I know the road you're walking.'" (Carol Hall)
Gideon is one of my favorite heroes of the Old Testament. He's a favorite because, as the story reveals, Gideon was at best a reluctant hero, a very ordinary man called to an extraordinary feat. Picture this scene in your mind:
It's about 10:00 o'clock in the morning, still cool enough to be working outside in the hot middle-Eastern world. A man by the name of Gideon is hiding out in a large wine vat, threshing his father's wheat. He is hiding because he is afraid of his bullying neighbors, the Midianites. He's hiding because Gideon is a small man (we might even call him a runt). He's hiding because he doesn't like to take too many risks.
My guess is that Gideon was the "good son" of his family (probably the elder son as well), who stayed around to help out on the farm. Quiet and introverted, he went about his daily tasks with perseverance and lots of resignation.
You can imagine his total surprise when he looked up that fateful morning and spied an angel sitting on the rim of the wine press. Gideon was aghast and tongue-tied. The long silence that followed was broken by the angel.
"Gideon," he shouted out, "you'll never guess what I have to say to you!" Well, Gideon was speechless and stood there open-mouthed.
"Gideon," said the angel with a broad smile, "the Lord is with you, brave and mighty man!"
This was not the kind of news that Gideon was used to hearing and so he responded a bit cynically, "If the Lord is with me, why am I down here threshing wheat in this wine vat, having to hide out from the Midianites?"
The angel was not about to be put off by Gideon's attitude and so he promptly announced God's good news. "Gideon, the Lord God wants you (sounds like a Marine Corps ad), with all your great strength to rescue your people from the bullying Midianites."
"What!" shouted Gideon. "What great strength? Look at me. I'm the runt of my family, my clan is the weakest of all Israel and I'm the least important member of my tribe! No way," said Gideon and with that he returned to his arduous task threshing wheat.
As you know, God and His messengers have a way of not being put off by reluctant heroes, so the angel pressed his case. "That doesn't matter a hill of beans to God, Gideon, because God's gonna lead you in this battle. He will be with you the whole time."
At this point Gideon decided to do a very human thing. He would put this Angel of God to a few tests. Well, as the story tells us, he passed the first test of sacrifice, but Gideon needed more. "You say that I am to rescue Israel. Well, just to make sure you are who you say you are, I am going to put some sheep's wool on the ground tonight and in the morning if there is dew only on the wool and not on the ground, I'll believe you." Well, sure enough, the next morning the ground was bone dry and Gideon managed to squeeze a quart of water from the wool.
But even that wasn't enough of a sign for Gideon. "Now don't be angry with me, Angel, but I need one more test." As we said, Angels of God have developed a great deal of patience over the years dealing with human creatures, so he responded, "Sure, what now?"
"I'm going to put this wool on the ground tonight, but this time I want the ground to be covered with dew and the wool to be dry," said Gideon. And sure enough, the next morning the ground was wet, but the wool was bone dry.
Well, that was enough for Gideon. He was now convinced, and this oh-to-reluctant farmer was about to become a great and heroic warrior. I recommend that you read the "rest of the story" (Judges 6-8). You'll discover that Gideon led his people into battle with the Midianites and, indeed, he won handily against great odds. God was with him the whole way, just as He had promised.
But that wasn't to be the end of the story. What is so wonderfully helpful is that Gideon wasn't suddenly transformed, beyond belief, into a super comic book hero. Even at the end of the brief war with the Midianites, when his people asked Gideon to be their king and rule them for life, Gideon was smart enough to know better. "No," he said, "I will not be your ruler." And here the story really ends, with Gideon returning to his home to thresh wheat on the farm and live a long, ordinary and unassuming life. Gideon died at a ripe old age and was buried in his father's tomb, a happy man, but now a long-forgotten hero.
Today, I share this story with you as we are trying to explore some of the typical events and struggles that we all face on our sacred journey through life. The point of this story and of this sermon is straightforward. Like Gideon, most of us are very ordinary people living very ordinary lives, and so it is often hard to feel that we are a vital part of God's great plan for His creation.
But I would like to propose that you are probably doing more than you realize on your journey through life. God calls us to many different tasks in many different ways (angels are usually well-disguised these days), and most of the time we don't even recognize our ministry as special or important. We are all in some way or another Gideons, called to help or rescue our fellow travelers. I'll name a few of these ministries which immediately come to mind:
Many of you are giving of yourselves in caring for an elderly parent, nursing a sick spouse, or raising a child, or two or three, all of which places an incredible burden on your life and pleasure. Yes, it hard, and, yes, you are sometimes reluctant, and yet, somehow or other, you hold together and often give without reward or acknowledgment.
Sometimes special ministries can be very simple and unrecognized because they are seemingly unimportant daily tasks. Spouses who have supported their husbands through thick and thin with very little recognition. Employees who have been loyal to their company for forty to fifty years. Missionaries who live in poor countries with uneducated people, teaching by their daily Christian living.
I ran across one unsung hero while visiting in Florida a few weeks ago. After three days of playing tennis at the city courts, I noticed one man who was always there but no longer played because of his age. But rather than sit at home and mope, Les still goes to the courts each morning to help all the other players. He sweeps the courts, measures and adjusts the tennis nets and chases down the errant balls that are hit out of bounds. Les has, in essence, become the tennis players' Gideon. They all love him and Les has something to do with his life which supports him and nourishes his neighbors.
Like Les, many of you volunteer your time, treasure and talents at church or to the many charities in this valley. I see you at meetings, in the hospitals, hammering nails at Ramiro's new Habitat for Humanity house, praying for the sick, leading cancer support groups and feeding hungry folk at St. Martha's Kitchen.
My most recent experience in the hospital helped me understand that sometimes our ministry must be to ourselves; when we are ill and recovering, or taking a number of radiation treatments, or just plain tired, we must let go for a while and minister to ourselves.
But even in our downtime, we can reach out to the person beside us with a word of hope and love and become what one theologian calls a "wounded healer." Many of you in this parish were that for me when I returned from prostate surgery. It was an enormous comfort and help to know that you had been "through it," and not only survived, but now thrive. Your stories, your care, your touch calmed my fears, strengthened my resolve and rescued me.
All too often while traveling on our own journeys through life, we think we are on our own road and often feel alone, but we are not. All roads are linked with one another. What happens on my road affects you, and what happens on your journey affects me. The sooner we learn this, the easier the journey will be.
Now I'll close with a story which so poignantly helps make this point:
During the Olympic races held in Barcelona, Britain's Derek Redmond entered the semifinals of the 400-meter race. On the backstretch Derek went down with a torn right hamstring muscle. Despite excruciating pain, the injured runner struggled up, fended off medical attendants who went out to help him and started hopping to the finish line. Quite suddenly a large man emerged from the stands, pushed aside the security guard, ran to Derek and embraced him. It was Derek's father.
"You don't have to do this," he told his weeping son. "Yes, I do," whispered Derek through his pain. "Well, then," said his father, "we're going to finish this together."
And so they did. Fighting off security men, the son's head sometimes buried in his father's shoulder, the two men stayed in Derek's lane and crossed the finish line. The crowd gaped. They rose and cheered, and then they wept. They wept for Derek; they wept for his father, but mostly they wept for themselves, for deep inside they all knew that's how it must be for all of us, as we run our race through life. Amen.
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