What's A Prophet to Do?

• What’s A Prophet to Do?
from Judges 6:1-32

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• For the next few months I’ll be preaching from my daily Bible readings (I am following a plan to read the Bible in 6 months), and rotating messages among these genres: Gospel, Law, History, Psalms, Poetry, Prophecy, Epistles.

• Today’s passage is from the books of History, from Judges 1-6. I chose 6:1-32, in three parts. (Aside: There is only one passage from Judges in the 3-yr lectionary cycle, and this isn’t it.)

The book of Judges describes the period of time around 1200 BC. After Moses, before the monarchy.

Historicity is not what it’s about as much as people of God reflecting on story of God and people. This is my story this is my song…

For example we have the story of John Henry, a possibly historical figure in WV 145 years ago, Big Bend Tunnel on Greenbrier River. The story of John Henry tells an ideal, a truth. It’s a story of encouragement and strength. This is who we are.

George Washington and the cherry tree: not necessarily an actual event in history, but it tells an ideal, encouraging, a truth. This is who we are. We are the kind of people who would bear the punishment for chopping down a tree rather than lying to save our skin. This is who we are.

The basic pattern of the book of Judges: The people worshiped other gods. Enemies take over. The people cry out. God raises up a leader (a judge). The people proclaim faithfulness to God. Repeat. Repeat again.  Gideon is the fifth judge raised up after the Israelites enter the Promised Land. The Bible tells us of twelve judges before Saul is crowned king of Israel.

• Our reading begins with the question Does God cause suffering? Or does God allow suffering for punishment?
Again, this is my story this is my song. Our people were oppressed, therefore it must have been divine punishment for turning against God. The story went like this: the people turn from God, worship other gods. Enemies take over. The people cry out…

One take-home point from v. 1-10, The people cry out, and God responds, even though God has been rejected. That’s who God is.

• Part 2 (Judges 6:11-24) expands on who God is. God is with us, God gives strength, God saves.

Note Gideon’s response: God says You’ll win, and Gideon worships God.
Based on promise, even, not action. Gideon worships extravagantly, prepares an offering of a young goat and 20# of flour.
God responds unquestionably, immediately consuming it entirely with holy fire.
And again Gideon responds extravagantly with worship, building an altar Jehovah-Shalom, the Lord makes peace.

• Part 3 (Judges 6:25-32) God calls Gideon to action. Tear down your father’s altars.
It’s a public statement, a risky act, and Gideon says damn the torpedoes.
Stand courageously.

 The people come to Joash, Gideon’s father, and they demand Gideon’s life for his crime, but father stands behind son.

• What altars do we have to tear down?
Singer-songwriter Ross King writes in his song Clear the Stage, “anything I want with all my heart is an idol…”
Sports comes to mind, and money/image.
Also the tyranny of status quo: the way we do things.

• Tear down altars. Risky public statement of priority, value. Stand courageously.

That’s behind demonstrations yesterday: women’s rights are human rights. We value women. We stand for treatment of poor with dignity and foreigners with respect. We value universal health care and we stand against discrimination and we will be heard.

• Replace the altars with love one another, give of self for one another,
(I’d rather love too much than too little) and keep worship of God Jehovah-Shalom central.

• Hymn 347 Spirit Song

Judges 6:1-10          

6 The Israelites did things that the Lord saw as evil, and the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. ² The power of the Midianites prevailed over Israel, and because of the Midianites, the Israelites used crevices and caves in the mountains as hidden strongholds. ³ Whenever the Israelites planted seeds, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other easterners would invade. ⁴ They would set up camp against the Israelites and destroy the land’s crops as far as Gaza, leaving nothing to keep Israel alive, not even sheep, oxen, or donkeys. ⁵ They would invade with their herds and tents, coming like a swarm of locusts, so that no one could count them or their camels. They came into the land to destroy it. ⁶ So Israel became very weak on account of Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the Lord.

⁷ This time when the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, ⁸ the Lord sent them a prophet, who said to them, “The Lord, Israel’s God, proclaims: I myself brought you up from Egypt, and I led you out of the house of slavery. ⁹ I delivered you from the power of the Egyptians and from the power of all your oppressors. I drove them out before you and gave you their land. ¹⁰ I told you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you must not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.’ But you have not obeyed me.”

Judges 6:11-24  ¹¹ Then the Lord’s messenger came and sat under the oak at Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. ¹² The Lord’s messenger appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior!”

¹³ But Gideon replied to him, “With all due respect, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his amazing works that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Didn’t the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and allowed Midian to overpower us.”

¹⁴ Then the Lord turned to him and said, “You have strength, so go and rescue Israel from the power of Midian. Am I not personally sending you?”

¹⁵ But again Gideon said to him, “With all due respect, my Lord, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I’m the youngest in my household.”

¹⁶ The Lord replied, “Because I’m with you, you’ll defeat the Midianites, each and every one of them.”

¹⁷ Then Gideon said to him, “If I’ve gained your approval, please show me a sign that it’s really you speaking with me. ¹⁸ Don’t leave here until I return, bring out my offering, and set it in front of you.”

The Lord replied, “I’ll stay until you return.”

¹⁹ So Gideon went and prepared a young goat and used about twenty pounds of flour for unleavened bread. He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them. ²⁰ Then God’s messenger said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and set them on this rock, then pour out the broth.” And he did so. ²¹ The Lord’s messenger reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire came up from the rock and devoured the meat and the unleavened bread; and the Lord’s messenger vanished before his eyes. ²² Then Gideon realized that it had been the Lord’s messenger. Gideon exclaimed, “Oh no, Lord God! I have seen the Lord’s messenger face-to-face!”

²³ But the Lord said to him, “Peace! Don’t be afraid! You won’t die.”

²⁴ So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it “Jehovah-Shalom, the Lord makes peace.” It still stands today in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Judges 6:25-32   ²⁵ That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull and a second bull seven years old. Break down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah that is beside it. ²⁶ Build an altar to the Lord your God in the proper way on top of this high ground. Then take the second bull and offer it as an entirely burned offering with the wood of the Asherah that you cut down.” ²⁷ So Gideon took ten of his servants and did just as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his household and the townspeople to do it during the day, he did it at night.

²⁸ When the townspeople got up early in the morning, there was the altar to Baal broken down, with the asherah image that had been beside it cut down, and the second bull offered on the newly built altar! ²⁹ They asked each other, “Who did this?” They searched and investigated, and finally they concluded, “Gideon, Joash’s son, did this!” ³⁰ The townspeople said to Joash, “Bring out your son for execution because he tore down the altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah that was beside it.”

³¹ But Joash replied to all who were lined up against him, “Will you make Baal’s complaint for him? Will you come to his rescue? Anyone who argues for him will be killed before morning. If he is a god, let him argue for himself, because it was his altar that was torn down.” ³² So on that day Gideon became known as Jerubbaal, meaning, “Let Baal argue with him,” because he tore down his altar. X