Judges 6:36 - 40

PR240 "Text to Sermon" Princeton Theological Seminary November 29, 2007

Then Gideon said to God, “In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said, I am going to lay a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said.” And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. Then Gideon said to God, “Do not let your anger burn against me, let me speak one more time; let me, please, make trial with the fleece just once more; let it be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.” And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.

When I started thinking about Gideon, I thought of him as the guy who had a miraculous decision-making process. Fleece wet, attack Midianites; fleece dry, stay home. Sometimes, he would mix it up just to keep God on God’s toes. This time, fleece dry, attack Midianites; fleece wet, stay home.

But the closer I paid attention to this story, the more I noticed something that you may be noticing about Gideon as well. I don’t think that this story is really about a decision-making process. I think there’s something else going on here with the character of Gideon.

Earlier in chapter 6, in verse 14, God calls Gideon to attack the Midianites. God is pretty straightforward with Gideon. If there ever were a decision to be made, it seems like God has already made it. “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you,” God says to Gideon. Gideon won’t believe it. “But sir, how can I deliver Israel?” God won’t take no for an answer, and replies, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.”

Even after this, and before the whole fleece incident, Gideon asks for a sign to confirm God’s promise. God gives him a face-to-face meeting with an angel, and for a while, Gideon seems convinced. But then we come to our text for today.

Gideon introduces the test of the fleece by saying to God, “In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said…” “As you have said.” In other words, Gideon knows what he is supposed to do. He knows exactly what God said to him, he’s just afraid to do it!

God answers the first test of the fleece affirmatively. “When he [Gideon] rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.” Even after this, Gideon asks for another test with the fleece. If you add them all up, I think this makes test number three or four.

In the book of Judges, the Israelites are the protagonists. By chapter 6, we know that they have their ups and downs, but we’re on their side. We’re cheering for their success. At this point in the story of Gideon, we’re thinking, “If this is the guy who God called to lead Israel, things are not looking good.” Get the point already, Gideon – the answer to your question is yes!

But, in that very answer, in our very discouragement about the spineless Gideon, we find hope in this story. The question that Gideon is asking is, “Will you deliver Israel by my hand?” Even though we are beginning to ask the same question as we get to know the doubtful Gideon, “Are you going to deliver Israel through this guy?”, God still answers with an overwhelming yes. “He wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.” Not just a few drops of water for this weak servant of God, but a whole bowlful. The might of God is shown through this weak servant.

Gideon does go to fight the Midianites, and God not only brings victory for Israel, but brings it using only 300 troops. By using a small army, God continues to work through the weak things of the world. Gideon had to ask twice with the fleece, but if we know God, we knew this victory was coming all along. Even through someone like Gideon, the answer from God is “Yes. I will deliver you.”

We Christians know that God works in this strange way. Our Savior, the incarnate God in whom we put our trust, was just that: incarnate. There is so much humanity about Jesus that it makes us wonder: the young unwed mother, the stable birth, growing up in Nazareth (can anything good come out of that town?), a carpenter hanging out with some fishermen, some tax collectors, and some prostitutes. Is this the God whom we worship?

Yes, this is the Son of David, the Messiah, but even the crowds who called out “Hosanna” did not anticipate what would happen next. Not only did Jesus live a humble life, but that life ended in crucifixion. Before he could conquer Israel’s foes and reign as their king, Jesus died as a common criminal. This was not the kind of Messiah they had been waiting for.

But this is the God who answered the cowardly Gideon with a resounding yes. Yes, Gideon, you, even you, will be the instrument of God’s deliverance. The son of God was incarnate and died on a cross, but it is in that very death, in that lowly and weak suffering, that Jesus once and for all brought about the redemption of all creation.

“Being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross,” Philippians tells us, and it is in that death that Jesus accomplished God’s greatest act of deliverance. It doesn’t stop there, either. “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

We might look down on Gideon when we read his story in the book of Judges. What a coward. He couldn’t even believe that God could deliver Israel. It took him three or four tests, including the ones with the fleece, before he would even try going into battle in obedience to God. But perhaps, before pointing the finger, we should look at ourselves. We often doubt that God is actually doing works of deliverance in us and through us. God is good: we know that and we cling to that, but the idea that we could actually have something to do with God’s deliverance is a little too much to take.

Quite frankly, we are right to doubt ourselves. Gideon wondered if God would really deliver Israel by his hand. We say things like, “God, I went into ministry because I’m great at worship planning. I have no idea what to do for a woman in the hospital with a stillborn child!” or “God, I love people, and that’s why I’m in ministry, but I’m going crazy from loneliness because no one wants to invite the pastor when they go to grab a beer.” Are we really up to all of this? The answer, we painfully recognize, is no.

But sisters and brothers, the God who calls us to ministry calls us in the name of Jesus, who was crucified in weakness and rose in victory. The God who calls us to ministry is the God who saturated the fleece on the threshing floor for his cowardly servant Gideon. If the God who calls us to ministry is the God who brought victory for Israel with only 300 troops and a weak-kneed leader, then the God who calls us to ministry will use even us for God’s purpose of deliverance.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…” The God revealed to us in Jesus Christ chose Gideon, and the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ chose you and me.

We may be scared. We may need to set out a fleece, saying, “Do not let your anger burn against me, Lord, but I need to ask you one more time. Are you really going to deliver Israel by my hand?” And in the midst of this, our moment of weakness, God makes sure that there is enough dew on the fleece to fill a bowl with water. “Yes, my child, even if I have to make the fleece dry next time, yes, and even if you have to ask me a dozen more times, the answer is yes.”