SUNDAY SERMON
COMMISSION IMPOSSIBLE?
Epiphany 5, Yr C
February 8, 2004
Gospel: Judges 6.11-24, Lk 5.1-11
Some of you are old enough to remember the classic TV show "Mission Impossible." Every week it would begin with the main character, a secret agent played by Peter Graves, getting a taped set of instructions. After holding the tiny tape recorder to his ear and hearing it once, the tape would self-destruct. The rest of the show involved the ins and outs and near disasters of carrying out the "mission impossible."
Today's sermon is titled, "Commission Impossible," and now here's the tape:
Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the F and of the S and of the HS and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. [Click…]
That's your mission. Does it ring any bells? Does it sound sort of familiar? Are you up to it this morning? Do you feel God has commissioned you for anything in particular? As a parish community, as companions in Christ at Church of the Holy Communion, are we people on mission, reaching across town? What about across the globe? [the tape did say "disciples of all nations," didn't it?]
In the season of Epiphany we read lots of stories about people being commissioned,
called to carry the gospel to the Gentiles.
Several years ago I heard a Bishop talking about this very set of instructions,
Go, make disciples… He proceeded to launch into a Cliff notes survey of
heroes in the Bible by saying: "If truth be told, God has a terrible habit
of asking the impossible of people who are incapable of doing what's
asked, unready to do it and often unwilling to go for it."
As I recall he ripped through the Old and New Testament, including big names
like Noah, Jeremiah, Abraham and Sarah, Peter and Paul and lesser ones like
Gideon and Ananias. What the Bishop did that day was subtly dismantle the excuses
you and I make because we, too, feel incapable, unready or
unwilling to "go and make disciples…"
Listen to three different people over about a thousand years of Biblical history and notice how they respond to being called.
Gideon, mighty warrior: But how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest and I am the least in my family.
Paul, preacher, evangelist, missionary: Last of all, as to one untimely born, Jesus appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am…
Peter, foundation rock of the church, Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.
Unanimous. All three of them in today's appointed readings come off as incapable, unready, unwilling.
I want to spend the rest of the time on Gideon, the dark horse, the low profile guy of the day.
Gideon liked wine. In today's story we find him in a winepress…He's not having a wine and cheese party; he's hiding from his enemies, the Midianites. In better times he'd be singing happy songs with other men as they tromped the grapes. In better times he'd be up on the hilltop with his children threshing the grain so the wind could carry away the chaff. But these were hard times, lean years. Every time Gideon got the grapes or the wheat or the olives harvested, the Midianites would ride through on their camels and rob him blind.
So Gideon is hiding in the winepress which has been converted to a threshing place. Instead of making wine he is beating out the wheat and hoping like crazy that the Midianites won't find him. Into this scene, uninvited, comes an angel who greets him with a good, upbeat message: The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior. Gideon is hardly in a spiritual mood. I can just hear his tone of voice, If the Lord is with us, why in heaven has all this happened? I mean, seven years of the Midianites?
To Gideon the way you know the Lord is with you is that things are going well: no starving children, no raids, no hiding out, and plenty of wine. To all this the angel has no comment.
The Lord, however, turns to Gideon and says, Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you. I can just hear him stuttering…But, but…this isn't at all what I had in mind. Commission ME?
I merely suggested that something ought to be done about Midian. I didn't volunteer. Besides I'm from the weakest tribe and I'm the smallest guy in the family.
Then God gets Gideon's attention with a conjunction. God says, But I will be
with you. That was that. Gideon felt incapable, unready and unwilling. None
of which mattered to God. All that mattered to God was his partnership with
God. God doesn't call anyone to do anything without promising to go along, too.
Gideon wasn't convinced. He wanted a sign. He decided to check out how this
angel would consume a meal. If he ate and left, he would know it wasn't the
Lord or his angel. If, however, the meal spontaneously combusted, he would know
it was God. When in fact it all goes up in flames, it scares Gideon half to
death. The Lord assures him he won't die and says "Peace be to you."
Barbara Brown Taylor writing about Gideon pointed out to me the deeper meaning of this story. The most amazing part of it is that Gideon becomes the sign he asked for. It wasn't a matter of a flaming meal disappearing on a rock. What he most wanted was relief for his people-deliverance from the Midianites.
By answering God's call, Gideon becomes the sign; he would be it and do it. This, says Barbara Taylor, "is a powerful legacy for all of us who are tired of hiding from the Midianites, who miss God's wonderful deeds, and who ask God to show off with something spectacular…We better be careful what we suggest, because there is every chance in the world God will say, 'What a splendid idea! I'm all for it; I hereby commission you.'" Go to it!
But, but, but…" That's what Gideon said. What would you say? Not that it matters because it's not about our qualifications. Remember that God, after saying "I commission you, Gideon," also says "But…I will be with you." I simply cannot hear those words too often. Those words are what change it from "commission impossible" to mission possible. Let me say again what was on that self-destruct tape which I mentioned at the beginning: Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the F and of the S and of the HS and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of time. [Matt.28.19-20]
"I will be with you always" makes the commission possible.
Ours is a sending God, a God on mission, a God who doesn't call us to do anything without promising to go along, too. What a relief. AMEN.
Sermon preached Epiphany 5, February 8, 2004, at Church of the Holy Communion by the Rev. Blair Both.
Source for Gideon story: Barbara Brown Taylor, "Show me a Sign," in Home by Another Way.