In our scripture readings for Judges Sunday, the Israelites have disobeyed God, and as punishment, they have been under the thumb of their neighbours, the Midianites, for seven years. God hears the cries of the people, and he commissions Gideon to defeat the Midianite army. Once Gideon has verified the commission, he rallies the troops in preparation for battle. But there are too many troops, and so, God thins them out, so that the source of their victory is clear, resulting in thanksgiving, instead of pride....
You can hear the assumption in Gideon's first words to the angel of God, “But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?” If God has chosen us, shouldn't everything be going wonderfully for us? How can the same God who DELIVERED us from the hand of the Egyptians, PLACE us in the hand of the Midianites? Gideon cannot consider himself chosen by God, because he cannot see a purpose in his circumstances – he doesn't know WHY.
And Gideon doesn't know HOW he was chosen either – he is the least likely warrior to accomplish the mission of defeating the Midianites, at least in his own mind. His clan is nothing special, and he is not even the most skilled in his own family – picking Gideon for an important task seems like a huge mistake.
So God and Gideon go through a trust-building exercise. First, God gives Gideon a difficult assignment – tear down the altar to Baal that belongs to your father and is important to your community. God wants Gideon to affirm his allegiance, under the risk of extreme persecution.
And then, Gideon gives God a request for a miraculous sign – well, two,... just in case the first one is a fluke of nature. Make a wool fleece wet with dew while the surrounding ground stays dry, and then reverse it. Gideon wants God to affirm his presence, so that Gideon can tackle the mission with confidence.
Finally, with trust established on both sides, Gideon is ready to accomplish that mission. And God shows again that the why and how of his choosing process is unfathomable to us. God refuses to use the 32,000 troops Gideon gathers, and instead, chooses only those 300 who drink water like a dog. And with God's intervention, those 300 are enough to defeat the entire Midian army, and bring freedom back to his people.
If you were here in 2011, you may remember when we hosted the African a cappella singing group “Reality 7.” One of the songs they sang in English went like this, “I don't know why...Jesus loves me so....I don't know why, why why.” There is a lot of wisdom in this song, because if we think we KNOW why Jesus loves us, we're falling into a trap. If we think Jesus has chosen us as followers for a specific reason, that means we think there is something special about us – we must be smarter than other people, or more spiritual, or, God help us, morally superior. If Jesus has chosen us, it must be because we deserve it in some way. But in reality, God's choices ARE unfathomable. We might like to think that we are the best available agents for God's kingdom, but it's just as likely that we drink water in a weird way. And any victories we win are not the result of our personal brilliance, but are the result of God's delivery of victory into our hand.