Gideon, Scientist Series

Gideon, Scientist

Here in the Book of Judges, we see a very sad history. It’s not unlike some of the ages in our nation’s history, including the one we are laboring in today. Time after time we read that “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hand of. . .” and then fill in the blank. It was Cushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia, and Eglon the king of Moab. It was Philistines several times, and Jabin king of Canaan and in today’s passage it is a coalition of human locusts, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East. About harvest time every year they would come up and essentially eat the land of Israel into starvation.

Now Judges also records that every time the Israelites sinned and were victimized by the pagans around them, they would cry out to the Lord, the living God, and he would send a leader, a judge, who would lead them to some kind of temporary victory. Then the judge would die and the whole cycle would start over again. Sin, oppression, prayer and deliverance. Today’s savior, however, is unexpected. The angel calls him a “mighty man of valor,” but Gideon asks, essentially, “who, me?” Gideon’s self-description is informative: “Pray, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” In other words, I am a nothing in a family of nothings in a clan of nothings. In fact, for the rest of the visitation story he tries to hide his actions from his family, he is so much in fear.

So Gideon conducts what we in chemistry would call an “Uncontrolled experiment.” He brings out an offering of bread and meat, and at the visitor’s instructions, sets it on a rock and pours an aqueous liquid over it, probably from the cook pot. The angel uses his staff to touch the offering and fire springs up and devours it just as the guest vanishes. Heartened by this event, Gideon pulls down the altar of the false god, Baal, and offers a sacrifice to the true God on a new altar.

On the next alien invasion, Gideon, now a leader among his clan, calls other Israelites to resist the depredations. And to demonstrate that God is with them, he conducts what we might call a “controlled experiment.” On the first day he lays a fleece on his threshing floor, and asks God to confirm his mission by letting dew form only on the fleece, while the ground remains dry. Next morning, that’s just what he found. But on the next day, he requested just the opposite–dew on the ground but dry fleece. And that’s just what he found the next morning, and that’s how he validated his leadership. By means of the first scientifically controlled experiment; there is no natural way in which that would have happened. It had to be God’s direct action.

In evangelical circles, when one needs to make a major life decision, it’s often counseled to “put out a fleece.” If X happens, then it is God’s will that you do Y. But that sounds a lot like putting the Lord to the test. The discernment process is best conducted by taking the decision to prayer, even community prayer, and then waiting in faith for an answer. I’ve found that the answer is usually discerned, God’s will is known, in one or both of these ways: the way to go is the one that inconveniences me the most, but that way leaves me at peace in my heart. I also have found it good to pray, once I and my family have made a plan, to pray to God to put obstacles in the way if it is not His will. That has saved us from some very bad decisions over the decades.

Soon there will be some very important statewide and national elections. We have to decide for whom to vote. The worst thing in the world is to vote without discernment. Study the candidates’ backgrounds and beliefs. Look carefully at the promises being made and ask how they are going to be paid for. Is their platform harmful to the poor, the powerless, the unborn, the aged, those who have no power? Will it involve improvement for the marginalized but some inconvenience for you? Most of all, will the candidate try to convince the public that good is evil and evil is good, that murder of the innocent is a valid choice? Vote your conscience, not just what your family has done for a hundred years. And ask, in four years will our society be more just, more safe, and less divided into people who want the good and people who want evil? That’s the way to vote. And encourage everyone you know to do the same, to be registered and then to vote.