On Our Own

In the somewhat humorous account of events leading up to Gideon's victory over the Midianites (today's Old Testament reading), God repeatedly trims the number of Gideon's warriors so that there is no way the Israelites can take credit for the victory. An initial force of 32,000 men is whittled down to 300. The final cut produced by sending home all who drank water from a stream by scooping it with their hands and keeping only those who lapped the water with their tongues, "as a dog laps." If this tiny force is able to defeat an army of more the 100,000, clearly it will not be simply because of their military might or cunning.

As I read this ancient story, I couldn't help thinking about how rarely those of us who serve as leaders in churches attempt things we can't possibly do on our own. Perhaps the story of Gideon engages in a bit of typical Middle Eastern overstatement and hyperbole to reinforce its point, but that is no reason to dismiss its lesson. After all, it is a lesson Jesus seeks to teach many times.

Jesus speaks of the gift of the Spirit that will allow us to know the same closeness to God that Jesus knows, that will empower us to continue his ministry to the world. The first followers of Jesus spread his message across the Mediterranean world in a manner that can only be described as explosive. People with no real training in management, leadership, or organizational skills somehow manage to spread churches throughout the Roman Empire, a feat nearly as impressive as Gideon's.

I once stumbled across a quote that I cannot seem to relocate which suggested that the seeming absence of the Spirit in many modern, American churches had much to do with our never attempting anything that required the Spirit's power to complete. To borrow from the Gideon story, we don't take on anything unless we are reasonably sure our forces are sufficient and our resources are adequate. 300 against 100,000 plus? Never! We might not even try it with 80,000.

I'm working on a sermon about being empowered by the Spirit. An obvious question for such a sermon is, "What have we done as followers of Jesus that we could never have have imagined doing on our own?" What have you or your community of faith done? And if you are struggling to come up with something, what might you be able to do if you knew that the Spirit would assist you?

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