Thursday • 8/8/2024 •
Thursday of Proper 13
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 83; Psalm 145; Judges 8:22-35; Acts 4:1-12; John 1:43-51
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)
We’ll wrap up Gideon’s story today, contrasting his experience of God’s Spirit with that of Peter in Acts. Then we’ll note the strong initiating love of Jesus in his approach to Nathaniel in John’s Gospel.
Gideon’s end. After the victory over their enemies, the Israelites ask Gideon to establish a royal dynasty. Piously, he demurs: “The Lord will rule over you” (Judges 8:23). Despite the appearance of humility, however, Gideon takes on the trappings of a king. He demands tribute from his fellow Israelites: “let each of you give me an earring he has taken as booty.” He takes to himself many wives—exactly what Moses had warned the people a king would do (Deuteronomy 17:17). Perhaps the most revealing thing as to what’s going on deep in his heart is the fact that Gideon names the son of his concubine “Abimelech,” which means “My father is king.”
Gideon is no longer the humble, overly timid man who initially responded to God’s call to be a “mighty warrior” with: “But, sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Judges 6:12, 15).
And yet, our friend Gideon is quite the mixed bag. The book of Judges does recognize “all the good that [Gideon] had done to Israel.” And in fact, Israel enjoys forty years of “rest … in the days of Gideon.” However, he does not keep the faith. Despite his protestations of loyalty to the Lord, and despite the fact that it was the Spirit of the Lord that had empowered his victories, Gideon forges an “ephod” from the gold of the earrings; in this context, an image or idol of some sort (Judges 8:27). When he sets it up in his town, in Ophrah, the ephod becomes an object of worship: “And all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.” After his death, there is a widespread lapse of faith in Israel, and the people convert to the worship of Baal-berith, “Baal of the covenant” (Judges 8:33). And, as we will see in tomorrow’s reading, if you name a son “My father is king,” it’s altogether possible you are bequeathing a sense of entitlement with unfortunate consequences.
Gideon’s life offers sober lessons about how easily external obedience and piety can mask ungodly motives and insecurities. His life also demonstrates how it’s possible for someone to yield to the work of the Spirit just enough to manifest God’s power in the world, without yielding to God’s power in one’s own life. It’s as though what Gideon opens himself to is more like a temporary possession by the Spirit, rather than a deep and personal indwelling.
Image: Byzantine Institute staff, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Peter as Gideon’s opposite. Post-Pentecost Peter is a man in process of experiencing the deep, transformative work of God’s re-creative, life-giving Spirit. In today’s reading from Acts, Peter is given courage by the Holy Spirit to stand before the resurrection-denying leadership of the Temple and insist not only that the Jesus whom they crucified had risen from the dead, but that his name is the only one “under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Pentecost is remaking the coward who wouldn’t even admit to knowing Jesus around the fire in the temple courtyard the night of Jesus’s arrest.
The word becomes flesh and grabs a non-seeker. Some of us are seekers. Some are not. Andrew (from yesterday’s reading in John) is a seeker. Nathaniel (in today’s reading) is not—at least he’s not looking for anything from Jesus. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” is his retort to claims that Jesus might be the Messiah. (Jesus and Nathaniel are from different towns in Galilee.) Reluctantly, though, Nathaniel agrees to go with his brother Philip to check things out.
Jesus seizes the initiative. And what an initiative it is: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile” (John 1:47 RSV). Nathaniel is surprised: “How do you know me?” Surely with the most generous laugh, Jesus responds: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (John 1:48). As enigmatic as that sounds, it has to mean something like: “Look, I know you’ve simply been trying to be a faithful Israelite—learning your Torah, saying your prayers, going to synagogue, giving alms. All that time, I’ve had my eye on you.” (Now, we, the readers, have already been told that it’s the Eternal Word who has said to Nathaniel, “When you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” We may be forgiven for wondering if this isn’t a “seeing” that extends back into eternity.)
It’s enough for Nathaniel. The lights come on. Here’s God’s Son, he realizes, Israel’s King. Quite a leap, but just because Nathaniel has been living in as much of the light as has been available to him, he “gets it.” And Jesus promises (I paraphrase): “You figured all that out on the basis of how little I showed I already know about you? Just wait” (see John 1:50-51).
I’m struck, first, by how “from out of nowhere” it is that Jesus shows up in Nathaniel’s life, second, by how affirming Jesus’s expressed purposes are, and third by how much Nathaniel’s future has been prepared for simply by his staying “under the fig tree.”
Be blessed this day
Reggie Kidd+