Gideon

December 1, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Gideon” Psalm 31:1-5 and Judges 6:15-16, 7:2, 8:23

It is Advent, a time when we join with those in our faith tradition who have yearned for God to take action to transform the world. This Advent, I’m going to preaching from a book entitled “Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich.” Unfortunately, the book seemed topically appropriate. Others before us have faced the circumstances of trying to be faithful to God and follow Jesus in the midst of a society crumbling under the pressure of authoritarianism AND a nation where religion is being co-opted to support the authoritarianism.

So, it seems worth hearing how others have faced this sitatution.

The first sermon is by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who I have known primarily as a Christian leader so faithful that he choose to return to Germany when he was offered asylum elsewhere, in solidarity with those in concentration camps. Truthfully I’ve been meaning to read his books for decades, but my to-read pile is … well… high.

He was, of course, more than my trivial biography remembered. Bonhoeffer was very well known as a brilliant scholar, one who got his doctorate at 21 and whose thesis is STILL being read and discussed. This is particularly notable because Germans had the corner on great theological scholarship at that point in history, and he was one of their shining stars. In 1930 he came to the United States and studied at Union Theological School in New York City where he connected with the African American community in Harlem. Getting to know people who were minoritized helped him see his own society’s treatment of Jews more clearly. He was also exposed to and formed pacifism while here in New York. He returned to Germany and taught in an underground Protestant Seminary in the “Confessing Church” movement which stood in opposition to Hitler’s attempts to use the churches to propagate his agenda.

Let me translate: Bonhoeffer was a professor in the hidden underground seminary that prepared clergy to follow JESUS and reject that age’s “White Christian Nationalism.”

The seminary was closed by force, and the students taken into Nazi jails in 1937. Bonhoeffer was given ways out, he came to the US, but then returned home to be part of a group trying to assassinate Hitler. He went to England, but came home again. He was arrested in April of 1943, and wrote letters from prison, refusing to allow confinement to silence him. “By special orders of Hitler, Bonhoeffer was hanged on April 9, 1945, just days before Germany surrendered.”1

The sermon we are working with today is from 1933, the year Hitler. took power. Dean Stroud, the editor of the volume writes about it:

Hatred of jews and preparation for war were daily fare for Germans. When Bonhoeffer preached his first sermon following Hitler’s coming to power, he surely must have known that Jewish Gideon would present a sharp contrast to German rhetoric against Jews and for war. His repeated emphasis on Gideon’s lack of military forces in the face of greater military strength must have made an impression on the congregation. Also, the talk of altars reflected the altars in German churches that had been profaned with Nazi flags and pictures of Hitler. The sermon on Gideon offered Germans in the new Reich a radical choice between the Judeo-Christian God of tradition and Germanic paganism.2

That said, I’ll be honest. I had to review the story of Gideon from Judges 6-8 in order to make sense of the sermon. It just isn’t a story I’ve spent much time with. The story is this:

Ancient Israel was in the promised land, but the neighboring Midianites had beaten them down and dominated them for 7 years, including by destroying all their crops and livestock so people were hungry. Gideon was off dealing with some wheat they’d managed to grow in secret when “the angel of the Lord” appeared and told him “the Lord is with you, mighty warrior” and tell s him he is to defeat the Midianites. Gideon is skeptical, full of excuses, and told to do it anyway.

He asks for proof, he gets it. So, he gathers an army. Then he asks for more proof, and even more. He’s clearly a little nervous. God, on the other hand, makes Gideon cut his forces from 32,000 to 10,000 and then to 300!! Finally, they go and attack the Midianite camp, and defeat them soundly, all 120,000 of them. Eventually the people try to make him king, he faithfully refuses reminding them that God is their King.

And this being a story in Judges, all is well as long as he lives and the trouble starts again after he dies.

Vector Illustration of Gideon's Army of 300 Men Defeat the Midianites Biblical Story found at https://www.wannapik.com/vectors/52140

So what does the renowned scholar and man of faith Dietrich Bonhoeffer have to say about Gideon in the beginning of the Third Reich?? Well he starts by saying, “This is a passionate little story about God’s derision for all who are fearful and have little faith, all those who are much too careful, the worriers, all those want to be somebody in the eyes of God but are not. It is a story of God’s mocking human might.”3 Well, OK then, I guess we see where this is going.

He does, also, take issue with something happening in a lot of churches where altars were being decorated with Nazi flags and images of Hitler. I have to say, that I dearly wish this was not something that resonates today. But it is. So let’s here his take down:

In the church we have only one altar – the altar of the Most High, the One and only, the Almighty, the Lord, to whom alone be honor and praise, the Creator before whom all creation bows down, before whom even the most powerful are but does. We don’t have any side altars at which to worship human beings. … Anyone who wants to build an altar to himself or to any other human being is mocking God, and God will not allow such mockery. To be in the church means to have courage to be alone with God as Lord, to worship God and not any human person. And it does take courage.4

Gideon becomes this beacon of courage because he does what is asked of him, despite his many misgivings. He relies on God and not on himself. And, crucially, he doesn’t accept the power others want to give him. He declines kingship, and redirects people to God. Bonhoeffer says, “The picture of someone who has learned to have faith has the particular quality of always pointing away from the person’s own self, toward the One in whose power…he or she is.”5 Bonhoeffer also doesn’t fail to notice that is a story of Israel’s redemption from bondage, which it clearly IS, but was itself a noticeably radical fact that upset the anti-Semitic apple cart of the day.

Bonhoeffer speaks to a church that feels too small to do what is asked of it. A church that experiences itself “without influence, powerless, undistinguished in every way”6 and thus burdened with the call from God to “set the people free from the chains of fear and cowardice and evil that bind them.”7 And this man who has the courage of which he preaches says, “And then suddenly the call comes to us: Put an end to the bondage in which you are living; put an end to the mortal fear that gnaws at you, to the power of human desire that is burning you up, to your tormented and self-satisfied keeping to yourself. Put an end to your fear of other people and your vanity and set yourself free.”8 Well then, I have to say, this guy is making me think I haven’t been PREACHING recently.

Bonhoeffer asks:

“Is this a tall tale like all the others? Anyone who says so has failed to understand that Gideon is still with us, that the old story of Gideon is being played out in Christendom every day. …[In the story God says] ‘If you have faith, lay down your weapons, I am your weapon. Take off your armor, I am your armor. Put away your pride, I am your pride.’ Do you hear that church of Gideon? Let God alone; let the word and the sacraments and the command of God be your weapons; don’t look around for other help; don’t be frightened. God is with you.”9

He concludes:

The people approach the victorious Gideon with the final trial, the final temptation: “Be our Lord, rule over us.” But Gideon has not forgotten his own history, nor the history of his people…. “The Lord will rule over you, and you shall have no other lord.” At this word, all the altars of god and idols fall down, all worship of human beings and human self-idolization. They are all judged, condemned, cancelled out, crucified, and toppled into dust before the One who is alone Lord. Besides us kneels Gideon, who was brought through fear and doubt to faith, before the altar of the one and only God, and with us Gideon prays, Lord on the cross, be our only Lord. Amen”

Bonhoeffer thus reminds me that to proclaim Jesus crucified as the Messiah is the most ridiculous and radical of statements from the perspective of the world because most of the time people don’t want to follow condemned criminals and most of the time people are afraid of the power of violence to kill, and most of the time people are self protective but Jesus wasn’t and actually Gideon wasn’t and God calls the church not to be either.

Beloveds of God, I do not know what the future holds. I do not know what may be asked of us in the future, I do not even know what God is asking each of you today. I do know this: God is always with us and we need not be afraid. That doesn’t mean that things are OK. They’re not. It doesn’t mean that the horrible things that happen to people are OK. They’re not. But it does mean that we can take courage, and let go of fear. Those who want to do harm also want to keep us off balance. But God is with us, and God can do amazing things, and we are able to face the world unafraid.

So God speaks to us today, through an ancient story and a modern prophet, who remind us that God is God and we are not and that’s good. Thanks be to God, Amen.

1Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) Quote from 53. Prior paragraphs 51-53.

2Ibid, 53.

3Bonhoeffer, 55.

4Ibid 55-5.

5Ibid, 56.

6Ibid, 57.

7Ibid, 57.

8Ibid, 57-58.

9Ibid, 59.

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Nov. 30, 2025

Uncategorized

Untitled

September 22, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Who We Are” based on Exodus 3:1-14a and Mark 9:30-35 (Homecoming Sunday)

I was once lucky enough to spend a term studying at Oxford, specifically at Magdalen College, where a portion of the campus was referred to as the “New Quad” and dated to about 1733. The day after I arrived back in the United States I heard on the radio about a “great historical find” of a 100 year old Buffalo Bill poster. I remember wondering what the people at Magdalen would call something so new as to be only 100 years old.

This congregation was founded in that same century as the new quad… although a little later. We were founded in 1789, and our current church building dates to almost a hundred years later, in 1872. We’ve now been in this building for 152 years, although like Americans, we don’t refer to it as the new church anymore 😉

Our history books tell wonderful stories of the faithfulness of our fore-bearers in faith, and their commitment to God and each other. They also tell stories of change! This is the 3rd church building this community built – 4th location, and as it was being built the first worship space as over the fellowship hall in a space we mostly don’t use anymore. The now Wesley Lounge was the original church office, and the education wing didn’t come along until the 1950s. Bill Isles once said he’d been fighting leaks in the roof since then.

I’m often awed as I look at the long list of pastors who have served this church – found on the walls just before you enter the Narthex. It is also notable how many years of one-year service there was in those early days. Maybe the biggest change in the list of clergy is the relatively recent inclusion of women, staring 45 years ago with Rev. Eileen Demming.

I also think about the technological changes that have happened over the course of this church’s history. When the church began the US Postal Service was brand new and Post Offices were just beginning to be build. This church saw the advent of the telegram, the radio, the telephone, electric lights, television, fax machines, the internet and email, cell phones and text messages, social media, and even Zoom. Thanks Thomas Edison and GE! These all impacted how life was lived, and thus how ministry played out. Honestly, 5 years ago we lacked live-streaming and Zoom meetings – can you even remember that??

This week we had a meeting to plan our fall retreat – and it was so interesting to hear the beloved traditions of the past meet the needs and values of the present day. I loved it because that’s pretty must the gist of everything. In Christianity we talk about the “Living Tradition” where we honor and respect the past, and use its wisdom, while bringing it into the present day and leaving behind what no longer serves us while adding in what we now need. Everything in church is Living Tradition as I see it – from the church retreat to the worship liturgy, from coffee hour to the church library.

We have this constant awareness of and gratitude for the past, while also holding the present and the future together. Over the course of the past year we’ve made some plans for more change. While this building was bustling with ministry activities in the 1950s, it is now more building than we really need. The maintenance and upkeep of the building take a lot of energy and resources, we love it, but it drains us. This church has decided to go forward, looking at ways this building can be a resource for the community while also becoming a source of financial stability.

I’ve was awed and amazed to watch the Holy Spirit at work in this community as this way forward was discerned. The part I loved best was watching various groups of people gather together with fear and trepidation about the future, and then think about what it could mean if our building could be used fo provide low-income housing AND financial stability, and see each group get excited and hopeful.

It is a huge change, and it is going to take a lot of work, but the decision is one that was made with incredible faithfulness. And, it is a continuation of the history of change and the reality of the living tradition.

In Exodus this morning we heard the familiar story of Moses encountering the burning bush and hearing God’s name. The New Interpreter’s Bible emphasizes the verbs of God in this passage. God says, “I have seen… I have heard… I have known… I will send…. I am.” It may just be me, but I hear the living tradition right there! God is “The Great I Am”, or “I Am Who I Am” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be” but God is also impacted by what God sees and hears, and acts accordingly. God’s nature is constant – loving mercy all the way through AND God is responsive to human needs and activities.

I loved that our “We Cry Justice” reading reminded us that after Moses saw the burning bush, and went to do what God directed, and the people were freed, and they came out to the wilderness, they returned to the burning bush. And it is there, in the place they are told that God heard them, saw them, considered them, cared for them, and that God simply was, that they work together to figure out the future as God’s beloveds.

In this story, the burning bush is sort of interesting in that it’s only purpose was to get Moses’s attention so that he’d listen to God. Also, there is an angel, but the angel does say or do anything, the angel’s only purpose is to get Moses’s attention so that he’ll listen to God. The bush isn’t the message. The angel isn’t the message. God just wants Moses to pay attention.

I suspect that God puts burning bushes in front of us multiple times a day. Thich Naht Hahn taught that in the communities he founded every time a bell rang the community members were to take a moment to stop, listen, and pay attention to the wonder all around them. He said that it changed the way they answered the phone. I believe there may be fewer bells and notifications in monastic life than modern life, but perhaps that makes it far MORE important for us to try that exercise. Every time a bell rings, a phone vibrates, or an app gives us a notification we too could stop, listen for a moment, and be grateful for the wonder around us.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of times a day for me. And that’s just BELLS. It is also true that in every other human being we encounter a beloved of God, and they may each be a burning bush inviting us to attend to the wonder of each human.

Sometimes God calls us to sit still, and just be. Sometimes God calls us to move, and just be. (I think all of us are called to both at various times.)

I suspect we all could get better at listening to those calls. How do you get them? What is your burning bush? Could it be bells? Notifications? Other people? An internal sense of unease? Maybe just hungry – it may be that we want to think anew about the tradition of table grace, and face each time we nourish our bodies as the true and wonderful miracle it is, and take a moment to be grateful to God and all the people who make it possible for us to eat and drink each thing before us.

I wrote in the August newsletter about my hopes that we would take this election cycle and time of uncertainty as an invitation to deepen our spiritual practices so that we can respond out of being centered in God’s grace. I intended to keep talking about it through August but… well, life went ahead and changed on me and here I am back in the pulpit as of today.

It is so easy to be pulled off kilter by the truly concerning realities around us.

I believe the question for us today, the question of who we are becoming, is how we can care as deeply as ever, while also being able to hold our center. Psalm 1 talks about the people who delight in God as being like trees planted by streams of water, “which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.” It is my conviction that God is a constant source of love, hope, peace, and joy. God is always with us, God is calling to us with our own burning bushes, God is accessible. We are able to connect to the source of love, hope, peace, and joy. We are able to be like trees planted by the streams – with deep roots in God’s goodness. And when do so, we are able to be stronger in our compassion for others AND our centeredness that cannot be shaken.

Many of us are worried about what will happen. We are also, of course, worried about what is happening and what has happened. Things are not as they should be, and even the most optimistic outcomes aren’t going to solve issues like hungry, homelessness, war, and violence. We are people of faith in the midst of a broken AND beautiful world.

The Bible is full of stories of being in a beautiful and broken world, and finding God in the midst of it. This is just how things go. We don’t get to wait for things to be OK before we deepen our faith. Faith happens in the midst of reality.

In Mark, we hear the line, “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Jesus saw the hierarchies of his world, and he had no patience for them. He inverted everything he could, and led people to question the very idea that someone should be at the bottom (or top) of a hierarchy.

This is one of the core messages of our faith. This is part of who we are becoming as we connect more and more deeply with God. God’s unconditional love for all people becomes the most important truth and everything else fades away. Along with changing how we see others, this also changes how we see ourselves and loosens the grip of the narrative that we are supposed to compete to be “good enough to be loved.” We are loved. That’s the first thing we teach each other in faith. God loves us. All. That’s where it all begins, and I think even where it all ends.

We have a long history of sharing God’s love with each other and the world. And the changes that are coming are yet another expression of love. And, no matter what the world throws at us – let’s deepen our roots into God’s goodness so we are ready to respond with love and love alone. Amen

September 22, 2024

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady