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:<\/p>\n
Hatred of jews and preparation for war were daily fare for Germans. When Bonhoeffer preached his first sermon following Hitler\u2019s 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<\/small>.2<\/a><\/p>\n That said, I\u2019ll 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\u2019t a story I\u2019ve spent much time with. The story is this:<\/p>\n 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\u2019d managed to grow in secret when \u201cthe angel of the Lord\u201d appeared and told him \u201cthe Lord is with you, mighty warrior\u201d and tell s him he is to defeat the Midianites. Gideon is skeptical, full of excuses, and told to do it anyway.<\/small><\/p>\n He asks for proof, he gets it. So, he gathers an army. Then he asks for more proof, and even more. He\u2019s 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.<\/small><\/p>\n And this being a story in Judges, all is well as long as he lives and the trouble starts again after he dies.<\/small><\/p>\n 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, \u201cThis is a passionate little story about God\u2019s 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\u2019s mocking human might.\u201d3<\/a> Well, OK then, I guess we see where this is going.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s here his take down:<\/p>\n In the church we have only one<\/i> altar \u2013 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\u2019t have any side altars at which to worship human beings. \u2026 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<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n 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\u2019t accept the power others want to give him. He declines kingship, and redirects people to God. Bonhoeffer says, \u201cThe picture of someone who has learned to have faith has the particular quality of always pointing away from the person\u2019s own self, toward the One in whose power…he or she is.\u201d5<\/a> Bonhoeffer also doesn\u2019t fail to notice that is a story of Israel\u2019s redemption from bondage, which it clearly IS, but was itself a noticeably radical fact that upset the anti-Semitic apple cart of the day.<\/p>\n Bonhoeffer speaks to a church that feels too small to do what is asked of it. A church that experiences itself \u201cwithout influence, powerless, undistinguished in every way\u201d6<\/a> and thus burdened with the call from God to \u201cset the people free from the chains of fear and cowardice and evil that bind them.\u201d7<\/a> And this man who has the courage of which he preaches says, \u201cAnd 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.\u201d8<\/a> Well then, I have to say, this guy is making me think I haven\u2019t been PREACHING recently.<\/p>\n Bonhoeffer asks:<\/p>\n \u201cIs 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. \u2026[In the story God says] \u2018If 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.\u2019 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\u2019t look around for other help; don\u2019t be frightened. God is with y<\/small>ou.\u201d9<\/a><\/p>\n He concludes:<\/p>\n The people approach the victorious Gideon with the final trial, the final temptation: \u201cBe our Lord, rule over us.\u201d But Gideon has not forgotten his own history, nor the history of his people\u2026. \u201cThe Lord will rule over you, and you shall have no other lord.\u201d 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\u201d<\/small><\/p>\n 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\u2019t 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\u2019t and actually Gideon wasn\u2019t and God calls the church not to be either.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t mean that things are OK. They\u2019re not. It doesn\u2019t mean that the horrible things that happen to people are OK. They\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s good. Thanks be to God, Amen.<\/p>\n 1<\/a>Preaching in Hitler\u2019s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, <\/i>Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) Quote from 53. Prior paragraphs 51-53.<\/p>\n 2<\/a>Ibid, 53.<\/p>\n 3<\/a>Bonhoeffer, 55.<\/p>\n 4<\/a>Ibid 55-5.<\/p>\n 5<\/a>Ibid, 56.<\/p>\n 6<\/a>Ibid, 57.<\/p>\n 7<\/a>Ibid, 57.<\/p>\n 8<\/a>Ibid, 57-58.<\/p>\n 9<\/a>Ibid, 59.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rev. Sara E. Baron\u00a0 <\/p>\n Nov. 30, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Vector](\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/97262d3e332bf1803be8ec7fd87583af\/10105d44447284c7-c0\/s640x960\/f15a06897f687f3bb12b5da7519dca80e481b5db.png\")
ALT<\/span><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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