Signs

When we moved to Australia from the United States, there was a large cloud of trepidation surrounding us.  It goes without saying that it was a big move, but this move was much more than a physical move – much more than just shifting our belongings from one garage to the next.

Movement is just one more part of life that we’ve grown used to.  It’s like our favorite song on the radio: we know when it starts; we know the progression of the lyrics; we know when the bridge is coming and then, of course, the final chorus.  Most of us can feel when it is time to pack up and start the next adventure.  It feels like a little fish nibbling on the edges of our souls, that the moment of transition is about to begin again and, with something akin to excited resignation,; the cardboard boxes are brought in, the wrapping tape begins to scream around the house, riiiiiiiip, the crinkling of newspapers around breakables bounces between walls and we stand wondering…

How is this ever going to work?  Were we crazy to even think about this?

            September of 2009, I asked God for clarity.  That’s my particularly pious way of saying that I asked God to be very obvious in letting me know whether a move to Australia at that moment in time was beneficial for his plan.  And when I say I wanted God to be very obvious, I mean that I wanted God to drop an atlas from the sky, a map of Australia if possible, with the page opened to the Lockyer Valley that would have a smudge of something across Plainland, Queensland.

It’s biblical, kind of.

Gideon was doing what his dad asked, no questions asked, threshing wheat and  probably daydreaming about what his friends were doing, maybe what was going to happen at the dance that weekend.  Just another workday in a long list of workdays.  His father, Joash asked him to thresh the wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites, who were the local personification of power in the area.

Then, this stranger comes and sits down under the tree and greets young Gideon.  “The LORD is with you mighty warrior.”

If I have come to know anything about the biblical narrative, two things carry great significance: location and labeling.  Especially in the Old Testament, location is always particularly important because the land is important, the placement of people says something about them.  If Egypt is mentioned, we think of oppressions, slavery and intolerance; wilderness – trials, tribulations, law; Jerusalem – holy place, God’s name resides there… you get the pictures.  Whenever angels arrive on the scene, it has been important for me to recognize exactly where that is.  The heavenly messengers often show up around trees, away from the busyness of life, somewhere in the wild parts of life.  Whether Abraham and the three angels who tell him how life will transition to fatherhood or Moses and his own superheated shrubbery, location near trees is important.  Whenever a tree is mentioned in the Bible, my spiritual ears perk up and I listen to what I know will be an important change.  An uprooting, usually from one place of comfort to a place of total dis-comfort.

Under this tree Gideon hears from the man (he doesn’t know it’s an angel at this point: in fact, the author ceases to call the man and angel, but the LORD himself – but we’ll stick to ‘man’) and greets him with distrust. 

“If (my emphasis) the LORD is with us, then why has all this happened?” Gideon asks.  If I were the LORD in this situation, I would have already disqualified Gideon for duty.  It’s apparent that he lacks the correct depth of faith to be called to do something.  “If?”  Are you joking?  The Lord should just move on to one of Gideon’s older brothers.  Please. 

           But Gideon’s question is one that we all bring forth from the deepest places of our hearts.  Gideon actually has the courage to verbalize it, to speak it out loud.  His courage is evident even in doubting that God’s strength is defeated by theodicy (how God could be all powerful and let bad things happen).  Gideon’s worldview is one of disappointment in a God powerful enough to bring the Israelites out of Egypt but, in his perception, not caring enough to deliver them from the current crisis of the Midianites. Think – What have you done for me lately?  Those words, ‘If the LORD is with us…” speak loudly to this generation.  “If the LORD is with us, if the LORD is Immanuel, then why did my parents die in a car accident on the way to churcht?  If the LORD is with us, why are children being abused, physically, verbally, emotionally by adults who have no concept of the treasure that resides within each young person?  If the LORD is with us, why is their disease, famine, tsunamis, mosquitos… you name it.  Our anger is against the presumption of an omnipotent God who withholds his power for an unknown human reason.

But Gideon is talking to the LORD.  The angel does not even bother with the question because it is a moot point.  There is no ‘if the LORD is with us’ because, literally, the LORD is sitting right in front of Gideon, underneath the tree, calling him to transition from that place of comfort, a place where he and the whole clan has accepted to second best – to be present day slaves in Midian, not Egypt.

Notice the words in Judges 6, “The LORD turned to him…”  The man/angel/LORD must have been staring into the distance as Gideon was questioning him, waiting until all the vitriol that had been boiling up under the surface, that questioning attitude of the whole community of Israel, broke like a blister.  Then, the LORD turned to him, his full attention placed upon that one person who would be a chosen one. 

“Go.”

Man, I hate that word sometimes.  Go.  Move.  Don’t stay where you are doing what you’ve always done.  Go, mighty warrior.  That’s not who you are right now, but if I call you that, it is what I see within you.  You have the qualities of the person that I want.  Even though you see yourself as the least worthy, that’s what I want.  Because when you are not full of yourself, you can be full of me, and when you are full of me, you are my strength.  It doesn’t matter if you are the youngest son in the weakest clan in the poorest part of Israel. 

            I call you. 

Now, get going.

The LORD had already noticed the strength of Gideon’s hands and the might of his heart.  His call is to actually do something now – not just complain about the current situation, but to do something about it.  How often are we caught in that place, that location, like the tree, its roots pushed down so far into the soil that there is no thought of relocation even if the stream has dried up long ago. We know that something has to be done in order for joy to be restored.  And even though we know that something has to be done we find all sorts of excuses not to be the one to do something about it.  Someone else is better qualified.  I’m too old.  I’m too young.  I don’t have enough faith.  The problem is too big to be solved.  We’ve never done it this way before. 

For many Christians, complaining is a way of life, a methodology that they’ve learned from previous entitled generations.  If we don’t like the way something is being done church, we’ll make our complaints heard, stir up trouble, then move to another church and start the process all over again.  This is the contemporary Christian way of shunning commitment.  If a church, a group or a family requires movement in another direction, it’s very easy for the 21st century human to just move physically, rather than remain emotionally to change the circumstances where they are.  Imagine if Gideon had said to the LORD, ‘You know what, you’re right, I will go – not to what you’ve called me to, but to some other greener pastures.  That will be a lot easier.’

But the LORD cared not for Gideon’s complaints.  “I will be with you, and you will strike down the Midianites.”  The promise.  I am Immanuel.  With you.  Together we will do this; we will erase this thing that is causing your slavery.  Together.

So Gideon asks for signs – three times.  Just because he is not quite sure, not quite convinced that the LORD would ask someone like him, someone with no qualifications in the eyes of most people, he asks time and time and time again.  From the fear of the first sign, the man touched the food that Gideon brought to him and set it on fire, to the gradual acceptance that God, indeed, was calling him to change from wheat-thresher to warrior-extraordinaire. 

I wanted only one of those signs.  But I wanted to pick the sign.  I wanted to tell God how he should communicate the message to me.  It was 2009 and I wanted God to speak to me, especially in a time of great turmoil, in the language of Gideon’s time.  I wanted fire coming from rock; I wanted dew and fleece; I wanted miracles.

But God doesn’t move that way as much anymore.  The calling of individuals isn’t done through the miraculous because we are now a generation resigned to skepticism.  We can rationalize anything that smacks of the incredulous.  God doesn’t speak through burning bushes or pillars of fire.  He’s become more subtle.  When we ask for a sign, it’s not usually a stop sign, but more like a street sign.  We only notice it if we are looking for it.

On the way to a funeral, Christine called me to say that her dad had e-mailed.  Not twenty minutes after I had prayed for a sign, the e-mail said that the president of the Lutheran Church of Australia had talked with Robert (my father-in-law) about perhaps moving to Australia to be a pastor. 

Can I have another sign please?