What On Earth Was He thinking?
By Joanne Leatch
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Reading: Judges 8:22-35
Well, while others may have been relaxing on a patio with lemonade, here at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, we have been immersed in one of the most challenging books of the Hebrew Bible: the book of Judges. We’re in the middle of series called “There are no heroes.” And what an adventure it has been. We saw Yael hammer a tent peg through the temple of Sisera. We saw Deborah judge elegantly and majestically. We followed the Israelites through many battles: sinning, being punished, returning to God, being delivered from their enemies and then repeating the pattern.
A couple of weeks ago we came to Gideon. Sweet, humble, everyman Gideon, who meets the angel of the Lord under a tree. In this context, the angel of the Lord is often identified as the Lord himself. Remember that the angel tells Gideon that he has been chosen to save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. He protests. “My clan is the weakest, and I am the least in my family.”
“You can do it because I will be with you” says the angel. And so, he does it. He goes in the strength of the Lord and at first, he knows that it is not his doing but only that of God.
Last week we saw that he had a great victory with only 300 men because of God. And then at the beginning of this chapter, which we didn’t read, he pursues and kills the two kings of Midian. And now Gideon, the hero, has returned.
What did I know about Gideon before we started this study? The answer is – not much. I heard of the Gideon Bible Society. Known now as Gideons International, they remain an international organization dedicated to placing Bibles throughout the world, particularly in hotels, hospitals, schools (good luck with that) and prisons. They chose the name Gideon because they found in Gideon a model of faith, humility and obedience to God’s will. That is one view of Gideon in commentaries I have read by different theologians, but it is not universal, as we shall see.
My reading told me that it was generally thought that Gideon had been studied extensively in Sunday school. Not in my Sunday school. Not ever, and I was there a lot. I loved Sunday school. From the Old Testament, we studied Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, Noah and then it sort of petered out, maybe a little Esther. But Gideon? Nothing at all. Neither had anyone in Tuesday’s Bible study.
Strangely enough, somehow Gideon was in the popular psyche. Here is a piece of Gideon trivia, which you need to know and please tuck this away and feel free to use it for bonus points in trivia games. Did you know that there was a play billed as a dark comedy that was on Broadway in 1961 called Gideon telling the story of biblical Gideon? It was written, produced and Directed by American Paddy Chayefsky, who won Oscars for his dark satires The Hospital and Network. Gideon, the Broadway play was not only a critical success but also a box office success. It was later transferred to a successful television special. And really, when you look at the whole story, what could it have been other than a dark comedy?
Gideon was never simply obedient without question. As soon as he meets the angel of the Lord, he starts pushing back, asking for signs. So, we learn early on that he is not simply going to accept everything that he is told. When the angel says that the Lord is with him, Gideon says, “Really? If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the wonders that I’ve heard about from my ancestors like being led out of Egypt. Instead, the Lord has abandoned us and delivered us into the hand of the Midianites.” Then boldly, he asks for a sign.
The angel miraculously sets fire to meat and bread and broth with his staff. So, there are signals for us from the start that Gideon may not simply be unquestioning and compliant. You know how you get phone calls from the teacher saying they are calling because they thought that you should know something about your kid? Nothing bad, we just thought you would want to know. I used to get such calls from the Sunday school here. It would be that my kids were the ones with their hands up in Sunday school lessons and when called upon the question was always, “Where is the proof?” Indeed, my children and Gideon. This is Gideon. Show me that this is real, angel of the Lord. Give me a sign. In the end, Gideon did follow the Lord – up to a point.
Here we are in Chapter 8. There has been victory, and the people say to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian.” They are wrong right there. Not Gideon, but God delivered them from the hand of the Midianites. But it’s okay so far. Gideon says, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.” Yes. 100 percent correct.
That's where the chapter should have ended. Yes Gideon, stop, sit down, worship God. But he doesn’t stop. He keeps talking and it all starts to go south. With the next sentence, we all know it's not going to end well. What on earth was he thinking? “I have this little idea”, Gideon says, “just a request. What if you gave me some jewels”. There’s no threat, no demand. They’re thrilled. The Midianites are gone. So, they say, for sure, we’re glad to give them to you. And they pour out the jewels onto blankets. There are a lot of jewels, a lot of plunder from the battles. It’s 1700 shekels, or about 45 pounds before they count the ornaments, pendants, chains around the camels’ necks. Estimates are that once those were added in, it’s about 75 pounds.
Gideon has an idea. He makes the jewels into an ephod. An ephod was a garment worn by a priest; it had strong religious and ceremonial implications. As pastor Jason pointed out in an earlier sermon, we can see one here in the church in the front window. Jesus, the highest priest seems to be wearing one. It’s quite modest, compared to Gideon’s, definitely not 75 pounds of jewels. The point isn’t that the garment itself is special but it’s special because of the priest who wears it and how they are worshipping God while wearing the garment. It is about God, not about the garment. But Gideon takes the ephod, and he puts it in his own hometown of Ophrah. Then the people come, and they worship the actual garment. Problem number one: there was no priest to wear this ephod. It was like a rogue idol on its own. One writer says that this was the equivalent of Gideon setting up a rival place of worship for him to consolidate his own position instead of using his position to serve God. Apparently, the theory of why he chose Ophrah was that it wasn’t as far to go as Shiloh where the main location for worship was. And what happens?
From all this Gideon made an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his hometown. But soon all Israel prostituted themselves by worshipping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household. All of Israel goes to Ophrah and worships not God, but the actual ephod. They were worshipping an idol, and it became a snare to them all. It is this act that is the deal breaker for some of the commentators. Some feel that, in the end, Gideon was mostly obedient and did God’s will and that is why God allowed him to live to a ripe old age and in some ways act like a king. He had many wives and 70 sons including one with his concubine. I suspect there was more than one concubine, and I suspect that there were daughters as well. However, others maintain that in making an idol of the ephod, Gideon blew it and is not worthy of much honour. One wrote, “Gideon was ignorant of God at the beginning of his narrative and made no progress. He left his people no better off as a result of his work.” Pretty harsh. But worshipping an idol is serious.
Immediately we recall other events from the Old Testament and elsewhere. The second commandment: 3 "You shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them.”
But they did. They made an idol out of the ephod, they worshipped it, and it was their undoing.
There is also the story of the golden calf. The people think that Moses is taking too long on one of his trips up Mount Sinai, so they ask his brother Aaron to build them some gods. They take off their jewels and he builds the golden calf, which they worship. It doesn’t end well. When Moses comes down from the mountain, he is incandescent with rage, he grinds the golden calf into powder and makes them drink it. Many die. Then he orders further killings.
There are plenty of modern analogies as well. For all the Tolkien fans, are we not in Lord of the Rings territory now? One ring to bind them. One ring to ensnare them. Take the Ring Frodo and don’t stop until you have thrown it into the fires of Mount Doom. No one can hold the ring for long before they start to become ensnared. No one can worship a jewelled vest without being caught up in worshipping an idol. And, of course, Tolkien knew his Bible. He was a devout Roman Catholic and told an interviewer, “I am a Christian, which can be deduced from my work”.
And listen to the language. Most of the translations say that they were ensnared. Some commentators substitute “corrupted” but the message translation says that Gideon and his house and the Israelites were “seduced” by the ephod. If you were going to be ensnared by something, you might think that you could prevail against it. But a seduction? If done smoothly, you might not realize what was happening until it was too late. I think that is what happened to Israel. I think it’s what happened to Gideon, and I think that is what happens to us.
And what of us? What ensnares us? It is highly unlikely to be a jewelled vest. But it can be anything really and we can be seduced or ensnared as individuals and as a society. One of the easy things is money. Pastor Jason quoted someone who said: “Money makes you stupid.” And it can. Too much can lead to a lack of motivation or a feeling of entitlement, a feeling that you are somehow better than people who don’t have money. Feeling that maybe you worked harder, maybe you were smarter. But when we’re being honest, we know that isn’t true. People can work really hard and still not earn enough to pay rent.
Ontario’s minimum wage will go up to $17.60 on October 1. If you work full time, that is a gross annual salary of $32,032.00 before tax. And you do pay tax on that amount of money. If you are on social assistance, it’s worse. Ontario works or basic social assistance as a single person, you receive $733.00 a month or under $9000 a year, plus some basic benefits. This is for food, shelter, transportation, and clothes. Good luck. We know why our food bank has a line up. I’m putting the slides up because people usually simply can’t believe the amounts. If you are on provincial disability, you receive $1228.00 a month or under $15,000.00 a year. I’m not making this up. It’s public information. In 1995, the government of the day lowered social assistance rates by 21.6 percent. Thirty years later they are still not up to the amount they were before the lowering. Yet, much of society feels that we simply cannot afford social assistance. And somehow, we think that $17.60 is a reasonable wage. Basically, we have been ensnared by the idea that we don’t have enough money to share. Of course, you can do really good things with money. Some 240 billionaires have pledged to give away most of their wealth in their lifetime and many people do good and kind things with money.
We can be seduced by success. One commentator wrote about Gideon and us, “His success was the worst thing for him. He became addicted to and dependent on it. Success can easily cause us to forget God’s grace because we are desperate to believe that we have earned things for ourselves and we should receive the praise and glory.” The myth of the completely self-made person. I did it all by myself.
We can be ensnared by a society that just has too much, and we lack gratitude. You know that our church is twinned with a school in Honduras. The first time I went, I learned about groceries in Honduras and this is for people who have money to buy groceries. A store might have cornflakes or bran flakes but never both and often neither. The first time I came back, I went to a superstore and started counting the different kinds of breakfast cereal. When I reached 113, I had to leave in disgust. How have we turned into a society that thinks it needs more than 100 kinds of cereal, all basically the same, to choose from. Did you know that there is a restaurant in Toronto, and there is probably more than one, where you can get a rib eye steak with no sides for one person for $960.00. And yes, you heard that correctly. The ensnarement of just too much.
What else can ensnare us? There are the obvious ones: alcohol, drugs. But other more innocuous things, things that we think of as good: Being busy, being loved, being thought of as good? That’s why we’re attracted to them. My brothers have told me that my office can look like a shrine to my children and grandchildren. I admit that I’m pretty besotted with them. And that’s the point. It can be anything; these snares, these seductions, are tricky.
Anything that keeps us away from God can ensnare us. What can we do? I sought the advice of the Bible study group. We brainstormed as to what you can do. First, you have to pay attention. A friend of mine had a friend, who together with his wife raised five children to happy well-adjusted adulthood. She asked him how they did it. His reply, “It’s easy. You simply pay attention to what is going on every single day with each child and the minute you don’t, something big happens and you’ve missed it.” Not easy. In fact, we might be tempted to give up. But it’s not hopeless.
Second, prayer. Try to pray every single day and try to listen for God. I once read that prayer has to be about more than just worrying on your knees. In our prayers, praise, give thanks, and by all means, ask for those things we or our loved ones need. Ask for direction and spend time listening. Read your Bible. Intentionally spend time with God. There are all kinds of systems available for reading. Around the church book racks, there is Scripture Union. Try that out. See if you like it. I always find that whenever I think I don’t have time to pray and read the Bible is when I really need to do it most. Meet with and talk to like-minded people, like at church, at Bible study. Along with that, just be more open to sharing beliefs with people if the opportunity presents itself.
This past week I ended up talking about faith and God to two perhaps unlikely people. One was an insurance agent when I had to phone about converting life insurance from my former employment. The other was a washing machine repair person. Both encounters left us all with a happier day and grateful for the opportunity. Sadly, my washing machine can’t be fixed.
Next do something involved in volunteering or perhaps do random acts of kindness. Finally, practice gratitude. In Honduras, many women make their living selling tortillas on the street. If you ask them how their day went, they may well say, “Praise be to God. I sold enough tortillas today to buy enough cornmeal to make tortillas to feed my family tonight and have some to sell tomorrow as well.” We need to practice that much gratitude. If we do all these things, might we still be like Gideon and mess up? Almost certainly. But God is truly merciful, no doubt more merciful than the really hardline commentators. All praise, all thanks, all glory be to almighty God. Amen.