Being God's Champion

In today’s first reading, Judges 6: 11-24a, an angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and says to him: “The Lord is with you, O champion.” Gideon’s response, in today’s parlance, sounds something like this: “O yeah! Then why are we facing such horrible possibilities as being slaughtered by our warring neighbors?” Gideon was in the process of beating out wheat in the wine press to save it from the Midianites, certainly not a pleasant job given that they were soon to be delivered into the enemy’s hands. Gideon complains: “If the Lord is with us, why is all this happening to us? Where are the wondrous deeds that our ancestors tell us God performed for us in Egypt?” The angel of the Lord says to Gideon: “Go with the strength you have and save Israel from the power of Midian!” Gideon objects: “Me? My family is a nobody in Manasseh; and, in my family, I’m totally insignificant. You’re really talking to the wrong person, Lord!” Sound familiar? You and I could dance the same dance in which Gideon engages. We could come up with similar complaints—our world, too, is in a mess, about to be overpowered by enemies within and outside of the U.S. As the fires and the floods rage in fury; when terminal or chronic illness strikes our families, we, too, might wonder where God is. Like Gideon, we could manufacture the same arguments when God calls us forth to take responsibility to make something happen to change the course of our lives when we are at our end’s wit. The choice is ours: we can engage in arguments and do nothing or, in faith, to take up the challenge to make a difference, to radiate possibilities in a seemingly impossible situation. I pray for the courage to do the latter! What about you?