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FLEECES AND FAITH #5

LOWLY WORKERS WITH HIGH CONNECTIONS

It’s always interesting to read stories – at least here in the U.S. it happens this way – of very ordinary people who, by the luck of the draw, are connected to someone else . . . and are abruptly catapulted into high power. We’ve mentioned on this broadcast a young mom from Texas who got a job helping advise the fresh-faced governor of that state. “Oftentimes our motorcade was just one car,” she joked. A few short years later, though, Karen Hughes was riding on Air Force One and sitting in motorcades five blocks long next to George W. Bush, President of the United States, most influential leader in the free world, giving him advice and helping draft his speeches and stay “on message.”

Back in the late 1960s, an extremely young man named Ronald Ziegler happened to use his connections to become the youngest ever press secretary to a U.S. President. I mean, Nixon’s front man with the Washington press corps, the guy who daily faced Sam Donaldson and UPI’s Helen Thomas, was something like 28 years old. And as we read through Watergate books like The Final Days, the writers tell about Ziegler’s own team, innocent kids connected to HIM. Young men and women worked under him – long, 14-hour days. They had to pick up Ziegler’s dry cleaning for him. On press junkets, one would have to go into his hotel suite and pick up all his dirty clothes and tote them back to the White House. Their boss was so busy fighting the Washington Post that one of them would be assigned to go to a local shoe store, bring back ten or twenty pairs of shoes, wait while Ziegler tried on and picked out a couple of pairs he liked, and then take the rest back to the store. Things like that. One staffer spent several hours a week on the phone lining up tennis partners for Ziegler – people with sufficient skills to make a good game, and also with enough White House “juice” to be worthy in name as well. Every morning they were under orders to have two fresh packs of cigarettes waiting on his desk, along with a bottle of his favorite antacid pills – although it sounds like the beleaguered staff could have used some of those themselves. These people were flunkies in a huge governmental system; they worked in anonymity and usually departed from Washington to stay in those same shadows.

But not always. Two of these young, devoted female assistants who did Ziegler’s endless bidding were named Karin and Diane. Now, I don’t know whatever happened to Karin Nordstrom, but the other one, Diane – as in Sawyer – has actually done pretty well for herself. In 1974 she went from the White House out to California, following Ziegler to San Clemente when Nixon resigned . . . and soon landed a job with the networks. Today she makes more money on television than Ziegler or even Nixon ever dreamed of in politics. And why? Simply because of that earlier connection to the halls of power. Like they say, “It’s who you know.”

Well, here in Israel, the nation is facing its own kind of Watergate crisis. For seven straight years it’s been nothing but scandal and sacrifice, with enemies like the vagabond marauders from Midian riding in from the east every year to pillage and burn. And as we studied yesterday, the angel of the Lord comes to Gideon and says: “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Get ready to save Israel.” By the way, it appears that this angelic being is what scholars call a “theophany” – a manifestation of God Himself. In this story, the narrative switches back and forth between calling this holy being an “angel of the Lord,” or just saying “Lord.”

With that in mind, Gideon gives a good answer. Here it is in verse 15:

“‘But Lord,’ Gideon asked, ‘how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’” In the Message paraphrase by Eugene Peterson, Gideon humbly confesses: “My clan’s the weakest in Manasseh and I’m the runt of the litter.”

And you know, friend, even though we should always have confidence in the Lord, this is a beautiful attitude Gideon expresses. Confidence in God, but DIStrust of self. So often we assert privilege HIGHER than we deserve; we claim more for ourselves than we ought to, and demand privileges that frankly belong to someone higher up the ladder. But here this young champion deliberately abases himself; he understates his own position. As we studied yesterday, his family – the clan of Joash the Abiezrite – apparently HAD some status in Israel, and they were a wealthy enough family that a bit later Gideon had at least ten manservants at his disposal. But when God comes to him there in the winepress, he wisely bows low and says: “I am the least in my family.”

The Bible notes here in the New International Version make this valid point:

“The Lord usually calls the lowly rather than the mighty to act for Him.”

And they point us to two Bible passages where this seems to be true. Back when Isaac’s wife Rebekah was pregnant with twins – Esau and Jacob – God says to her:

‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”

And people ask: Why? You can bet Esau asked that question. Why Jacob? Why not me? And sometimes we think there’s a divine arbitrariness to it all, that God chooses those whom He chooses and blesses those whom He wants to bless. Which is true. But it’s equally true that God knows all things, all hidden motives and thoughts, all the future ripples that follow from a stone’s throw into the lake of His divine leading. And what looks like arbitrary to us, what looks like His selection of someone weak and unworthy, is really the unfolding of His sovereign will. Over in First Samuel 9, when the prophet Samuel chooses and anoints a young man named Saul, the new king of Israel gives, almost word for word, Gideon’s speech.

“But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to ME?”

And we look at the spotty results of this particular choice, and maybe we wonder too. But friend, God wanted to lead according to His own plan and wisdom; He wanted Israel to learn to lean on Him and not on earthly kings, and so He chose – and continues today to choose – sometimes from the pile of broken pottery.

There’s a helpful paragraph we can drop in right here from the set of Bible commentaries in my own denomination. Notice:

“The fact that [Gideon] may have been a person of means and reputation,” the scholars write, “did not make him feel that the performance of the menial tasks of a farmer was beneath him. It is worthy of note that when God appears to men to call them to a task, or to give them a message from heaven” – now listen to this – “He generally calls on those who are BUSY, perhaps with their common, everyday tasks, such as the apostles at fishing, or the shepherds keeping their flocks. A person employed in honest business is more likely to receive heavenly visitors than one who spends his time in idleness, for God cannot use lazy men in His cause.”

It’s a favorite Bible illustration that when God called Joseph to be prime minister of Egypt, what was he doing? He was in a prison, being the best prisoner, the most hard-working, the most loyal and dedicated and BUSY – which is sometimes unusual in a prison – that he could be.
But now let’s get back to Gideon. Talented or lowly, how is this young man, hiding down in the winepress, going to defeat all the vast hosts of Midian? He asks that question and it’s a good one. And the Lord gives him a two-part answer. Actually, God has already given him the first half when He said:

“Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. AM I NOT SENDING YOU?”

And now when Gideon remonstrates with heaven again, God reiterates the saving truth:

“I WILL BE WITH YOU, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”

This is the beautiful message of the entire story, of course. As the gospel song says:

“Little is much . . . when God is in it. Labor not for wealth or fame. There’s a crown and you can win it, If you go in JESUS’ name.”

Back when God came to Moses and said to him, “Go to Egypt and rescue My people,” Moses gave this same speech. “Why me, Lord? I’m nothing. I’m scared; I’m incoherent.” And God said to him: “I know you are. But – AM I NOT SENDING YOU?” And when God sends someone, friend, He also sends along the attending power. True?

Why did a young Diane Sawyer rise to the position of influence she holds today, where her views are heard by millions? Because she worked hard and was connected to people with power. It’s a formula that works in the White House, here in Gideon’s house, and especially in God’s house.