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Understanding the  Jesse Tree
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Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
Judges 7:7-8,16-21 (NRSV)

The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all the others go to their homes.”  So he took the jars of the troops from their hands, and their trumpets; and he sent all the rest of Israel back to their own tents, but retained the three hundred. The camp of Midian was below him in the valley.  … After he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and put trumpets into the hands of all of them, and empty jars, with torches inside the jars, he said to them, “Look at me, and do the same; when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets around the whole camp, and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”  So Gideon and the hundred who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch; and they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands.  So the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars, holding in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow; and they cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”  Every man stood in his place all around the camp, and all the men in camp ran; they cried out and fled.

Sometimes God asks us to do the impossible.  The Church often uses what seems to be the herculean task of doing God’s work with so few people.  Parish Catholic schools have done the work of education with very little resources with more success than places where their resources seem to be abundant.  Relatively speaking, Catholic Churches have fewer resources than many of their Christian counterparts because of lack of tithing found among Catholics.  The same seems to be true of many of the other ministries the Church does.  And yet we watch how it all seems to happen.  I am a firm believer if we spend all our efforts focused on God’s work and then let God provide what is needed to make it happen, things always work out in some mysterious way.  Gideon was asked to do what God wanted with only 300 men, and he was told to send the others home.  Our first reaction can easily be, but why?  In battle, more is better.  However, Gideon was asked to trust in God and to work with him. Many would say that with the coming of Jesus, it would have been better if he came in his glory and power, with an army of angels to get everyone’s attention and convert the world to God.  Instead, God chose to come in a manger as a little child almost in a subversive way, from within or behind “enemy lines” to save humanity from its sins.  Jesus’ coming in a simple, humble, family proclaims to the world that his way is more effective in winning hearts of men and women, more effective than forceful shows of power and might.  This is something dictators and tyrants never seem to learn.

God asked Gideon to do a big job and Gideon did not believe that he could.  He needed to be a mighty and strong warrior but he was only a farmer and could not believe that God would call him to do the job.  On top of that, we was going to go to battle with only 300 men.  God had him send the others home.  This way Gideon needed to trust God and to believe that God is the one doing the work through him.  Gideon went into battle at night by covering the people’s torches with clay jars so that they could surprise their enemies.  They broke their their jars and blew their trumpets.  That scared their enemies and they ran away.  Gideon and his army won that day.

Discuss how the coming of Jesus in a humble and quiet way could be a more effect way of saving his people from their sins.  Talk about how the loud, flashing ways of the world seem to lack the staying power of consistent, persistent effort.  Share how winning hearts to God is not usually in big, powerful acts of might but in faithful witness to God with God doing the work.