Rev. Eugene Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
July 7, 2002
Judges 8: 22-28
In the current film, Minority Report, the lead character played by Tom Cruise, faces a crucial moment of decision. He has learned about his future, about something that he is going to do, something terrible. (I do not want to give away plot, but trust me, it is something terrible) As the film progresses, the question becomes…is this future inevitable; is there anything he can do to change it? When the future inexorably becomes the present and when he stands in that moment which he has known was going to come all along, he is told, “You can choose.” He is told that the future is not inevitable, not unchangeable. He has the power of choice, and in choosing he can chart a new future for himself. He can choose.
That scene from Minority Report was in my mind this past week as we celebrated the July 4th holiday. Because July 4th and all that it represents is not inevitable. The freedom we celebrate doesn’t just happen. No, it must be chosen – chosen each day by each and every one of us. When it comes to the freedom we cherish, the choice is ours. And it is not always an easy one. As much as we say we love our freedom, it is not necessarily an easy choice.
The bitter days of the Hebrews’ wanderings in the wilderness had come to an end. They had finally settled down in what they called the “promised land, ” and were now farmers and herdsmen. But life was not easy, not even in the promised land. Because at harvest time every year, bands of Midianite raiders would stream across the Jordan River and plunder their crops, steal their hard-earned produce, leaving them hungry, broken, bitter.
Into this difficult situation came Gideon. Gideon was a natural leader, probably a military genius. He gathered an army and in short order ended the yearly plundering of the Midianites, bringing peace and order to the lives of the Hebrews. The borders were now secure, in the words of the Biblical narrative, “The land had rest and peace for forty years because of Gideon.”
How did the people respond to this deliverance? They went to Gideon and they say, “Rule over us, and your son and your grandson, for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian. Rule over us.”
How often has this scene been repeated in human history? A people hard-pressed by problems, insecure and troubled, worried and afraid, conclude…there is only one way out. We need someone to rule over us, to tell us what to do, even what to think, and perhaps even to relieve us from some, if not all, of this dangerous burden of freedom. Yes, freedom is nice, but it has led to too much disorder, things have gotten out of hand, we need a return to orderliness and peace. Rule over us.
And this does not necessarily happen all at once. Freedom can be given away on the installment plan – little by little, bit by bit. An emergency arises. A crisis develops. Unknown terrorists loom in the shadows. And there is the temptation to think that somehow too much freedom is part of the problem, that the government, the leaders, should be given more power – only, of course, until order is restored, until the crisis has passed…. just a temporary thing. But the long history of governments suggests that what are adopted as emergency measures more often than not become frozen in concrete. And piece-by-piece, liberty slips away.
German Lutheran pastor, Martin Neimoeller, was arrested by the Nazis in 1938 and sent to the concentration camp at Dachau. Somehow he survived, being freed by Allied forces in 1945. Reflecting on his experience under Hitler, and never forget that Hitler came to power legally with the support of the majority, Neimoeller wrote these classic words: ‘In Germany the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I didn’t speak. up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Catholic. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.”
Words of Benjamin Franklin come to mind: “When you tether a beast at night, rest assured he will know the length of the tether by morning. It would behoove us, then, to use short tethers.” Even in times of national emergency, when daily it seems we are being warned of threats, it still behooves us to keep any government on short tethers, especially when we are told that in the name of security, in the name of order and safety, some freedoms may have to be curtailed. Freedom given away generally is not given back. A free society cannot be just inherited. It must be chosen anew by each generation. It is so easy, so tempting, to plead… “rule over us;” to seek order at the cost of freedom, security at the cost of our own humanness.
This really is an underlying issue in the film Minority Report. How high a price will a society pay? How much freedom will be relinquished in the name of safety and security? Now I was aware that as I was preparing this that it might sound more like a political science lecture than a sermon, but as political as it may sound, make no mistake, this is also a topic that is profoundly Biblical.
“Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.’” What is it in our Biblical faith which people like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln found so appealing, indeed so necessary to any understanding of freedom and democracy? One of my mentors in ministry, Rev. Dr. Culver Nelson, says it like this: “The Christian case for democracy is not based upon the notion that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Sometimes it is just the voice of an unruly and unthinking mob. No, the Christian view is that no person’s voice is the voice of God, and no single person should have overmuch authority over our souls. The authority should be spread around; we should never say to any one person, as the Israelites said to Gideon, ‘Rule over us.’ That hardly means there is no place for leadership; it does mean that all leadership must be made accountable to the people, and to God.”
Those of you have studied our colonial history know that there was quite a struggle among our founding fathers over what the government should be about. Alexander Hamilton had said, “The people is a great beast.” He saw the need for control. And of course sometimes the people are beasts and need control. Unruly mobs, vigilante mobs for example, are hardly a good argument for freedom of assembly, just as unruly corporations and their greedy CEO’s are hardly good advertising for capitalism and free markets. But as a counter to Hamilton, Jefferson said this: “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” Persons, one by one, in their God-given uniqueness and preciousness… this is what government ought to be about. This is the very soul of our democracy, indeed it is the soul of our Biblical faith. “The Sabbath is made for people,” said Jesus, “not people for the Sabbath.” Could not the same thing be said about government and the state?
There is a story, no doubt more legend than true, in which Tom Lincoln said of his young son, “He can’t sing; he just can’t sing at all.” To which his wife, the mother of young Abe, said, “No Tom, he can’t; but he may one day make the world sing.”
Abraham Lincoln did just that and more. The question is: Do we hear that tune still…do we know how deeply Biblical it is…and are we ready to choose anew a free society, in spite of its seeming disorder and maddening pluralism and variety of opinions, most of which I know are wrong!. Which is to say, are we ready to choose anew that government, “of the people, by the people, for the people” a government foreshadowed by wise old Gideon, the one who said, “I will not rule over you; only God can do that.”
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