(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 10, 2018, Proper 5)
The Way of God:
The Lowly Lifted Up
When Samuel was born into the
world, his mother was dreaming of another world. She sings a beautiful song about this dream, a song about
the lowly lifted up and the powerful laid low, about empty tummies filled with
food and barren wombs bearing children.
It was a song that challenged reality, for at the time the powerful in
Israel ruled with greed and dishonesty, threat and intimidation. Abusing their privilege, they swindled
and stole and took advantage of the weak (cf. 2:12-17, 22). It was a world perhaps not that
different from ours, where profit-hungry businesses prey on the vulnerable and
power-hungry leaders rule by threat and force.
But one night in the midst of
this reign of terror, the word of God came to Israel. Well, it came to an unsuspecting boy, Samuel. And the word of God was change. It was the same word that Samuel’s
mother had sung, a word about the lowly lifted up and the powerful laid
low. It was a word that, as God
said, would “make both ears of anyone who hears it tingle” (3:11). Because it was at once both a promise
and a threat, terrific or terrifying, depending on where you stood. To those injured by the injustice, it
was the terrific promise that the powerful would not prevail forever. To those complicit in the injustice, to
the powerful and the privileged, it was a threat. A warning that sin—injustice—has its own terrifying
consequences.
And sure enough, change
happened. The leaders of Israel died
at the hands of the Philistines, and Israel itself fell into political disorder
for twenty years (cf. 7:2). By
that time, Samuel had grown up and developed quite a reputation. His words had become reality. The powerful leaders in Israel had
indeed been laid low.
So when he spoke in the present
disorder, everyone listened. He
gathered all Israel together, and what he did next, the Bible repeats three
times, so that you can’t miss it—he practiced justice among the people (7:6,
15, 17). In other words, he guided
them in the way of the special covenant that God had made with them. A covenant which might seem sort of
strange to us today, because unlike our laws its priority was not to protect
private pursuits and individual gains but rather to protect the needful, “the
widows, orphans, and sojourners.”[1] You might say, in fact, that its
priority was to lift the lowly.
When Samuel practiced justice among the people, when he guided them in
the way of God’s covenant, he fulfilled in the flesh his mother’s song and
dream. Yes, now the lowly—the
widows, the orphans, the strangers, the ones who would have been most
vulnerable under the unjust rule of the powerful and privileged—now they were
lifted up.
From the Lowly to a King:
Fighting Power with More Power
This would be a perfect spot for
the story to wrap up, to conclude with those reassuring words, “And they lived
happily ever after.”
But they didn’t. As Samuel grew older and less capable
of guiding the people in the way of God’s covenant, he delegated this
responsibility to his sons. But
his sons, the Bible says, “turned aside after gain; they took bribes and
perverted justice” (8:3). In other
words, they fell into the trap of the previous leaders. Their influence went to their head, and
rather than looking out for the lowly, they looked out first and foremost for
themselves. It is a pattern we see
over and over again in the Bible, leaders who afflict others in their lust for
power, prestige, and possessions.
You would think that the people
of Israel would resist this growing power, that they would challenge the ways
of Samuel’s sons, speaking the truth to this power, confronting this corruption
with God’s good covenant. But they
do just the opposite! When they
see power growing in the hands of Samuel’s sons, they decide that the answer is
even more power in the hands of a king.
They want to fight the fire with a bigger fire.
Forgotten in all of this, of
course, is the matter of God’s covenant and justice for the lowly. No one seems to remember how the last
time Israel had rulers with such power and influence, the lowly were afflicted
and left helpless.
No one remembers, that is, but
God. And in today’s scripture, as
the people cry out for a king, God responds and reminds them just what they’re
asking for.
[Read 1 Samuel 8:4-20.]
“Like Other Nations”:
The Way of the World
When my Old Testament professor
in seminary read this scripture in class, he told us a joke. “What do you get,” he asked, “when you
play a country song backwards?” “You
get your truck back, your dog back, your wife back….”
Today’s scripture reads a lot
like a country song (played forwards).
It is a litany of all that the Israelites will lose. God warns the people about all that the
king will take: their sons for the king’s army, their daughters for the king’s
kitchen, the best of their fields and their vineyards and their produce for the
king’s officials, their servants cattle and donkeys for the king’s
workforce.
And then comes the punch line,
except this one is all punch and no funny. “You shall be his slaves.” Which is a horrible enough proposition, but it’s even worse
considering his audience. Remember
who this is to whom God is speaking.
This is the people who were slaves in Egypt. Their story is freedom from oppression, justice for the
downtrodden, the God who listens to the least. They were a sign, a witness to the way of God, which lifts
the lowly and lays low the powerful.
By blessing Israel, God had intended to bless all the families of earth,
to bring all the world into beloved community, where oppression and slavery
have no place.
By asking for a king, the
Israelites were playing their entire song backwards, disowning their
story. God, deliverance,
justice. They were reversing their
history and returning to slavery.
They were effectively going back to Egypt.
Why? We hear the real reason at the end of today’s scripture: “So
that we…may be like other nations, and that our king may…fight our battles”
(8:20). In a word, the reason is
power. Power—someone with might,
someone who will fight—power, they think, will solve their problems at home and
abroad. Power will put Samuel’s
corrupt sons in their place. Power
will keep the Philistines and other enemies at bay.
Twice when the people ask for a
king, they rationalize their request with the reason that they might be “like
other nations” (8:5, 20). Power,
in other words, is the way of the world around them. But power is not the way of their God. The covenant that God made with them is
about looking out for the lowly—the widow, the orphan, the stranger. The way of their God is beloved
community.
Setting the Covenant—or Kingdom—Aside
I can’t help but wonder if our
world today is but an echo of Israel’s world long ago. I’m sure that the Israelites in
Samuel’s day thought highly of the way of God, the covenant of community and
justice to which they had agreed.
I’m sure they talked about it on Sabbath and recited its words and ideas
at the dinner table. I’m sure they
memorized parts of the covenant and quoted it in small matters. But I also imagine that when it came to
larger matters—like national security or the economy or land management—they
set the covenant aside as a rather idealistic and impractical guide, instead
trusting in the more efficient means of power. Looking out for the stranger is all well and good when it’s
a harmless neighbor whom you’ve already gotten to know, but when it comes to
securing the borders and ensuring that the harvest goes to law-abiding
Israelites first, maybe the covenant isn’t so relevant. Maybe what’s more relevant is a king
who can protect us, who can make difficult decisions in our favor.
In the end, Israel would get
their kings. God did not stand in
the way of their desire. (The way
of God, remember, is not the way of coercive power.) But as they got their kings, there also echoed the words of
God for any who would remember: “You shall be his slaves.” Back to Egypt.
For us, it is not the ancient
covenant of the Israelites that we are tempted to set aside as idealistic or
impractical. It is the kingdom of
God, where the poor are a priority, the homeless are sheltered, the stranger is
welcomed, the world is God’s beloved creation, the enemy is loved, the excluded
are embraced and welcomed to the table of fellowship. These things are all great, but when it comes to questions
of economic inequality, healthcare, immigration, climate change, military
budget, it’s easy to set the kingdom aside for the sake of self-interested
power.[2] But if today’s story is any indication,
this trust in power brings not freedom but oppression, not justice but
slavery. It leads us not to God’s
promised land but back to Egypt.
Prayer
God who lifts the lowly
And sets free the enslaved—
When fear and anxiety
Narrow our vision
And tempt us
Toward the way of power,
Remind us anew
Of your kingdom dream
Of beloved community
And a world made whole,
And enlarge our hearts to act
Not in the service of self-interested power
But in the service of others.
In Christ, who proclaims your
kingdom. Amen.
[1] E.g., Deut
14:29, 16:11, 14; 24:19–21; 26:12–15.
Cf. Walter Brueggemann, Theology
of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1997), 423.
[2]
Rev. Granberg-Michaelson, who has served as chief legislative assistant to
Senator Mark O. Hatfield, Director of Church and Society for the World Council
of Churches, and General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America raises
these issues as especially relevant to the practice of faith in the political
field. Cf. Wes
Granberg-Michaelson, “From Mysticism to Politics,” Onening: An Alternative Orthodoxy 5:2 (2017): 15-21.
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