(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 17, 2018, Proper 6)
This or That
I discovered spicy food at a very
early age. I don’t remember the
day myself, but my parents tell the story this way. As my mom, dad, and brother were preparing dinner, someone
had left the refrigerator door open.
I was a toddler at the time and toddled on over to explore what was
inside. On the lowest shelf sat a
red bottle. I stuck its top in
mouth. And for the next hour or so,
I was wincing and smacking my lips.
I had discovered Tabasco!
As far as I can reconstruct,
that’s the day I learned the word “hot”—as opposed to “cold,” which the
refrigerator certainly was.
And that’s the way we all learn, according to psychologists and
linguists. You can’t know one
thing until you know its opposite.
Hot/cold, up/down, night/day: as children, we begin to make sense of the
world by dividing it up into this or that.
As adults, we generally make
sense of the world in the same dualistic, divided-up way. And with good reason: these binaries
are the basis of our survival, our self-preservation. Without distinctions like poisonous/safe, healthy/unhealthy,
predator/prey, friend/enemy, hot/cold, we wouldn’t be here today.
Binaries are the basis of
survival. But binaries can also
blind us. They limit the world to this or that categories.
Instead of seeing a fellow American, we see Republican or Democrat. Instead of seeing a human being created
in the image of God, we see man or woman, black or white, straight or gay. Not only do these binaries blind us to
deeper realities, they also make us biased. Because binaries are about self-preservation, about keeping
order, about keeping things the way they are. In any binary, we prefer the term
that preserves our sense of self, whatever preserves the world as we know it.
Saul’s Selective Listening
If you were in a traffic jam, and
you heard a random honk behind you, would pay much attention? What if it were a police siren? If you were on the sidewalk, and a
stranger in a business suit was politely requesting help, would you approach
him? What if it were a homeless
person whose voice was slurred?
The problem with Israel’s first
king, Saul, was his selective listening: hearing this but not hearing that.
Right before today’s scripture,
Samuel calls him to account for not precisely following the instructions of
God, and Saul replies: “I feared my men and listened to their voice” (15:24). In other words, King Saul was a
people-pleaser. He had strayed
just a little bit from the command of God in order to please the strong men in
his army (cf. 14:52).
If you’ll remember from last
week, God had warned Israel that a king spelled trouble. Power would take without asking. It would build itself up at the people’s
expense. Power would not ensure
the justice of God’s good covenant.
It would not look out for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, as
the covenant endlessly called for.[1] Instead, it would do the opposite. Power—a king of might, a king who would
fight—this would take Israel back to its beginning in Egypt. Or as God put it, “You will be…slaves”
again (8:17).
Life under Saul did not look exactly like slavery, but in
Saul’s selective listening, we catch a glimpse of power’s cold disregard. Saul does not listen to God. Nor, we might imagine, does he listen
to the widow, the orphan, or the stranger. Saul listens to the strong men carrying swords and spears.
He listens to the people with power, the ones on whom his power rests. What the widow, the orphan, the
stranger, or God thinks…well, that can wait.
Samuel’s Selective Looking
In today’s scripture, we discover
the outcome of Saul’s selective listening. God has moved on.
God has already been scouting for a future king, and God’s found one! Samuel follows God’s prompting and
travels to Bethlehem.
What comes next is a celebrated
Bible story, a timeless classic that features in every children’s Sunday School
curriculum. Samuel invites Jesse
to bring his sons before him.
First comes Eliab, and he must have had an impressive physique, because
Samuel thinks, “Surely this is the one.”
But the Lord says to him, essentially, “Don’t look the way humans look,
selectively, dividing up and judging by your categories, old/young, tall/short,
strong/weak. For God does not see
that way. God looks on the
heart.” In other words, Samuel was
looking for the future king in the same way that Saul trying to stay king. He was dividing the world up into this or that, and he was giving priority to whatever he thought would
preserve power. Saul listened
first to the mighty men with swords and spears. Samuel looked first for a son who was strong, commanding,
and experienced.
Next comes Abinadab, and then
Shammah, and then four more sons.
Each time, Samuel listens to God and shakes his head. He must be perplexed at this point,
because he’s seen all there is to see.
Maybe he confused God’s directions. Maybe this is the wrong father and these are the wrong
sons. Just to make sure, though,
he asks Jesse, “Are all your sons here?”
Jesse responds that the youngest isn’t here, but is tending the
sheep. So he calls for his son
David—who is the least of his sons,
the last of his sons, the left-out son. And he, of course, is the one. God chooses him to be king.
More than Survival and Self-Preservation
The book of I Samuel contains
within it a tension, a friction between the people of Israel and God. We see it in today’s story, where
Samuel anoints the next king, and in the story right before it, where Saul listens
first to the voice of his army.
On the one hand, there are the
people of Israel grasping for power, power that will sort out their problems
inside, power that will secure their borders outside. This power builds quite naturally on divisions, which are a
mechanism of survival and self-preservation. This power splits the world up into simple categories, this-or-that, and prefers whatever will preserve things the way they are,
whatever will preserve the present order.
On the other hand, there is God
whose covenant looks out for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, whose
dream is change, the lowly lifted up and the powerful laid low. The change of God continually bursts
beyond the binaries of Israel. It
sees the potential for abundant life not in imposing kings but in a little boy
like Samuel and later in Jesse’s left-out son, David.
The power of Israel builds on
divisions, but the change of God bursts beyond these binaries. Because God wants more than survival,
God wants life! God wants more than the
self-preservation of the powerful, God wants beloved community, life for everyone.
The Unity of God’s Love:
From the Most Minor of Minorities
Which is the same thing that
Jesus wants, the same thing we see in the Jesus story. Jesus is consistently bursting beyond
our binaries, our this-or-that thinking, drawing us beyond these
divisions into the unity of God’s love.
It is Jesus who sees greatness
in the smallest of seeds. It is Jesus who proclaims enemies to be beloved. It is Jesus
who lifts high the little children as
model citizens of the kingdom. It is Jesus who calls the last first.
In the story of Samuel and
Israel, as in the story of Jesus, God does not limit our world according to the
divisions that we make, this-or-that. Rather God sees infinite possibility in all things. And thank God for that.
Binaries keep us alive. But they also keep us from life. When we divide the world up into this or that, and we make choices based on survival and self-preservation,
the world hardens and closes in on itself. When the powerful act to preserve the present order, to keep
things the way they are, the world comes to a standstill. No significant change in history
happened because at first a majority voted for it. The change of God that pushes past mere survival and
self-preservation, that liberates slaves in Egypt, that looks out for the
widow, the orphan, and the stranger, that transforms enemies into friends, that
draws us all beyond this-or-that into the unity of God’s love—this
life-giving change of God grows from the most minor of minorities, from the
smallest of things. Like a mustard
seed. Like a little, left-out boy. Like a convicted criminal on a
cross.
Prayer
Mysterious and merciful God,
Who transgresses
Our codes of what is correct,
Our understanding of this-or-that;
Draw us into your holy quest
For more than survival and self-preservation;
Grow within us and our community
The tiny seeds of your kingdom,
In which everything belongs
And is filled with infinite possibility.
In the name of him
Whose love obeys no laws, Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1] According to
Baba Metzia 59b, some rabbis counted
in the Torah 36 warnings against wronging the sojourner; others counted
46. Cf. Jonathan Sacks, “Mishpatim
(5768)—Loving the Stranger,” http://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-5768-mishpatim-loving-the-stranger/,
accessed June 13, 2018.
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