"Rooted and Grounded" (2 Sam 11:1-15)

Lost at Sea

It was 1988, and Lawrence Lemieux—Larry—was in Seoul, South Korea, for the Olympic Games. All his life had been preparation for this moment. Larry grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. His father had been a semi-professional hockey player and was a racquet sports enthusiast. There was a ping-pong table in the family basement. With seven siblings and a father who loved sports, Larry quickly learned a competitive spirit. His training partner for the Olympics, Brian, reported that practices with Larry were sometimes harder than the real event, because Larry didn’t want to lose.

On the morning of September 24, 1988, the waters in Busan were calm, nearly ideal for the sailing event in which Larry would later be competing. But shortly after the race began, the weather took a turn. The wind steadily rose to 35 knots, and the waves grew choppy and began to break. And Larry—Larry was thriving. He was no stranger to these conditions. As he navigated the waves, he established himself in second position out of thirty-two and had his eye on the leader. At that moment, he was scanning for the next marker, a buoy that signaled a turn; he was hoping to get the inside track. But instead of an orange buoy, he saw the white hull of a capsized boat and a man scrambling to stay atop. A little ways off bobbed the head of another man who was struggling in vain against the waves.

Later, reflecting back on this surreal moment, Larry would remark that his decision was not the result of thinking. He was not thinking about the downside of a rescue, how he would lose the race. He was not thinking about the upside, how he could become a hero. His decision was immediate, instinctive. He abandoned the race and went toward the flailing sailor, taking him aboard his own boat and then waiting with the capsized boat until an official rescue crew arrived. (In case you’re curious, the capsized boat was a part of a different competitive event.) In the end, Larry finished 23^rd in the race. He was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship, the second competitor ever to receive what might be considered the rarest Olympic award.

As competitive as Larry is, this race revealed that his years of preparation had ingrained in him not only the value of competition but also an even deeper value of care. Larry knew what mattered most, not just in his head, but in his heart. So when the decisive moment came, there was no decision to make. He just did what he knew he had to do.

The irony is that, in the moment that Larry had lost sight of the marker, in the moment that he had become lost at sea, he knew exactly where to go. He knew what to do.

Settled: Sitting with No Rest

Today’s scripture opens with a quietly critical observation. It is springtime, “the time when kings go out to battle,” and where is King David? “David remained at Jerusalem” (2 Sam 11:1).

This word “remained” is the same word in Hebrew that was used in last week’s scripture, where we learned that David “was settled” in his new palace in Jerusalem (2 Sam 7:1).

Settled is a double-sided word. On the one hand, a person can be settled in the sense of being grounded, knowing their roots, secure in their identity and purpose. On the other hand, a person can be settled in the sense of being complacent, so comfortable and content with the way things are that they no longer live responsibly. Think of an office worker who has his routine down so pat, that he whiles away the day playing games on his phone, checking his email, buying things on Amazon, restlessly looking for something that will stimulate or interest him. The irony of this second sense of being “settled” is that it in fact reflects a profoundly unsettled spirit. There is no sense of purpose or necessity. It is living life on a whim, blown this way, then that. Think of a person sitting on a couch, not knowing what to do. Sitting with no rest.

That’s where David is, when late one afternoon he finally rises from his couch and walks to his roof to survey his kingdom. You know the story well enough from here. I’m not interested in rehashing it. Instead, I’m interested in exploring how David, a person “after God’s own heart,” finds himself rudderless, without a sense of identity and purpose.

Seeing and Taking

The first thing I notice is that David’s behavior actually follows a well-trodden biblical pattern. To put it in its simplest form, the pattern is this: see and take. It’s as old as the garden, where Eve sees that the fruit of this tree is good for food and takes it (Gen 3:6). More frequently, it happens that a person sees another person is beautiful and takes them, as Pharaoh does to Sarah (Gen 12:15) or as Shechem does with Jacob’s daughter, Dinah (Gen 34:2). Spoiler alert: this sequence of events rarely ends well. (As a side note, I don’t mean to suggest that the Bible is against beauty. There are other stories, where the sight of beauty breaks a person open with tears and renders them vulnerable to years of pursuit and growth, as in the case of Jacob and Rachel. The warning of biblical stories is not against beauty, but against the impulse that moves greedily, thoughtlessly from seeing to taking.)

In case the audience somehow neglects to observe David’s impulsivity, our storyteller expertly employs Uriah as a foil, a contrasting character that brings David’s behavior into light. When David summons Uriah back home, in the hope of covering up his misdeed with Bathsheba, Uriah plainly articulates his sense of duty and purpose. He will not rest in the comfort of his home when his companions are hard at work, when he himself stands ready to return to them. “As you live, and as your soul lives,” he says, “I will not do such a thing” (2 Sam 11:10). I wonder how David hears those words. I wonder if those words echo accusingly in David’s ear: “I will not do such a thing.” Where were those words earlier, when David looked out and saw Bathsheba? Why did he not think those words?

Covering Up

There is another curious detail in the story that illuminates David’s waywardness. As impulsive as his first act is, when he moves recklessly from seeing Bathsheba to taking her, his next action is carefully calculated. When he learns of Bathsheba’s pregnancy, he commences with a coverup. This is interesting to me because there is an easier solution. Later, when King Ahab desires the vineyard of Naboth and Naboth refuses, Ahab’s wife chides him, “Don’t you govern Israel?” (cf 1 Kgs 21:7). In other words, aren’t you the king? Can’t you have whatever you want? She then calls upon the elders and nobles of the city to kill Naboth, which they do accordingly.

David could just have Uriah killed at the outset. That he chooses not to, does not show us he is a good person. It shows us that he wants to be seen as a good person. His good character is a calculated façade. A good person simply does good. David does what he wants, and then tries to make himself look good. His goodness is a carefully crafted image rather than the actual cultivation of character.

Recently I finished reading a fascinating book titled Jesus and John Wayne, which is, essentially, about how American Christians have sometimes confused the two. The book traces the evolution of a militant and patriotic Christianity, a Christianity that idolizes power and fantasizes about an aggressive, conquering Jesus who ends up looking much like its national icon, John Wayne. (It is a Christianity that looks very different from what I see in Christ, who in today’s gospel passage actually runs away from power; he withdraws from the people when sees that they plan to make him king [John 6:15].) What makes the book so compelling is that after it has introduced its cast of a characters, many religious leaders whose names you might recognize, in its final chapter, it ponders the fruit of their way of thinking and points out how many of these leaders have been caught in acts of sexual abuse or harassment. I cannot help but see a connection with David. The unconscious but operative imperative in these leaders’ conduct was something along the lines of, “I do what I want because I can,” and then they covered up their behavior with a thick weave of piety, perhaps hiding it even from themselves as much as from others.

Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians

If today’s scripture serves as a negative example—here’s how not to live—then we might turn to our New Testament lectionary text for the other side of the coin. In Ephesians, we find Paul praying for his fellow Christ-followers in Ephesus, praying “that Christ may dwell in [their] hearts through faith, as [they] are being rooted and grounded in love” (Eph 3:17). “Rooted and grounded” is exactly what David is not. He may be settled in Jerusalem, sitting in his palace. But he is profoundly unsettled and restless, with no sense of his identity or purpose, living impulsively at the next impulse and reactively as he tries to cover his tracks. He is like a boat tossed by the waves.

In contrast, I think of Larry, who found himself lost at sea, amid steep waves, yet who knew exactly where to go and what to do. I think of what he said about how his decision was not the result of thinking. I grew up with the understanding that ethics, or good conduct, involved a hypothetical situation that required careful thinking and a torturous decision—you know, like learning that a train was bound to hit a group of ten people and having the choice to pull a lever and divert it, where it would only hit one person. The thing is, I have yet to find myself in any bizarre hypothetical situation like that.

The reality, I have learned, is that ethical conduct is less a decision and more the natural unfolding of character. When Larry saw the capsized boat, he simply knew what he had to do. The decision that he made was in fact already made for him by a lifetime of preparation. I don’t know the details, but as he grew up in a family with seven siblings and a father who cared for him, I gather that he was in some way “rooted and grounded in love.” That is, he grew up in an environment where love was regularly practiced. Not only had he learned that he was loved regardless of success or failure, but he had also practiced this love, probably in small ways—things like holding the door for others, listening and not interrupting when someone else was speaking, doing a chore when one of his siblings was sick and unable. I’m just speculating, of course, but on the basis of Jesus’ reminder that who is faithful in small things, is faithful in bigger things too. I’m guessing Larry had practiced love in a lot of small ways. So when the storm hit and the waves rolled, he was unmoved. He knew what he was doing.

Little Ways of Learning and Practicing Love

All of which leads me to ask myself, “Am I being rooted and grounded in love”? Is Christ dwelling in my heart? I am inspired to consider the little ways that we learn and practice love (which I think also happen to be the most important ways). Reading scripture, in which dwells the spirit of Christ. Prayer, in which we open up and listen for Christ. Gathering at the Lord’s Table, where we are reminded vividly of the strange way of Christ’s love. Confession, where we are honest with a trusted Christ-follower about our shortcomings and we receive Christ’s grace and encouragement. Meeting the need of another person, where we discover Christ in the sweet exchange of vulnerability. And of course there are countless other ways of learning and practicing love, such as all the “one another” commandments in the New Testament: “Be at peace with each other” (Mk 9:50), “be kind and compassionate to one another” (Eph 4:32), “encourage each other” (1 Thess 4:18), “do not slander one another” (Ja 4:11), “pray for one another” (Ja 5:16). The “one anothering” that is so prevalent in the early church is a healthy reminder for me that we are rooted and grounded in love not by solitary practice, but only by living in community and sharing life in common with others.

The murder that David commits at the end of today’s passage, and the life that Larry saves off the coasst of South Korea, can both feel very distant from our mundane lives. But the truth is, those spectacular actions were just the fruit of countless little, unspectacular deeds that either drew the man nearer to God or let him drift further away. It is those little deeds that are a part of all our lives, and they are what matter most. For they are, as Paul puts it, part of “the power at work within us [that] is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20).

Prayer

Dear Christ,
Who grounds us in the grace of God—
Sometimes we are lulled by the everydayness of life
Into thinking the little things don’t matter,
Perhaps even that we don’t matter.
May our deepest roots draw from your Spirit
And secure us in the faith
That we are loved unconditionally,
And that love can change everything;
Encourage us to be salt and light
In little ways,
That you might do “abundantly far more
Than all we can ask or imagine.”
Amen.

"I Will Make You a House" (2 Sam 7:1-14a)

From Pleasant to Problematic

For Katie, it began with book club. Every Thursday evening, she would gather with friends. Talking about a book seemed to open an exhaust valve for all of the emotions that had built up over the course of a week. The resentment toward her domineering boss. The frustration with her husband’s stonewalling. The worry about her aging parents. Book club was therapeutic. Talking about the travails and triumphs of characters helped her to accept and manage her own experiences.

One evening, the host opened up a couple bottles of wine. Katie noticed as she left that night how distant she felt from her usual concerns and worries. The next week when she hosted, she made sure to have wine for everyone. Soon, it was a ritual. It was enshrined as part of book club.

Once a week at book club was great, but Katie wanted even more of this cathartic experience. So she began to incorporate wine into a personal nightly ritual of reading and journaling. It felt therapeutic at first. But over time, things changed. She noticed that when there was no wine at book club, she became irritable and uninterested in sharing. She noticed that on her nights alone, there was less reading and more drinking. She noticed that she was becoming protective of her evenings, going out less with friends, even missing book club on occasion. It took a couple of years to become honest enough with herself to admit she had a problem.

Katie’s story is typical. No one chooses an addiction. No one sits down and seriously acknowledges the distant, potentially disastrous consequences of a decision (or a series of decisions) and says, “Even so, let me begin.”

The irony of addiction is that what becomes a problem, begins as a pleasant experience. “I should do that again,” a person might think. “I want more of the same.” And so the pleasant experience becomes enshrined in a repeated event. A ritual develops. A problem develops, too.

Finally Settled

Today’s scripture begins with King David finally “settled in his house” (2 Sam 7:1). Until recently, King David has lived much of his life on the move. Running away from a murderous king Saul. Hiding in the hills. Securing resources. Winning wives. Fighting battles. Now, for the first time since his youth perhaps, he is “settled.” He’s in a good moment. He has united the north and south of Israel and established a capital at Jerusalem (2 Sam 5:1-5). He has just comprehensively defeated Israel’s nemesis, the Philistines (2 Sam 5:17-25). He’s brought the ark of the covenant, the sacred symbol of God’s presence, to be by his side in Jerusalem (2 Sam 6). And he has built for himself a fine house of cedar, a royal palace, for him and his growing number of wives and concubines and children. Life, it would seem, is pleasant for David.

David decides that God needs a house too (2 Sam 7:1-2). As God will later point out, God has not asked for a house (2 Sam 7:7). This is coming entirely from David. So what, I wonder, is David’s reasoning? The English word that sometimes gets used to refer to a temple— “shrine”—hints at one possible motivation. David wants to enshrine the present moment. (Think of Peter at Jesus’ transfiguration, when he suggests building dwelling places for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, so that they might stay as they are, so that the euphoric moment might be captured!) Perhaps as David has finally settled into a pleasant way of life, he would like to keep things just as they are. He would like for God to settle down beside him and bless things the way they are and preserve them.

And David is probably not alone. Hundreds of years later, after a temple—a “house”—for God has been built, Jeremiah will stand in its gate and proclaim to the people, “Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’” (Jer 7:4). The implication is that the people of Israel who are in a pleasant moment, who are doing well (but at the expense of others, like the widow and the foreigner and the poor), have come to see the Temple as God’s guarantee of their way of life. They see the Temple as a sign of God’s blessing, a sign that God is on their side.

Part of me wonders if David’s desire for a temple, and the people’s later attachment to it, does not reflect the roots of addiction, or what in biblical language we might call idolatry. Could the temple maybe sometimes function as a shrine? That is, could it be the enshrinement of a pleasant experience that will in fact become a problem. As we will see next week, David’s downfall involves him reclining in his palace while his army are out at war. It seems that David is indeed trying to preserve the pleasant moment that he finds himself at in today’s passage. He is trying to maintain this way of life to which he would like to become accustomed. And it will become a big problem for him.

House as Building and House as Dynasty

Today’s scripture is a little bit like a house of mirrors. The word “house” appears many times and takes on multiple meanings, so that at each turn—each time it is mentioned—we might wonder which house we’re looking at, what kind of “house” we’re talking about. The first meaning is clear enough. David wants to build a literal “house,” a building, for God, and God says no. God does not need a house.

But then God turns around and promises to David, “The Lord will make you a house” (2 Sam 7:11). Clearly God does not mean a building, for David has already built himself a house, a royal  palace. Instead, it seems that “house” here means dynasty. God explains, “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam 7:12-13). On the surface, it would appear that God refers here to Solomon, David’s son, and that Solomon will build a “house”—that is, a temple—for God. The only problem with this interpretation is that the end of God’s prophecy does not come true. God does not establish the throne of Solomon’s kingdom forever, not in a literal sense. When the Babylonians conquer Judah and destroy the Temple, they effectively terminate the Davidic dynasty. There will never again be a king sitting on the throne of an independent Israel.

House as Family

The rabbis recognized this problem early on and interpreted that God’s promise here must refer not only to Solomon, but more importantly to a distant messiah who would establish (or rather, re-establish) the kingdom of Israel. This interpretation almost suits our own faith in Jesus as the messiah. I say “almost” because Jesus does not re-establish the kingdom of Israel in its original sense.

But there is a third meaning for the Hebrew and Greek words for “house.” Not building, not dynasty…but family. Could it be that God’s promise to “make…a house” for David has to do with a new family? In today’s New Testament scripture, Paul tells the gentiles in Ephesus: “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19). The gist of Paul’s message is that Jesus, at the cost of his life, has welcomed everyone into God’s family. In Paul’s metaphor, this “household” is not characterized by a building—indeed, he envisions Jesus in the work of demolition not construction, of “[breaking] down the dividing wall[s]” (Eph 2:14). In doing so, Jesus creates a “new humanity.” Where before there were many walls, and many different kinds of people—Jews, gentiles, men, women, free, slave (Eph 2:15)—now there is one family of God.

A “New Humanity”

I was fascinated to learn this past week that in the second century, Christians were occasionally referred to as a “new race” or a “third race.” In other words, followers of Christ were so different from everyone around them, both Romans and Jews, that they really were (as Paul puts it) “a new humanity.”  To put this another way: Jesus did not come to make you (singular) into a new person. He came to make us (plural) into a new people, a new “house,” a new family. That people were calling Christians “a new race” suggests that they recognized the risen Christ not in a single person, but in a group of people. They noticed a “new humanity.” This new humanity had a peculiar way of eating together, where there were no seats of privilege, where they called one another “brother” and “sister” and considered one another equally important parts of the same body. This new humanity had a peculiar way of living together, as they shared their money and resources in common. This new humanity had a peculiar and unsettling way of resolving conflict, in which instead of “settling” things through payment or retribution they forgave one another.

Historian Alan Kreider has suggested that one additional way the early followers of Christ really distinguished themselves in Greco-Roman culture was through their freedom from the common compulsions of their society—namely compulsions toward money, sex, and power. In other words, they were liberated from that common tendency to idolize a pleasant thing, to enshrine it and try to preserve it. As a result, they were free to care for each other as part of the same family.

At this point, we are a long way from today’s scripture. King David wanted to build a temple…perhaps to preserve what were for him very pleasant circumstances. But in Christ, the walls of our shrines, the walls of our temples, our idols meant for keeping things the way they are—they all come crashing down. God does not want the kind of house that David wants. God wants not a palace but a people. Not walls but a reconciled family.

In Christ, we see just what God wants. A new humanity, not preoccupied with preserving a pleasant moment, not compelled to construct walls to keep people in their place and things the way they are—but instead a new humanity free to care for each other.

Prayer

Merciful God,
Whose love is like the sun and the rain,
Falling on us all,
Inviting us all into our true family—
May Christ lead us from closed buildings and dividing walls
To open circles and get-together tables;
May Christ liberate us from idols and attachments
To love and care for others
…
So that you might dwell more fully in us,
And we and others might share
The salvation of a new humanity,
In Christ, who is our peace: Amen.

"I Am Distressed" (2 Sam 1:1, 17-27)

“To Teach Hard Things”

David is on the cusp of coronation. But he is not celebrating. He is grieving.

The man who had made multiple attempts on his life, King Saul, has died. But David is not celebrating. He is grieving.

Previously David had been living among the Philistines, to avoid the murderous wrath of King Saul. Finally he can return home. But upon his return, we do not find him celebrating. We find him grieving.

There are many reasons for David be happy. He’s finally home. His adversary is gone. He is about to be made king. Why does he grieve?

In fact, the more cynical reader might wonder whether he grieves at all. Could this just be an act, a bit of public posturing? After all, if David wants to win the hearts of those who were previously loyal to King Saul, the last thing he wants to be seen doing is dancing on Saul’s grave. By showing the proper honor for a fallen king, David establishes his credentials as next-in-line.

I’m not so cynical myself to think that’s David’s grief is an act, although I do suspect he is well aware of its political benefits. What convinces me of David’s grief is that it concerns not only Saul, but also his son Jonathan. David and Jonathan had a special friendship, the kind that gets forged when both backs are against the wall and all you have is each other. David had put his life in Jonathan’s hands on more than one occasion, and Jonathan had risked his own life for David. I believe David when he cries, if for no other reason than that he cries for Jonathan.

When David begins to grieve, he makes a curious instruction that others learn from his grief. Our translation says that “he ordered that the Song of the Bow”—presumably his song of grief—“be taught to the people of Judah” (2 Sam 1:18). But the text is more ambiguous here than we can see, and Hebrew scholars have suggested a more likely reading is that David says “to teach hard things” to the people of Judah.[1]

David wants “to teach hard things” to the people of Judah. I think what David wants is that the world stop and acknowledge what it has lost. Many of us who have grieved know this feeling. We feel completely wrecked, and yet all around us the world moves on, indifferent to our loss. David gives poignant expression to this feeling when he tells the mountains of Gilboa, where Saul and Jonathan died, “Let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor bounteous fields!” Such freshness and vitality would make a mockery of the life that was lost there.

“Take the Pain”

I have a good friend who is a pastoral counselor. On occasion, she has shared with me how her clients’ religious understanding of life can get in the way of healing. With regard to death and grief, many Christians experience a tension between what they think they should feel and what they actually feel. On the one hand, “all is well,” right? Their loved one is now in the care of God, and they have the hope of the resurrection, when we will all be joined together again. On the other hand, there is a searing loss, an absence that cannot be replaced. What happens, sometimes, is that a Christian represses or denies the “hard things,” the feelings of loss. They think that “all is well” is the only faithful response, and anything else betrays a lack of trust in God.

But scripture shows us otherwise. Our passage today is remarkable for the fact that it does not try to wrap things up with a bow of faith, to sanitize the messy feelings with some future assurance. Instead David concludes the song as he started it, with the lament, “How the mighty have fallen…” (2 Sam 1:19, 25, 27). We find a similar honesty in many psalms (some of which are attributed to David). In today’s lectionary psalm, the psalmist begins, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” (Ps 130:1), which suggests that the path to God is not through some unassailable faith that never doubts or grieves. Rather the path to God is through “the depths” of our heart, through the “hard things,” where we “cry,” where we “wait,” where we “hope” (cf. Ps 130). As my friend would point out, the real danger is that we quiet the cry of our heart, that we suppress our grief, for in doing so we are deprived of a more authentic, fulfilling connection with God.

When Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted,” he indicates that grief is sacred. Blessed are those who have something to mourn about; their tears tell them what really matters. They know God, not through ideas, but through the heart.[2]

Not long ago, I read the memoir of Jonathan Foster, a father who lost his daughter, age 20, to a car accident on an icy road. At one point, he shares a bit of a movie that stuck with him and reminded him that his grief was sacred. He writes:

remember watching the movie
wind river

the show plays out
against the backdrop of
wyoming
wilderness
fatherhood

the main character
familiar with loss
finds his friend martin
who just lost a daughter, says

i’d like to tell you it gets easier
but it doesn’t
if there’s any comfort
it’s getting used to the pain
i suppose

i went to a grief seminar in casper
did you know that?
i don’t know why
i just wanted the bad to go away
i wanted answers to questions that couldn’t be answered

main character looks up
at the mountains, continues
the counselor comes up to me after the seminar
and sat down next to me
and he said something that stuck with me
idk if it’s what he said
or it’s how he said it
he says
i got some good news and i got some bad news
bad news is you’re never going to be the same
you’re never going to be whole
not ever again
you lost your daughter
and nothing’s ever going to replace that

now the good news is
as soon as you accept that
and let yourself suffer
you’ll allow yourself to visit her in your mind
and you’ll remember all the love she gave
all the joy she knew

main character looks
straight at his friend, says
point is, martin
you can’t steer from the pain
if you do
you’ll rob yourself
you’ll rob yourself of every memory of her
every last one
from her first step to her last smile
it’ll kill them all

just take the pain, martin
you hear me?
you take it
it’s the only way you’ll keep her with you[3]

Good Grief

Paul and the early Christians distinguished between two kinds of grief: a good grief and a bad grief, a grief oriented toward God and life, and a grief oriented toward bitterness and death. I think David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan is the good kind, even as it unflinchingly embraces the “hard things,” the pain of loss. The key is love. In Song of Songs, Solomon sings that love is stronger than death (cf. Song 8:6). We see this in today’s passage, where the word “love” or a derivative is repeated five times. “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely” (2 Sam 1:23). “Greatly beloved were you [Jonathan] to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (2 Sam 1:26).

David’s song of grief is equally a song of love, and that is the key, because love is stronger than death.

Poet Christian Wiman, who is also a Christ-follower, puts it like this: “Within the love that once opened up the world to you—from the birth of a child to meeting your mate—is a key that can let you back into the world when that love is gone.”[4] Our love, which causes us to grieve, is the very same thing that opens us up to life again. Our lectionary psalm today puts it like this, “With the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem” (Ps 130:7). All of this is to say what Paul said, namely, “Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:8). Love abides with our grief and in time transforms it, redeems it, and makes us well.

Being Made Well

Speaking of being “made well”…. Our gospel scripture today features one healing story sandwiched between another, the hemorrhaging woman and Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:21-43). What made an impression on me in reading them this week is the desperation of the characters. There is Jairus falling at Jesus’ feet and begging him (Mark 5:22-23); there is the hemorrhaging woman who has endured her condition for twelve years and lost everything she has to doctors who have not helped her, braving a large crowd (who would have likely considered her unclean) just to touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak (Mark 5:26-28). Now, their situations are a little different than David’s. They are not wrestling with feelings of grief; rather they are both facing an increasingly hopeless situation. But both trust (and say to themselves) that by expressing themselves honestly to Jesus they will “be made well” (Mark 5:23, 28).

The miraculous turnaround in their circumstances stand for us today as a reminder that, when we endure hard things, if we express our feelings honestly to God and remain open to God’s love, our hard things are destined for redemption. We will be made well. As the main character in Wind River says, this honesty may sometimes mean “taking the pain.” In a world that has increasingly demonized pain, taking the pain may sound like a bad idea. But as we see in today’s scripture, it can in fact be what orients us toward what matters most: God’s love, which redeems, from which springs new life.

Poet Ross Gay once described the luminous character of his father’s grieving face. His wet freckles, he observed—his wet freckles gleamed. “Like seeds on the surface of the soil.” Like seeds on the surface of the soil.[5]

Prayer

Compassionate God,
Who hears the cries of our heart,
Our world is filled with distractions
And numbing agents,
That keep us from our own hearts
And from you
…
Teach to us the “hard things” of life,
That in the depths of our heart
Your love might be planted.
In Christ, who makes us well: Amen.

---

[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: The Prophets (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018), 309.

[2] Cf. Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount (Cincinnati: Franciscan Media, 1996), 139-140.

[3] Jonathan J. Foster, indigo: the color of grief (Verde, 2023), 70-72.

[4] Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013), 121.

[5] Ross Gay, Inciting Joy: Essays (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2022), 228–229.

"The Lord Who Saved Me, Will Save Me" (1 Sam 17:32-49)

Is He Crazy?

To the outside observer, it is a clear mismatch. It is, in King Saul’s words, “just a boy” against “a warrior” (1 Sam 17:33). Is David crazy?

Some people have asked the same question about Alex Honnold. In 2017, Alex made history by climbing El Capitan, the iconic vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, without any ropes or protective equipment. Brain scans made the year before have led some people to the conclusion that Alex really is crazy, that he is a sort of freak of nature. When he was presented with images that elicit fear in most people, his brain’s amygdala—the part that registers fear—showed abnormally low activity.[1] On the surface, these scans seem to explain Alex’s daredevil climbing. He’s just got a unique brain. He doesn’t feel fear.

But Alex himself has pushed back against this interpretation. “I find [it] slightly irritating,” he says, “because I’ve spent 25 years conditioning myself to work in extreme conditions, so of course my brain is different—just as the brain of a monk who has spent years meditating or a taxi driver who has memorized all the streets of a city would be different.”[2]

In other words, Alex’s abnormal brain may be the result of an abnormal amount of practice. Alex began climbing at age 11, when a rock-climbing gym opened up in his town. He would go for hours at a time, and when he couldn’t catch a ride there, he would ride his bike. That he did not want to be at home is no surprise. He reports that his parents had a very unhappy marriage. Rock-climbing was a refuge for him. It was where he smiled.[3] I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that rock-climbing was Alex’s salvation.

Protecting the Flock

When King Saul protests that David is “just a boy,” not fit to fight a warrior (1 Sam 17:33), David explains his confidence. The giant Goliath is not the mismatch that Saul thinks he is, for as a shepherd David has repelled the attacks of lions and bears. In other words, this is not so different from what he has done before. This is his thing. He has practice. If we could take a scan of David’s brain, perhaps we would discover abnormally low activity in his amygdala too.

David bears an extraordinary confidence. But rather than glorify it as a superhuman or godlike quality, as something that separates King David from us mere mortals, perhaps we should take David at his word. Perhaps his confidence has less to do with a heroic fearlessness and more to do with a faith that has been cultivated by doing his thing. Perhaps his confidence is not an arrogant self-belief but rather a trust that God is with him when he is doing his thing—that is, protecting the sheep. Saul pictures the imminent contest as between “a boy” and “a warrior,” but David suggestively reimagines it as another opportunity for him to protect the flock. Indeed, in the ancient Near East, kings were commonly compared to shepherds. Their duty to the people was the shepherd’s duty to the sheep, namely protection. So when David compares fighting lions and bears to fighting Goliath, he is implicitly comparing the people of Israel to his flock. He is saying, “This matter is no different than before. I will do my thing as I have always done, and God will be with me as God has always been.”

The rest of the world may see a mismatch: an inexperienced boy up against a giant warrior, or a crazy climber up against a giant cliff. But the eyes of faith see it differently. It is simply a matter of doing your “thing,” where you found salvation before…and where you’ll find it again. There is no mismatch when you are true to yourself, because your true self is where God is at work. (Here, by the way, we see the difference between arrogance and confidence. Arrogance is trusting in what we might call our false self, that is, our constructed self, the strong or intelligent or beautiful self that can do things on its own. Arrogance says, “Look what I can do!” But confidence is trusting in God, trusting that we are safe when we are doing the thing God has given us to do. It says, to paraphrase David in verse 46, “Look what God can do!”)

“To Be a Saint Means to Be Myself”

Alex Honnold has been something of a lightning rod since his rise to fame. His critics question his choices to embark on death-defying climbs. Why risk your life? I don’t wish to wade into this debate. It may be true that, on some level, Alex’s climbing exploits are motivated by a need for attention and validation, as much of our behavior is. Even so, what strikes me about Alex is his steadfast resistance to the suggestion that he be someone other than himself, that he do things the way other people do things.

In the same way, when Saul clothes David in armor and equips him with a sword—all of which makes good sense when going to battle—David removes it all and reconfigures himself once more as a shepherd (1 Sam 17:38-40). David does not try to be someone else.

I am reminded here of what the Trappist monk Thomas Merton once wrote: “To be a saint means to be myself.”[4] When David takes to the battlefield, he walks out there confidently not as a warrior but as a shepherd—as the child who found salvation protecting sheep. When Alex walks to the foot of a mountain, he goes there confidently not as the professionally branded climber he is pressured to be but as the child who found salvation on the side of a cliff. Our salvation is not some thing that we are missing and need to find or develop. Our salvation has been with us all along. It is in the heart. It is felt in the things that bring us to life, that awaken us to God within.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Christian sprinter Eric Liddell puts it like this: “When I run, I feel [God’s] pleasure.” The real Eric Liddell, who wrote a spiritual classic titled The Disciplines of the Christian Life, fleshes out this experience of God’s salvation being found in the things that speak to our heart: “If in the quiet of your heart you feel something should be done, stop and consider whether it is in line with the character and teaching of Jesus. If so, obey that impulse to do it, and in doing so you will find it was God guiding you.”[5]

David at the Battlefield…as a Shepherd

The story of David and Goliath is frequently told as an underdog’s tale in which an unlikely hero triumphs against the odds. While this is certainly a valid interpretation of events—it is, after all, how King Saul sees the contest, as “just a boy” fighting against “a warrior”—this way of seeing things obscures David’s own experience, which may be the most instructive element for us as people of faith. David goes to the battlefield with confidence. Not because of his weapons and armor. Not because of some secret knowledge. He goes to the battlefield with confidence because he goes there as himself, a shepherd who has known God’s salvation time and again.

I wonder if this is not good news for us. We can walk forward confidently to meet the day and its challenges and opportunities, not because of what we have or what we are able to do, but because we can walk forward as ourselves, as people who have felt God’s pleasure and known God’s salvation time and again in the unique histories of our lives. I don’t know that any of us are shepherds or climbers. But all of us, whatever we are, have known God’s salvation. And so there are no mismatches. We can face the giants ahead of us—giants like Paul regularly describes, sadness or sickness, dishonor or lack—with confidence, as ourselves…saying as David said, “The Lord who saved me…will save me [again]” (1 Sam 17:37).

Prayer

Holy God,
Whose pleasure we feel,
Whose salvation we know—
In a world that tells us we are missing something,
May we be grounded in the good news
That we are your wondrous creation
And your salvation is with us
…
May we face our giants confidently,
As our true selves,
Trusting in your salvation.
In Christ, whose way we follow: Amen.

 

---

[1] J. B. MacKinnon, “The Strange Brain of the World’s Greatest Solo Climber,” https://nautil.us/the-strange-brain-of-the-worlds-greatest-solo-climber-236051/, accessed June 17, 2024.

[2] Eben Harrell, “Life’s Work: An Interview with Alex Honnold,” https://hbr.org/2021/05/lifes-work-an-interview-with-alex-honnold, accessed June 17, 2024.

[3] Mary Claire Murdock, “A 3,000 Foot Drop: The Story of Alex Honnold’s Life of Passion,” https://medium.com/the-road-to-character/a-3-000-foot-drop-8ce6a1909083, accessed June 17, 2024.

[4] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 2003), 33.

[5] Eric Liddell, The Disciplines of the Christian Life (London: Triangle, 1985), 27.

"The Lord Was Sorry" (1 Sam 15:34-16:13)

Faithfulness, Not a Fix 

My father taught me how to drive a car. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that my father sat by my side faithfully, through mistakes, through near-disaster, as I learned by experience how to drive a car.

I remember first practicing in an empty parking lot at Godwin. No problems there. I cruised around the perimeter. I practiced parking. I felt rather accomplished for a beginner. I could do this. Then my dad and I swapped seats, and he drove down Patterson to the entrance of West Creek. It was a Saturday morning, and there was hardly any traffic on the road. The speed limit was 35, I think. My dad pulled over, and we switched seats.

Suddenly that feeling of accomplishment faded. There on the open road, everything changed. Thirty-five felt like 80. Each car that passed me felt like a wreck waiting to happen. As my knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, I looked for the nearest place to pull over. I tried to give the wheel back to my dad. He said he’d be happy to take it, if that’s what I really wanted. But he also said, “Jonathan, I can’t do this for you. If I take the wheel from you now, you’ll never learn. Driving is difficult at first, and you’ll probably make some more mistakes. But that’s how you learn. And I’ll be here beside you the whole time.”

This is perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve learned from my dad. Not how to drive a car. Not that we learn from experience. Rather, how to sit with someone. What I have learned is that most of the time there is nothing I can do to fix someone else’s difficulty or mistake. But I can almost always be a faithful companion. And perhaps that is what is needed most anyway. Faithfulness, not a fix. (Most quick fixes are illusions, after all. Real change and growth take time and hard work.)

Recently I heard the story of a young baseball player who through injury had become addicted to opioids. His parents saw his life spiraling out of control, and there was nothing they could do to fix it. They could not force him to stop taking his drug. But they were relentless in expressing their care and concern, and when he finally hit bottom…he was not alone. They were there to pick him up and walk with him on the way of recovery.[1]

Saul’s Transformation

Last week when Israel asked for a king, God made it clear what they were really doing: rejecting God as king (1 Sam 8:7). But as they had already made up their mind and would not take no for an answer (1 Sam 8:19-20), God directs Samuel to anoint Saul as the new king. We cannot know for certain why God chooses Saul, but he has several qualities that may have recommended him. To begin, he is described as the most handsome man in Israel and also the tallest (1 Sam 9:2). We can imagine, then, that his appearance would have commanded both admiration and respect. But his soul also seems well suited for leadership. It is often said that the best leaders are the ones who don’t want to lead in the first place. This characterization fits Saul perfectly. When we first meet him, he is a modest, sensitive soul, worried about being away from his father for too long and apprehensive when the famous prophet Samuel begins to show him special attention (1 Sam 9:5, 21). Perhaps most telling of all, there are actually three separate coronation ceremonies for Saul (1 Sam 9:27-10:1; 10:20-24; 11:14-15), as if to suggest that the first two don’t quite take. Indeed, in one of those ceremonies, he must be literally dragged out from hiding to receive the honor of his kingship (1 Sam 10:20-24).

Why, then, does God reject Saul as king at the start of today’s scripture (1 Sam 16:1)? In short, he has changed dramatically, and for the worse. The formerly sheepish, guileless boy has grown into a paranoid, power-obsessed king, willing to do anything to preserve his position, even disobey God (1 Sam 15:17-23), even exploit his daughter’s love to entrap and kill his own rival, who is her beloved (1 Sam 18:20-30). Saul’ s radical transformation hints at the corrosive effects of power. Even the most innocent soul is not immune.[2] Samuel’s original warning that a king would take and take and take—in other words, would live more for himself than for God and others—has come true at the first time of asking, and with a person who initially seemed so uninterested with the power given to him.

Israel Is Not Left to Their Own Devices

Very rarely does the Old Testament give us a glimpse into God’s inner life, telling us how God actually feels about something. So when we do learn how God feels about something, we know it’s important. When we learn at the start of today’s scripture that “the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Sam 15:35), we might be led to wonder, “Did God not know what would happen?” Rather than dive down the rabbit-hole of whether God is omniscient, I’d say let’s just follow the text. The suggestion is simply that God had high hopes for Saul and was disappointed. What is remarkable to me is that God would have high hopes for anybody considering God’s initial opposition to Israel having a king at all. In Samuel’s initial warning to Israel, he suggests that God is going to leave Israel to their own devices, that when they cry out, God will not answer (1 Sam 8:18). Yet God’s sorrow for having made Saul king suggests that, far from having left Israel to their own devices, God has actually stayed close beside Israel and hoped that the situation, if not ideal, if indeed a grave mistake, would still lead to something good, some change and growth.

Furthermore, how God responds to God’s sorrow seems to confirm God’s faithfulness—that God is in this together with Israel. Today’s passage is a familiar one, and I don’t intend to belabor its most obvious point, of which I’m sure you’re well aware, namely that God looks not as humans do on the outward appearance but on the heart (1 Sam 16:7). The conventional interpretation of today’s passage is that God is fixing things, replacing a bad king with a good king (never mind why God chose the bad king in the first place…). What I would like to suggest, however, is that today’s passage is not a fix but rather a show of God’s faithfulness. It’s not God correcting a mistake. It’s God still caring for the people who have rejected God as king. It’s God choosing to work within the limits of Israel’s own choices and mistakes, rather than abandoning them completely to the consequences. Come to think of it, it’s a little bit like a father (or mother) who cannot fix their child’s difficulty or mistake but who can nevertheless choose to sit beside them. To be faithful in their presence and care.

The very same faithfulness that we see from God in today’s scripture, will continue and eventually take on flesh in Jesus. A son of David. Jesus is not a fix. Jesus is God’s faithfulness, God with us, God by our side, teaching us, showing us, bearing with us, as we change and grow ever more into his likeness, which is in fact our original likeness to God our creator.

“The Love of Christ Urges Us On”

I would like to think of God’s faithfulness to Israel as a slow but steady process. Israel’s kings, even David, are not always faithful. But God is. I like the way Zechariah, the father of John the Baptizer, puts it in Luke, as he reflects on God’s faithfulness through the years. He says it is like a sunrise, a dawning. In the darkness, the sky begins to blush and brighten, and eventually the sun peeks over the horizon and “the dawn from on high [finally breaks] upon us” in a brilliant light, which is the light of Christ (Luke 1:78).

It is a dawning that happens in our own lives. It is as the desert father Poemen said: God is tender and yielding, like water. And we are like stone. At a glance, the water seems powerless against the stone. And yet, over time, it is water that powerfully molds and reshapes stone.[3] It is not a quick fix. It is a slow but sure faithfulness, always with us, inviting our change and growth.

In today’s New Testament scripture, Paul explains our transformation in terms of love. Love is the water on the stone. “The love of Christ urges us on,” he writes (2 Cor 5:14), and this love changes everything. “In Christ, new creation!” is how he literally puts it (2 Cor 5:17). It is not so much that Christ has taken the wheel from us, as that Christ has sat by our side and loved us, through our wrecks and wrong turns, and we finally begin to choose for ourselves his love, this way of living not for ourselves but for God and others. It is indeed like a whole new world, a “new creation.”

In this sense, we can see the faint outlines of Christ in 1 Samuel, as God remains faithful to Israel even through their rejection of God and their ill-fated foray into the tournament of nations. God’s faithfulness is oriented—then as now—around the hope that we will learn and change and grow, that we will become more like our Father in heaven, more our true selves. If I had to put the gospel of God’s faithfulness in a nutshell, I would say it like this. God stays with us, so that we might stay with others. Because the quick fix is an illusion. Real change and growth take time and work—and most importantly, a love that stays by our side, working on us like water on stone.

Prayer

Abba,

Faithful father,
Who does not abandon us to our own choices and mistakes,
May your patient love rub off on us,
Scrubbing off from us
The detritus of judgment and resentment, fear and shame,
To reveal your image
…
So that we might likewise be faithful with others
And share with them the joy of your new creation.
In Christ, whose love urges us on: Amen.

 

---

[1] Eric Huffman, “Are We All Getting High (Part Two),” https://www.maybegodpod.com/are-we-all-getting-high-part-two, accessed June 9, 2024.

[2] This interpretation of Saul was greatly aided by the interpretation of Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes provided in their book: The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Book of Samuel (Princeton: Princeton, 2017), 20-23.

[3] The Desert Christian: Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (trans. Benedicta Ward; New York: MacMillan, 1975), 192. 

Back in Egypt? (1 Sam 8:4-20)

The Contented Fisherman

The rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find the Southern fisherman lying lazily beside his boat, smoking a pipe.

“Why aren’t you out fishing?” said the industrialist.

“Because I have caught enough fish for the day,” said the fisherman.

“Why don’t you catch some more?” asked the industrialist.

“What would I do with [them]?” responded the fisherman.

“You could earn more money,” was the reply. “With that you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish.

“Then you would make enough to buy nylon nets. These would bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have enough money to own two boats…maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be a rich man like me.”

“What would I do then?” the fisherman asked.

“Then you could really enjoy life,” the industrialist said.

“What do you think I am doing right now?”[1]

Progress

This insightful parable by Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello illustrates that, on the one hand, our culture predominantly assumes the superiority of bigger, faster, and more. Progress is good. But the parable also suggests that, on the other hand, our world’s preference for bigger, faster, and more, misses something. It pays attention only to what can be seen. It looks upon the most obvious material reality—in this case, boats, equipment, and most importantly riches. What the gospel of progress does not consider are the things that cannot be seen. Things like God and the heart and true contentment.

Is it a coincidence that, according to the World Happiness Report, in the last 15 years the wealthiest countries in the world have reported the highest rates of anxiety and depression? The people who have “progressed” the furthest, it would seem, are also the unhappiest.[2]

An Ancient Distrust

If you were to visit Egypt today as a tourist, you would likely go to see the pyramids. They would be presented as one of the ancient world’s seven wonders, an enduring emblem of progress. You would be invited to marvel at the sight of what humanity had achieved thousands of years ago.

Yet how differently do the biblical writers look upon the very same phenomenon. For them, the magnificent constructions of Egypt are stained with blood and haunted by the memory of slavery. In fact, in the Bible we discover an ancient distrust of not only progress but also the very structure often credited with progress, namely a “kingdom”—or what we might call a human government or state. The first reference in the Bible to a kingdom is to Babel, which has a decidedly negative connotation to its name. Babel is where humanity first organized itself in rebellion to God. There they intentionally flouted God’s command to spread out and “fill the earth” (Gen 1:28), choosing instead to gather in one place and build a tower that would put them level with God (cf. Gen 11). But Babel does not only symbolize humanity’s organized rebellion against God. It also hints at the very roots of oppression and slavery. Its language of “brick” and “mortar” will next appear in the book of Exodus, where the Egyptian taskmasters ruthlessly impose hard labor on the Israelites and make their lives “bitter” (Ex 1:14). The progress of empire, it would seem, is linked to control and domination. The negative connotation of  Babel extends beyond the forced construction projects and slavery of Egypt to the conquering force of Babylon, the kingdom with which Babel shares the exact same name (in Hebrew, Babylon is simply “Babel”). Babylon, as you may recall, is the kingdom that will destroy the temple in Jerusalem and forcibly relocate many Israelites in what is known as the exile.

All of this to say: the biblical writers look with great suspicion upon empire and its so-called progress. “Progress,” they might be heard saying, “but at what cost?” Indeed, our Disciples ancestor David Lipscomb interprets the name of Babel—which happens to form a Hebrew play-on-words connoting “confusion” and strife—as emblematic for all human government. He writes, “The effort by [humanity] to live without God, and to govern the world, resulted in confusion and strife from the beginning. It brings strife, war and desolation still.”[3]

“You Shall Be His Slaves”

Today’s scripture represents the closest thing we have to a founding document for the nation of Israel. In this regard, we could compare it to the Constitution. Now, the founders of the United States were themselves distrustful of a government too centralized, of power accumulated in the hands of a few. They sought balance by dividing the power and providing means for each branch of government to check and moderate the other branches’ power. I’m not really qualified to offer any further political analysis. What I would like to point out is simply this. Our scripture today, as a sort of founding document, is historically unprecedented and unmatched in its suspicion toward human government. The triumphalism and optimism that normally accompanies such a founding document is completely absent. Instead there is a sense of tragedy. The people have rejected God as king (1 Sam 8:7). Even after hearing Samuel’s grave warning of the consequences of their choice, they double-down on their decision and insist, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we may also be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles” (1 Sam 8:19-20).

The particulars of Samuel’s warning only amplify the sense of tragedy in this nation’s founding document. While the people apparently envision national greatness, progress, and security, with a king to govern their resources and lead them in battle, Samuel describes their reality in terms of its unforeseen costs. His warning is a litany of loss. He describes the various measures of government appropriation: the draft, taxes, confiscation of property, imposition of labor. All the while, he repeats a single, haunting refrain: “He will take…he will take…he will take…” (1 Sam 8:11-17). The culmination of Samuel’s warning, the final nail in the coffin, is devastating: “And you shall be his slaves” (1 Sam 8:17). Which is really to say, “You will be back in Egypt. You may think this is progress, with a king to make the nation bigger, faster, more secure. But in fact, you are going backwards.”

When God Is King: 
Slower, Smaller, Less

I suppose we could read today’s scripture and conclude that human government and the progress associated with its institutional impulses is evil. It seems David Lipscomb may have drawn this conclusion, as he goes so far as to claim, “No human government can possibly be maintained and conducted on [the] principles laid down for the government of Christ’s subjects in his kingdom [in Matt 5-7]….A [person],” he continues, “cannot be gentle, forgiving, doing good for evil, turning the other cheek…, praying ‘for them that despitefully use and persecute’ [them], and at the same time [make demands on others and] execute wrath and vengeance on the evil-doer, as the human government is ordained to do, and as it must do to sustain its authority and maintain its existence.”[4] David Lipscomb goes rather far in his conclusions.[5] While I am intrigued by his thinking, I do not intend to go so far myself.

Today’s scripture, however, does give me pause. The biblical writers’ distrust of empire and its so-called progress does give me pause. (As it should, I think. I recently read and was quite moved by the Message’s translation of Romans 12:1-2: “…Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out….”) As I fix my attention on God, then, here’s what I find myself pondering. If in today’s scripture Israel rejects God as king, then what does it look like when God is king?

 As it happens, Jesus talked a lot about what it looks like when God is king. He called it “the kingdom of God.” He said that it was small like a seed or like yeast (Mk 4:31; Matt 13:33). That is appearance would not be big or spectacular, so that people say, “Look, here it is!” (Luke 17:20-21). He said that the kingdom of God was not about numbers or quantity. That it was like giving up all one’s possessions for just a single pearl (Matt 13:45-46). That it was more concerned about the one sheep missing than the other ninety-nine. He said that the kingdom of God cannot be rushed, that it’s not a matter of calculation or control, that it happens on its own time like a good crop that sprouts and grows, the farmer knows not how (Mk 4:26-29)—and that its catalyst is not willful hands but willing hearts, that is, fertile soil that receives (Mk 4:20).

The images and metaphors that Jesus uses to describe what it looks like when God is king are many and diverse, fertile for our prayer and imagination. What strikes me, in the context of today’s scripture, is their consistency in suggesting that God favors not the way of progress, of “bigger, faster, more,” but its opposite—smaller, slower, less. When God is king, we will marvel not at pyramids but at little seeds. When God is king, we will not hurry to meet deadlines and quotas, but faithfully tend to those seeds and wait to see what grows. When God is king, every individual will be priceless, like a single pearl for which a person sells all his possessions. When God is king, there will be no need for Pharaohs or taskmasters, for militarization and industrialization and commercialization, for bigger, faster, more—because like the fisherman resting contentedly beside his boat, we will rest contentedly in God’s love, wanting no more.

Prayer

Faithful God,
Whose grace is sufficient,
Whose power is made perfect in weakness,
Give pause to our calculating minds,
Our hearts seeking more,
So that we might recognize where there is slavery in our pursuits
…
Grant us the freedom, the peace, the ease
Of trusting in the way of Christ
And living even now in your kingdom.
In Christ, gentle and humble: Amen.

---

[1] Lightly adapted from Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird (New York: Image, 1984), 132-133.

[2] Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in an Age of Indulgence (New York: Dutton, 2021), 44-45.

[3] David Lipscomb, Civil Government: Its Origin, Mission, and Destiny, and the Christan’s Relation to It (Nashville; McQuiddy, 1913), 99.

[4] Lipscomb, Civil Government, 58-59.

[5] And he’s not alone. See Christian Messenger 13 (1843): 126, where Barton Stone expresses the following: “Men by the light of truth are beginning to see that Christians have no right to make laws and governments for themselves…We must cease to support any …government on earth by our counsels, co-operation, and choice.”

"The Word of the Lord Was Rare" (1 Sam 3:1-20)

A Rare Roll Cloud 

For a long time, I have wanted to see a roll cloud. If you do not know what a roll cloud is, I am not surprised. It is a rare cloud formation, a horizontal funnel cloud. Unlike its upright cousin, the tornado, the roll cloud rotates peacefully across the horizon.

It hurts me to say this, but several years ago a rare roll cloud rolled right over my head, and I did not know it. On the morning of February 5, 2018, a roll cloud graced the skies of Richmond, Virginia. I only found about it weeks later as pictures circulated on social media.[1]

Why did I miss the roll cloud that morning? I cannot remember with any certainty what I was doing that day. What I am more certain about is how I was feeling and in what kind of spirit I was probably living. As it was a Monday, the start of a new week, I was probably feeling hurried. Rushed. For me, historically, Mondays are about productivity. Progress. At the end of the day, I want to feel like a foundation has been laid for the rest of the week. I want to have gotten ahead if possible. Monday has traditionally been my sermon-writing day, and by the end of the day, I like to have a rough draft completed.

What haunts me about February 5, 2018, is not just that there was a roll cloud right over my head and I didn’t know it; it’s not just that I may have missed the one opportunity in my life to see something I desperately want to see. What haunts me is the idea that I may be the least receptive to the presence of God and God’s gifts at the very moment that I am writing about these things. (Isn’t that ironic?) To be clear, my fear is not that my sermon-writing is untrue or inauthentic. My fear, rather, is about the spirit in which I work, a spirit of productivity that might harden my heart and hinder my ability to be present and attentive to God. (I often wonder if “productivity” is not antithetical to presence.) I am more concerned about producing something according to my plans than I am about paying attention. And so God might just roll right over my head.

Rarely Speaking or Rarely Listening?

Today’s scripture opens with the declaration, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days” (1 Sam 3:1), before it goes on to tell how God’s word is twice ignored in the temple, the very place where we might expect people would be listening for God. It reminds me of a similar irony in the story of Balaam, a famous prophet and seer, who nevertheless cannot see the angel of God standing right in front of him. Three times his donkey stops in its tracks, unwilling to challenge the angel standing in the way, and three times Balaam strikes his donkey in anger. Only after the third time, when Balaam’s donkey comically speaks up, does Balaam finally see God’s angel (Num 22). Today’s scripture follows the same, third-time’s-charm pattern. Twice, God’s priest, Eli, assumes that the boy Samuel is just hearing things. Only after the third time does Eli wise up to the possibility that God may in fact be talking.

All of which leads me to wonder: why was “the word of the Lord…rare in those days” (1 Sam 3:1)? Is it rare because God is rarely speaking? Or because God’s people are rarely listening? Just as Balaam’s donkey makes a fool out of Balaam for his ignorance, I’m inclined to think our scripture today pokes fun at Eli’s ignorance. A priest of God who twice does not consider the possibility that God may in fact be speaking in God’s temple (of all places!). It is understandable that little Samuel would not know any better. The storyteller tells us that “he did not yet know the Lord” (1 Sam 3:7). But Eli is very old (1 Sam 2:22). He’s been a priest for a long time. Why would he, after all his years of experience, not at least consider the possibility that God is speaking in the place designated for God’s presence. It’s almost as if he does not expect God’s word. As if he’s not listening.

“No Regard”

And it’s not just Eli here in the temple who is not expectant, not listening. It seems to be in the water; it seems to be part of the culture. One chapter earlier, we learn that Eli’s sons “look with greedy eye” on the sacrifices that people bring to God (1 Sam 2:29). They eat the meat that is meant for God, and they also take meat that belongs to the sacrificer. The storyteller explains the root of their behavior this way: “They had no regard for the Lord” (1 Sam 2:12). They are not expectant or listening for God because they are too busy pursuing their appetite and personal gain. As priests, they would surely acknowledge the reality of God’s presence, yet the spirit in which they are living makes God redundant. They may be professional priests, but they are practical atheists, living for themselves.

And it appears that this spirit of greed, this spirit of control and carelessness, is pervasive in Israel, nearly universal. The book of Judges, which sets the scene for the story of Samuel, depicts a people spiraling out of control, with leaders who sacrifice their own daughters and wives and tribes who are quick to take up arms against their own brethren. In the very last verse of the book, in its final words, the storyteller utters this subtle condemnation: “All the people did what was right in their own eyes (Judg 21:25). Which is perhaps another way of saying what was said about Eli’s sons, the priests: they had no regard for the Lord. They were not expectant or listening for God, but rather living for themselves in a spirit of control and carelessness.

Maybe this is why “the word of the Lord was rare in those days” (1 Sam 3:1).

The People of Israel and the Nation of Israel

The story of Samuel, “a trustworthy prophet of the Lord” (1 Sam 3:20), with whom God’s word is frequent, not rare, is in fact just the beginning to a larger story: the story of the birth of a nation. True, the people of Israel, the children of Israel, are already on the scene, having begun as a family whom God chose to bless and transform all the world (cf. Gen 12:1-3). But as the prophet Balaam declares in Numbers, the people of Israel are not to be counted as a nation among nations (cf. Num 23:9). They are different than the nations. They are a people led not by a king but by God. But in the book of Samuel, the people of Israel will become a monarchy. The children of Israel will become a nation with a human king and a human government. As we will see over the next few months, the results of becoming a nation are…mixed, to say the least. On the one hand, the nation of Israel will prosper under its early kings and increase in security, size, and wealth. On the other hand, greed and power struggles will tear at the social fabric, as the rich exploit the poor and the leaders of the nation turn against one another repeatedly in civil war.

One of our Disciples ancestors, David Lipscomb, whose theology was profoundly shaped by his experience of the Civil War, was very careful to point out the difference between the people of Israel and the nation of Israel. The people of Israel, he said, had been called to embody the kingdom of God, but in settling for nationhood, they became just another human kingdom, just a nation among nations.

Today’s scripture and its surrounding story serves as an appetizer for what is to come. It shows us the corrupt roots from which the nation of Israel will grow. What dooms the nation of Israel is not necessarily having a leader or being organized as a people. What dooms the nation of Israel is the spirit of greed and disregard that we see at the start of 1 Samuel, a spirit of control and carelessness.

The Kingdom of God

As we embark on the story of the nation of Israel in the next few months, I anticipate that we will have many opportunities to reflect on the spirit in which our own nation is living and how that might on occasion hinder us from hearing God’s word, from recognizing God’s kingdom in our midst. What I survey in this election year is an obsessive spirit of control, which sees before it a battle, not a conversation, enemies, not brothers and sisters; which spawns “[hostilities], strife, …anger, quarrels dissensions, factions…and things like these” (Gal 5:20-21). These last words were drawn straight from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, in which he warns that people living in this spirit “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). As though to say, it will roll right over their heads. The word of the Lord will indeed be rare in those days.

Instead of a spirit of control, Paul counsels us to live in God’s spirit of care, a spirit that bears the fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). To live in such a spirit is surely to live in the kingdom of God, as Paul implies.

But to put some teeth on this, to give it some real bite, to show what it might actually look like in our world, I suggest: To live in God’s spirit of care, to live in God’s kingdom, is to trust not in the outcome of an election but in the outcome of deeds of love and forgiveness. It is to trust not in the promises of human leaders who fight against one another, but in the promises of a God who comes to reconcile all of us (and all creation) in his peace (cf. Col 1:20). To live in God’s spirit of care is to trust not in one nation counted among many nations, but in a kingdom into which all nations will be gathered (Isa 2:2-4), a kingdom that blesses all the families of the earth.

To live in God’s spirit of care will mean God’s word is not drowned out by fighting words, that it is not rare. It will mean that God’s presence will roll gloriously into our midst, and we will not be too busy, too “productive,” too combative, controlling, to see it.

Prayer

Disarming God,
We see in Christ
That you come not with force
But with presence, companionship, “withness"—
Wean us from our world’s spirit of control
That we might live instead in your spirit of care;
That we might know the nearness of Christ
And live in his kingdom.
In Christ, who does good and saves life: Amen.

 

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[1] See video and pictures of the roll cloud at the following links: https://weather.com/news/weather/video/a-stunning-roll-cloud-dominates-the-virginia-morning-sky; https://www.jerseyeveningpost.com/uncategorised/2022/04/01/a-rare-and-unusually-beautiful-roll-cloud-was-spotted-in-virginia/; accessed May 31, 2024.