Sermon for Pentecost 2 Year B Out of Our Minds This morning we begin a summer sermon series that will focus our attention on a larger-than-life biblical hero Israel s greatest king David a man who rose to power from being a humble shepherd to great acclaim as king over all Israel in his own capital city Jerusalem a city that endures to this day, a city which David intended would not only be the political and military capital for the newly united kingdom but also, and just as importantly, the central place of Israel s worship. A man of many talents, David seems to have been ideally suited to the royal tasks that faced him. As a shrewd military leader, he rallied a popular following, won victories over Israel s enemies, and established a nation that, though small, was powerful enough to hold its own against larger nations. As a skilled politician, David forged the tribal factions of the land into a united kingdom, uniting the North and South Kingdsom. From his capital city, Jerusalem, he administered a civil government and religious system uniting the secular and the sacred into one kingdom. As if he wasn t impressive enough, this forerunner of Abraham Lincoln, was a poet and musician skilled at playing the lyre and singing. You could say, David was something of an iron age rock star. Despite David s outstanding personal talents, the bible tells us that it was God s favor that was the true key to his many successes. He was God s chosen king for Israel and the patriarch of the royal dynasty that God promised to establish and bless forever. In both the Old and New Testaments, David is described as a man after God s own heart. In the coming weeks, we will hear of God s gracious choice of David being confirmed by David s sincere and passionate heart for God. Yet despite David s many gifts and God s favor, he was a man of both virtues and vices. Throughout the stories told of David, he is portrayed as fearful, flawed and failing. We will see in David a man who is sometimes argumentative, arrogant and ambitious. If you ask me it is not just his reported good looks that accounts for his appeal it is that he is vulnerable enough and oh so very human, making it possible for us to identify with him. But before we get to David the king of Israel, we need to go back about 40 years and get a sense of the background and history in which he was born into and lived. 1
This 3,000 year old story of David begins when a group of Jewish Elders approach their aging spiritual leader Samuel and demand that he appoint a king over them. Perhaps you are tempted to say So what? Why should we care about this archaic story? Actually, there is much about this story that is significant for us today if only to help us better understand the ongoing importance and controversies surrounding the shared sacredness of Jerusalem and what we call the Holy Land. But there is much more in this story that is a lesson for us today as we shall see. As one commentator put it, in describing the spiritual state of Israel: The people were on a long drift from God. Yes, Samuel, the last of the judges, was an old man. The people had heard all the stories about the great days of Israel when Samuel and the many judges before him from Joshua, Deborah to Samson (remember Delilah and that unfortunate haircut?). The judges had subdued their enemies, the Philistines and judged the land wisely and well. But most of them knew nothing of that personally. They only knew that Samuel was an aged man and that he had now appointed his sons to judge Israel. But his sons turned out to be dishonest, taking bribes and perverting justice. So the people were disillusioned, and they wanted something done about it. What they wanted was a king. But Samuel s corrupt sons weren t the only reason they wanted a king. When the elders come to Samuel demanding a king they did so because they want to be like other nations. I remember the first time I read this passage earlier this week, this phrase stood out like a sore thumb: they wanted to be like other nations. Now, wasn t Israel supposed to be a holy people, set apart for God? I also could not help but think of the tenth commandment: Thou shall not covet. The elders were coveting something that belonged to their neighbors: their system of government, their way of thinking, they coveted the life of other nations. What God had given them in the judges and the elders and the priests was in their not so humble opinion not good enough. Instead of living differently, they wanted to blend in they wanted to be culturally relevant. People have always wanted to be like everybody else, to do the popular thing. (I remember complaining to my daughter when she was in HS that I could never pick her out from other girls they were all dressed in t-shirts, jeans and had their hair pulled up in pony-tails.) It seems, these people 3,000 years ago were no exception they demanded their t-shirts, jeans and pony-tails, too! 2
No standing out in a crowd of nations for them! The people demanded the status quo: "We want a king like the other nations. Samuel objected to their desire to mimic the pagan nations, he went to God in prayer, but was rebuffed again by the people: "No! We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations." He ceded to their request, but warned them of the harsh consequences to follow the government would conscript their children for wars, make them domestic slaves, confiscate their land, and levy exorbitant taxes. And the newly anointed Saul did all this and more. He was a war king: "All the days of Saul there was bitter war with the Philistines." He was also a war profiteer who after defeating the Amalekites took for himself "the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs everything that was good," all under the pretext of religious piety (1 Samuel 14:52, 15:9). What is more, Saul also "set up a monument in his own honor" (15:12). (Who is it that Israel was called in a divine covenant to honor?) Doesn t this ancient story of the political status quo sound tragically modern? This is a story repeated throughout history to this very day in every nation you can name. A few months ago I watched an interview on the PBS News Hour with ninety-four year-old Stephane Hessel. In 2010 Hessel published an essay in France called Time for Outrage. It is a slim book; you can read the entire essay over one cup of coffee. Though the original printing of the book was only 6,000 copies, Time for Outrage now has sold 3.5 million copies and has been translated into a dozen languages. Hessel is a Jewish concentration camp survivor, a proud member of the French Resistance, a UN diplomat instrumental in writing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and a fervent human rights advocate. As he puts it, "I've always sided with the dissidents and against every form of dehumanization." His plea is to recover a sense of outrage in our own day. Why? Because "the wealthy have installed their slaves in the highest spheres of the state. The banks are privately owned. They are concerned only with profits. They have no interest in the common good. The gap between rich and poor is the widest it's ever been; [only] the pursuit of riches and the spirit of competition are encouraged and celebrated." 3
Hessel challenges his readers to move from indifference to indignation to protest the status quo. Just this past week, I received an email from a member very disturbed about the things that are happening in Syria and wanting to know if there was anything we could do as the church to reach out to those who were suffering. Her email caused me to think of Hessel and to ask: Where is our outrage, I wonder, at the conditions of violence and poverty being perpetuated throughout the world, even in our country? Are we moved enough to solidarity in prayer for them? You could say that the Old Testament and the Gospel this week describe two alternatives in response to how we will respond to our neighbor: We can mimick the status quo of the world or live on the lunatic fringe in the kingdom of God. When the people of Israel clamor to Samuel for a king to rule them, they are warned of the cost of that decision. God reluctantly tells Samuel to allow their request but not without issuing a warning. The monarchy in Israel is one more step in Israel s unwillingness to accept God as the source and rule of its life. Indeed, all the warnings that Samuel uttered will come to pass time and again throughout the history of Israel s kingdom. Concentration of wealth, confiscation of land, political oppression, and a weak practice of covenantal faith all these are results of the abuses of state power brought about by the monarchy. Yet, in granting Israel s request for a king, God was already looking beyond the failed kingship of Saul to the rule of David, the shepherd-king. Through the centuries, the prophets reminded Israel s kings that the good shepherd exists for the sake of the sheep: to guard, feed, nurture, and protect the flock. As the monarchy of Israel crumbled, the hopes of Israel turned to a Messiah from the line of David... a new David who would rise to shepherd God s scattered flock. In the gospel this week Jesus, the son of David (according to the flesh), the Good Shepherd (God s Anointed One), subverts the status quo. His own family thought he had gone mad: "He's out of his mind," they said. Judged by the standard of the status quo, they were right. Again, here s one way of paraphrasing the gospel message for today: We have a choice: to live on the lunatic fringe in the kingdom of God, where even the most basic values of family and politics are radically redefined for the common good of all, or to support the status quo with its predictably oppressive and self-serving consequences. 4
But the lunatic fringe of the kingdom of God is not about fear or irrationality it is about that still, more excellent way. Anyone who does God s will is my brother and sister and mother, said Jesus. This is the way of faith active in love, the way of trusting the values and purposes of God s Reign, the way of repentance, of embracing necessary change, and of losing our lives so that we may find them. This is the way of trusting our lives to the grace of God, instead of seeking to control our own destiny. It is the way of opening our minds to the possibility that our own family member may be God s Chosen one, and that this strange, challenging Carpenter could be the Messiah we ve been waiting for. Now this is important: It s not a magical faith that sees God as a super hero who swoops in to save the day on our behalf. It s a hard-working and reasonable faith in which we give all that we have and all that we are to the message and mission of peace and justice, love, grace, compassion, goodness, truth and beauty (and I don t mean the superficial beauty of magazine covers). It s a faith that recognizes that we are not the final controllers of our destiny that there are creative ways that God s Spirit works in and through us to enable and sustain us to navigate an unpredictable and difficult human journey. It is a way of life that does not conform to the pattern of this world and yet, if we are open to the Spirit, we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, and the reviving of our hearts. This might just cause us to make faith-filled choices out of the love of others and the love and greater glory of God and, God willing, we might just hear someone say: They re out of their minds! So be it! And may we not loose heart! 5