Sermon June 10, 2012

  1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20

  Psalm 138
 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 Mark 3:20-35

“Listening to God”

When I was fifteen and sixteen years old I wanted nothing more than to fit into the mold that was valued by my peer group. But I was not athletic, I wasn't interested in popular kinds of activities and I wasn't attractive to the males my age. I saw that much of the popularity was shallow and based on fleeting strengths and quickly forgotten accomplishments. I was different, so I pretended that that's exactly what I wanted—and somewhere in the middle of that muddle, I realized that it was okay to be different, but it's still really hard and painful to remember those weeks, months and years of distance from my peer group.

I think that communities who are creating structures and institutions go through similar states of development to those of individuals. The nation of Israel was born over a long period of time and in trying circumstances. They came from wandering nomads and displaced kinfolk and feuding families. They sold themselves into slavery, wandered for forty years and were born by the waters of the Jordan into the promised Land. They entered the land of Canaan and were governed as tribes by judges, including Samuel. He was raised in the temple, so he had priestly credentials, was a prophet chosen by God and was respected by the people. It was his authority that the elders needed if they wanted to have a king acceptable to the rest of the nation. So they came to him and asked him for a king. “We are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”¹

As they entered their adolescence as a nation, they no longer wanted to be a loosely connected group of tribe and tribal governments whose major decisions were made by judges—they wanted the regal and majestic wealth and power of a kingdom. The powerful nations around them probably intimidated them—and may have even threatened the tribes who could not defend themselves from a nation state. The Promised land may have felt very vulnerable to them. They wanted the army and the institutional power of a monarch for the kind of safety and security it seemed to offer them. They may have seen it as moving from childhood—with little structures for efficient government to a new kind of adulthood as a nation. At least that's how I have seen it—it's probably a very natural sociological movement from tribal government to national identity and government, but that kind of change has a price.

And God told them the price—with the strength of a standing army, they would lose their sons because a king needs soldiers and warriors to march and drive the chariots of war. The warrior king and kingdom they wanted—needs institutional structures to uphold the machine of war. Then men who weren't fighting and and the women would be needed to work in the palace and create the accessories of nobility and monarchy. Namely, the bible says, there would be perfumers and cooks and bakers out of the population of women. Women would tend the vineyards that the king would take—or he would take at least the fruit of the vineyards as his tithe or tax. He would tithe the grain and the best of the all the produce of the land to use and to sell to support the institutional standing army that would be necessary to have a warrior king to defend and eventually extend the reach of the kingdom.

“This,” says Samuel, by the word of God, “is what you are asking for when you ask for a king. You will rely on this man for your security and your safety and he will take whatever is necessary in an attempt to provide that security. Is this what you want? When you have a king, no longer will you rely on God, but you will have a king.”

And they said, “Yes, we want a king like everyone else.”

To live like other nations, they had to live with the consequences of their choice—as do we all. And God let them make this choice, though God told Samuel, “It is not you they are rejecting, it is me.” Samuel had just made his sons judges over Israel—and the elders rejected his sons.

I think that's really interesting—that God let them make this choice, to reject the rule of judges, so that they could follow in the direction of kingdom. And God doesn't completely abandon them, but simply says that they will have to live with that choice. God will not take back the kingdom structure, once this choice was made, it was made forever, I guess.

They listened, in a way, and chose to have a king anyway. And God listened to their choice and didn't abandon them, but allowed them to live with their decision to live as a kingdom until that kingdom fell apart due to its own weakness.

When we listen to God, as the elders and leadership of Israel learned, we may not hear what we want to hear. God is a lot like a good parent here saying, “I'm going to let you live with the consequences of your choice. I will love you and care for you still, but this choice is irreversible, and the consequences of your choice will follow.”

I opened the sermon by describing that I was different from the very small group of peers I had in high school. I think that's one of the important parts of that time of life. In adolescence, at least as it is understood today, we explore who we are compared to who our friends are, who our parents want us to be and who we understand ourselves to be. Many of us find this more easy than others—some folks find it incredibly difficult and people are everywhere in between for many different reasons.

In their adolescence they chose to be a kingdom. And God judges them according to this choice from this point on. I don't mean that God holds it against them, but that God wants them to live as a kingdom as justly and lovingly as possible. So God criticizes how the kings take advantage of the poorest of the people. God critiques the priests and other leaders for allowing the kings too much power without check. God sends prophets to criticize the overuse of power and violence against people.

Just because God let them choose to have a king didn't mean that God let them live without the standards of justice and love that God had given them years before on Mt. Sinai. Love God and love your neighbor were still God's standard code of conduct and one couldn't do one without ding the other.

They had to live within the choices and consequences they made—this choice and many others. Within this choice they had to listen to God's standards of living—and God would continue to speak this standard, this wisdom and teaching throughout all time. God's steadfast love and faithfulness were still sovereign—even after they chose to have a king. The king might want to live outside the law, but God stood firm in love and faithfulness.

Though Jesus' life and teaching were transformative, his life and teachings were also a continuation of the basic message of God throughout the biblical witness. Hidden beneath layers of story and sometimes frightening consequences of choice, God called the people of Israel—and through them all nations—to love God and love neighbor. Whenever Israel felt the consequences of injustice, they understood themselves be punished, but truly they were just consequential experiences. When they did not love God and neighbor, their nation was broken and scattered (like other nations were). When standards of justice (which includes fairness, faithfulness, equity and mercy) was strong, they were stronger.

Jesus' life was an example of this kind of living—he healed those who were broken and taught that blessings were on the meek who would inherit the earth. He fed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and maybe some fish and he taught, that blessings were on who hunger and thirst because they would be fed. He was angry at those who hoarded power and wealth; he got angry in the temple and threw out the bankers and moneychangers and taught,

“. . . woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
‘Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”²

When he said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” he claimed all who embraced mercy, healthy relationships, loving and healing and hope. He embraced all who stood up against evil (or injustice) and embraced good (mercy and just ways of living.) He said that those who didn't hadn't stepped into the household of God.

When we listen to God, we can tell if it's God who is speaking because God has been pretty consistent over the millennia of divine messaging. The steps may be complex, but the big goal is clear and simple. When the poor and the vulnerable are damaged, that's not God's will. When the weak and the oppressed are made weaker and oppressed more, that's not God's will. When the sick and the lonely are ignored, that's not God's will.

When we are listening to God, when the vision of God appears on the horizon of our lives, we have to decide how we get their using all the tools that God has given us. If our table is welcoming, how do we make sure everyone who comes has a place to sit?

Let us continue to listen to God as we have been, stepping carefully, but confidently forward, toward the table where we all have a place we belong and where all of our choices will lead us.

Let's listen as God speaks . . . Amen.

11 Samuel 8:19b-20

2Luke 6:24-26