Psalm 2; 1 Samuel 8:1-20
June 13, 2021
- To whom do we look for our help and salvation?
I’m not sure if you have been paying much attention to the news these days – of course, there is so much news that it is hard to take it all in, but right now there is a big push to make space travel more and more like something that regular people can do just like traveling by plane. At least a few companies are working on spacecraft that can take ordinary people up into space. I think I might hold off a little before booking a seat on that ride, but you can imagine how much has already gone into the research and development. These companies are creating full-fledged rockets just like NASA and have made a number of flights. As you already know, a super amount of work goes into each take off. The spacecraft must be the highest quality, so you can imagine how odd it would be to walk up to the engineers, look over the rockets, and propose, “Could you make me one out of paper mâché?”
Sounds beyond ludicrous, doesn’t it? No one in their right mind would commission, let alone travel to space in, a paper mâché rocket. No one would trade what was right and appropriate for what is flawed and inferior regarding something so important. Or would they?
The interesting thing about the story of the people of the Bible is that even though the people of God continue to get into trouble and go through regular suffering for their waywardness and sinfulness and idolatry, God always comes back and rescues them. When they were taken into slavery, God rescued them. When they were conquered by neighboring peoples, God rescued them. When the very Ark of the Covenant was captured, God rescued it for them – and that happened just before today’s reading in 1 Samuel. Later, when the people are hauled off into captivity to Babylon and Assyria, God will rescue them, again. Of course, when humanity was at its critical point, God rescued us all through Jesus. God is the constant savior, the constant rescuer, the constant redeemer, the strong one who will always preserve the people. Of course, it may not happen on our timeline, most likely not. And it may not look like we might expect. Salvation will come more slowly than our haste and lack of patience dictates, but if we can remain strong and patient, our waiting for the Lord will ALWAYS prove worthwhile.
BUT having said ALL of that, the people of God there in Samuel’s day did not see things that way. They saw that every other people around them had a physical, tangible king who could make decisions for them and rule for them and fight for them and protect them. They wanted someone right there in the flesh who could be responsive to their needs and the crises of the nation. They wanted a human king. They wanted to trade in the God who had always rescued them and saved them and provided for them and fought for them for a human king who would do whatever HE wanted to do. They swapped the invisible King of the universe for a guy on a throne.
Notice that Samuel’s first reaction is outrage and disgust. This is what we would expect from someone in Samuel’s position as God’s agent. The people seemed to be abandoning God and turning to human leadership – and they were, but God takes a different tact when God admits that the offense was against God’s own self and not Samuel. Apparently, Samuel felt personally slighted by their request, maybe like a waiter being offended because the customer did not care for the food.
God, on the other hand, is willing to go along with it, but notice the change. The Eternal and Holy One who had always been there to rescue the people was going to step back. If they want a king, they will get a king and all the trouble and failure and narcissism and corruption and greed that goes along with that.
If you want to rely of your own power, on human power, as your security and hope and salvation, have at it. “Go ahead,” God says, “I’m not going to stop you, but you will find out the difference. Sadly, it is going to hurt.”
If WE want to rely on OUR power, our own power, as our security and hope and salvation, that is up to us. God is not going to stop us but let us go on with our plans for do-it-yourself faith and life. Sooner or later, however, we will realize that we are not very good leaders. Sooner or later, we will realize that our choices have brought us into crisis. If you have any doubt about this, consider every human leader we have ever had. They have all fallen short the glory of God along with all the rest of us. Even the best ones are just as deeply flawed as you and I, and it is nearly impossible to think of a decision that made the world more genuinely a better place. The most that we can generally hope is that they help us to get by.
I am tempted to say I envy people who play the lottery. I, myself, have never felt the need. I know it is a waste of money, and I am not going to support the government’s exploitation of the poor, but that is a different sermon. What people who play the lottery understand, though, is that their future is uncertain, and they are not confident in what might be coming. They are not satisfied to rely on what they have accumulated or will be able to accumulate by their hand or their plans. There are plenty of folk out there who believe they need extra help to get by today and in the future, even if they lose money today. They refuse to trust in actual systems for managing wealth. Instead, they look for the miraculous, for basically God to dump a bunch of money in their lap. It is a wild hope in a weak future, but it is technically a form of faith that appeals to greater, invisible forces working for their future, even if it is only Lady Luck.
At the risk of overgeneralizing those who play the lottery (certainly all who play are not doing it for the same reason), they all do feel like it is worth the price for simply the chance for what is basically a “money miracle.” We have social security, pensions, ira’s, and the stock market, but give me a one in 300 million shot at the Mega Millions. It is hard put our faith in something invisible, intangible, incomprehensible, something bigger than our experience. It is so much easier to put our faith in what we can see and do and buy and use with our own two hands. We know the Israelites were completely wrong and dumb for turning to a human king in place of God, but we would have done the same thing and continue to do it every day as we place our hope in the things of this world, in our ability, in our shortsightedness of what God has done.
Do you know what they call it when someone thinks they know what they need better than God knows? That’s pride. Someone may come off as the most humble person, but if they put their confidence in their own ability to get through life, they are working out of a position of pride. That is strong pride, perhaps one of the worst expressions of pride, because that is when you tell God, “I don’t need you.” This is what the Israelites were saying to Samuel and to God. This is what we say when we believe that the problems of this world, the challenges of our lives, the struggles coming down the road are matters for us to handle ourselves. In fact, our true salvation is in the name of the Lord. Any hope we have for this day begins in the grace of God. It is the Spirit of Jesus who sustains us and gives us strength and a way forward. Anything we contribute is only with God’s help.
There is a reason why CS Lewis called pride the worst of the sins. There is so much about pride that steals our hearts from God without our even knowing it, but this is exactly the road that the Israelites were asking to travel.
- They did not need God’s help anymore. A human king could do for them what they needed, perhaps even better than what God was doing for them in their opinion. In other words, ONE OF THEM could stand in place of God’s rule. [This almost smack of idolatry, too.]
- They were so confident in their own ability that they felt they could handle the challenges of the world without God. A king could do for them whatever God could do. Of course, what they did not realize is that the world is too big for any of us to handle by ourselves [I’m sure that sounds relatable to you. We have all faced more than we can handle by simply our own power.]
- And almost the most insidious angle is that as we rely more and more on our own ability, power, and influence, we will be less grateful for how God has helped. We will expect less and less and will not maintain a daily sense of wonder and gratefulness.
- And when we rely more and more on ourselves alone in our ruggedly independent culture, we reject help from others. I notice this most profoundly in how people refuse to go for needed counseling or psychological help. They feel like they should be able to handle their own problems by themselves. This is a tragic way of thinking. We are in this together – to help each other; we need greater expressions of community and common life; and God must be at the center of it, guiding us, informing us, and gracing us to love each other.
Arrogance or pride is very easy to point out in the lives of others, and we detest that character flaw when it is swollen, but we all carry around a healthy helping of pride, even though it may not look like typical pride. The ancient Israelites show us what it looks like to reject God’s leadership for human leadership. Everyday we have a tendency to show what it looks like to reject God’s leadership for our own or other human institutions. We should all know the folly of this.
The sooner we realize our own personal tendency to pride and how we tend to reject God as our King each and every day, the sooner we can turn. The sooner we turn back to God, the sooner we will rejoice in God’s good help. The sooner we rejoice in God’s good help, the more we can do for our neighbor. Choose this day whom you will serve: as for people of faith in Christ Jesus, this should be the Lord our God. To God be the glory. Amen.