Because we see through a glass darkly, we are here to learn from God’s Book.
1 Samuel 10:1-8
May 16, 2010
What are we here for?
It’s a good idea to remind ourselves from time to time why we are here. In church, I mean. Singing songs written decades or even centuries ago. Reading the Bible, which is even older. Listening to a preacher who may be older or younger, wiser or more naïve, and on a given day, interesting or dull. What are we here for?
We are here because life is not that easy to figure out on our own. The Apostle Paul said (in one of those memorable quotes from the Book that is older than dirt), “We see through a glass darkly.” Trying to figure life out is like trying to read a book through stained glass.
To be sure, at times life seems to hum along fairly smoothly, like so many thousands of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, pumping black gold from under the ocean floor, fueling everything from life-saving EMS trucks to convenience store runs to buy lottery tickets and Playboy’s 3-D new centerfold. Then one day an explosion takes the lives of eleven humans and countless more sea creatures as it mixes oil and water in a soup that threatens to alter permanently a fragile, fertile, and profitable ecosystem.
Life will do that to you. You can spend years or even decades doing something fairly well, even making boatloads of money doing it. Making furniture, selling real estate, and creating investment wealth come to mind. Then the world changes – sometimes in a day, sometimes in a generation, and the rules that made you successful don’t work anymore. Somebody else is doing it better or cheaper or faster or somewhere else in the world, and what used to make you look smart now humbles you.
Not only are our business and professional lives complicated, so are human relationships. I was talking to a newlywed groom recently who lamented that marriage looks easy…until you’re actually married. “It’s hard,” he said, “really hard.” The same is true, we both agreed, of parenting. We ponder how we were raised and observe how other parents do their job. By the time we have our own kids, we’re quite sure that through observation we’ve learned all the mistakes to avoid and how to do it right. Good luck with that.
Or maybe you get to the place where you feel financially secure and reasonably happy with your spouse and kids…and your health falls apart. You don’t even know what’s wrong. Or maybe you know the diagnosis – and the future doesn’t look very promising. Maybe it’s not even you battling the disease – it’s someone you love more than your own life.
Relationships are perplexing. Making a living with integrity and consistency is challenging. Health is fragile.
Do you know what’s the most frustrating part of life? When you feel like you do gain a little bit of wisdom about how to handle money or raise a child or keep yourself healthy, it’s hard to get anyone else to listen to you! It’s so annoying to watch people making avoidable mistakes – sometimes the same mistakes we ourselves have made. Screaming louder at them doesn’t seem to help.
So…what are we here for? We’re here to bring the God-factor into the daily mess we call “life.” We’re here to declare that life has meaning because God created it and Christ redeemed it. Meaning is found in forgiveness for the past and hope for the future. We’re here to provide community, which is another way of saying that we’re here to listen to each other and support each other because none of us individually has it all figured out. We’re here so that we can learn giving and love and service – in other words, to push one another beyond egocentric navel-gazing, trying to find happiness by making the world all about me. Because it doesn’t work.
Meaning, community, and service. That’s why we are here. Because the issues that we face in life are not new, we look beyond the shallow fads of pop culture, religious or otherwise, and dust off the pages of ancient wisdom in God’s Book. That’s right – God’s Book, the self-revealing book of rules, stories, poems, and letters where the Creator himself guides us through the maze of life.
The Book is packed with case studies in doing it right and doing it wrong. We encounter both in the relationship of two men named Samuel and Saul.
Transitional figure
Samuel was born to be a transitional figure. He was the end of one era and the beginning of another. For centuries the Israelites had lived with a decentralized form of government, leadership “as needed.” God wanted to be their king. Only when a moral or military crisis faced them did a human take charge. These men and women were called “judges.” Their political and spiritual influence generally lasted about a generation (40 years), meaning that there were no dynasties.
Samuel was the last of the judges. Eli had served in that capacity, but his sons were unfit to follow in his footsteps. When Samuel advanced in years, his sons also were unqualified for spiritual leadership. So the people demanded a king, “such as all the other nations have” (1 Samuel 8:5).
How Samuel handles this rejection is a case study in how to do it right. It’s just not our focus for today. Suffice it to say that he goes vertical for some perspective. God, in his other-worldly wisdom, warns that the grass is not greener on the other side of this political fence – but he will let them make their mistake if they insist (8:22).
I love Samuel’s “farewell speech,” in which he deals again with the core issue, which is not whether you have a king but whether your heart belongs to the Lord. Then he adds, “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you” (12:23). Samuel models humility in stepping aside in terms of political power – but also in loving those who have rejected him and praying for them.
I’ve gotten ahead of myself a bit. Samuel’s role, then, was to transition from the leadership of judges to the rule of kings. The first of those was Saul, as much a case study in spiritual failure as Samuel is a case study in spiritual success.
What is it with Saul? Why does he plummet from selection to rejection in one week? It’s because (a) he doesn’t understand that his life has meaning, (b) he doesn’t grasp the concept of community, and (c) he fails to live a life of service.
Let me tell you his story.
Signs
When we meet Saul, he is an ordinary man in an ordinary family. He emerges from obscurity to become Israel’s first king. And he knew it. We’re introduced to him when his father’s donkeys are “lost” (9:3). I suppose they broke out of their pen.
Saul goes looking for them at his father’s request. It’s hard not to like him as his story unfolds quickly. He is physically “impressive” (9:2) – tall and imposing. He shows responsibility in his quest to find the missing donkeys as well as concern for his father’s mental and emotional state (9:5). He’s humble enough to ask for God’s help in finding the donkeys, and that spiritual search brings him in contact with Samuel, the man of God.
Meanwhile, God tells Samuel that he is about to meet Israel’s first king (9:16). Samuel immediately senses that this is the kind of man who will inspire confidence from the people (9:20), which only evokes a response of humility from Saul. “Why do you say such a thing to me?” (9:21). Samuel has dinner with Saul to expand and reinforce this message from God (9:27). That is where today’s Scripture reading picks up the story.
Samuel gets right to the point and anoints Saul using a flask of oil (10:1). Saul will yet be affirmed publicly – twice (10:24-25; 11:14-15). This one is private.
Samuel then turns to the task of assuring Saul that his life has meaning. He has been called by God for a specific purpose. At this point in his life, he still thinks of himself as a relative nobody who will spend much of his productive years looking after donkeys. He needs some tangible evidence that God is in this picture. Don’t we all, from time to time?
God doesn’t always give us “signs” when we need them the most, but sometimes he does. Our reading today describes three signs given to Saul.
The first sign I’ll call lost and found. Your father’s donkeys, Samuel assures Saul, have been found (10:2). I love this whole angle to the story. Here we are at a hinge moment in all of Israel’s history, with a man who has just been anointed the first king, and he’s worried about missing donkeys. More than that, he seems worried about his father – who’s concerned not only about donkeys but about his son that went looking for them. “The donkeys are OK,” Samuel says, “and so is your father.”
I love that because it’s a small but significant reminder that your life has meaning to God. What matters to you matters to him. That’s one of the reasons you’re here at church, today and whenever you come: so I can remind you of that truth. God isn’t so busy keeping the universe running and setting up or deposing the kings of this world that he can’t notice or respond to whatever’s missing in your life or what’s worrying you. Talk to him about it – right now, if you need to.
The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 8 that if God did not spare his own Son, then he will provide everything we need. That is our significance – that the God who gave himself up for us finds every detail of our lives important. We have meaning.
The second sign for Saul is provision. This one is rather practical as well, because it involves food that Saul will need for the journey home. But there’s more. Outside of the God-factor, what’s getting ready to happen is what you would call coincidence. Saul is going to run into three men on their way to worship at Bethel – one carrying goats, one carrying bread, and one carrying wine (10:3). These are among their offerings to God.
That part is apparently only descriptive, so Saul will see that Samuel’s word is from God. The man carrying bread, however, is going to give Saul two of his three loaves (10:4). That’s like saying you are going to run into someone on her way to church holding a wad of cash she plans to plans to put in the offering. Out of the blue she’s going to give you a majority of it. This is God’s way of showing Saul that he has been set apart for office in the same way that priests are.
It’s also a way of reinforcing community to Saul. He’s not in this alone. God will meet his needs through others. Life is not a solo journey, especially when you accept responsibility. Part of what I’m here to do is remind you that we are in community with one another – that involves not only you responsibility to meet the needs of others; it is also your duty to allow them to meet your needs.
Here at Corinth we invite you to family picnics, men’s retreats, church retreats, Sunday School classes, Bible study groups, and more. We’re not just adding more to your hectic schedule. We are inviting you to build relationships, to experience community.
The third sign is the Spirit of the LORD. Look at verses 5-7. Saul is instructed to go to a Philistine outpost. This is a reminder of the chief external challenge he will face as king of Israel. He will battle Israel’s nemesis early and often. On his way there, he will meet a band of prophets. Apparently Samuel has been mentoring spiritual disciples so that no longer will the word of the Lord be rare in Israel (3:1).
These prophets are of the musical variety, using their instruments to call attention to their message. Music, including instrumental music, has always played a key role in God’s message.
When Saul meets these musical prophets, the Spirit of the LORD will come on him, and he “will be changed into a different person” (10:6). After that, he will be ready for service. “Do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you” (10:7).
Our congregational priority at Corinth for 2010 is “submitting to the Holy Spirit.” We will continue to unpack that theme as the year progresses, but we are choosing at least some of our Scriptures and sermon topics to get us thinking about who the Holy Spirit is and how he works in our lives.
It will be more than a thousand years after this story of Saul that the Holy Spirit is fully revealed to the early church at Pentecost, but we get hints of how he works in some of these stories before Christ. Here he comes on Saul, changing him so that he can do what God calls him to do.
Who hasn’t been in a situation where you felt you were inadequate for the assignment given to you? About a week ago I was at the graveside for Helen Tate’s committal service, and Rosemary Bass Young, the funeral home director, came up to me with an interesting comment. She said, “You are doing a great job at Corinth. But I have to tell you, when you first came to Hickory I wouldn’t have given you a 1 in 500 chance of succeeding.” Looking back, only a mix of naïveté and faith brought Linda and me to Hickory. And Rosemary was right – there was no way I had it in me to make it.
You have felt that way, haven’t you? You have been in a situation where you don’t feel you have the needed experience, knowledge, or background. That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in. He changes you, he equips you, he places you where he can use you. You have to get out of the way and just be willing.
Part of what we’re doing here on a Sunday morning is reminding you week by week to grow up and move past the mindset that the world is here to serve you. Your family isn’t here to serve you. Your government is not here to serve you. Your church is not here to serve you. You are here to serve others. And when you think you can’t, the Spirit of the Lord will find a way to show you that he can through you.
Three signs – lost and found, provision, and the Spirit of the Lord. All are meant to push Saul to the awareness that his life has meaning, he needs community, and he is called to service.
Finishing well
I said earlier that Saul’s life is for the most part a negative case study. As his story develops, he becomes presumptuous, jealous, fearful, and arrogant. You can read his story in the rest of 1 Samuel. If you don’t know it, suffice it to say the Spirit of the Lord leaves him and rests on David, his successor. Rather than taking responsibility for his failures and learning lessons from them, Saul becomes borderline maniacal, and tries not only repeatedly to kill David but to kill his own son Jonathan as well.
I have looked in vain this week for hints in the early part of Saul’s life that he is going to turn out as badly as he does. I can’t find it. The only hint of what’s to come is in verse 8 of our text, but at this point you don’t even know it’s a hint. Samuel tells Saul to wait seven days in Gilgal until Samuel shows up to guide Saul in his sacrifice of burnt offerings.
Saul’s critical moment of downfall happens in 13:8 when he fails to wait seven days for Samuel, and impatiently offers a sacrifice in unbelief and disobedience. If we connect 10:8 and 13:8, a lot happened in seven days! The people of Israel gathered to affirm Saul (10:17-26), Saul won a battle against the Philistines (11:1-11), Saul was reaffirmed as king with a great celebration (11:12-15), Samuel made his farewell speech (12:1-25), and the Philistines regrouped to threaten Israel (13:1-7).
The commentators don’t think all that happened in a week, so the best guess is that this instruction from Samuel to wait seven days was given more than once. But this is our only hint in the text so far that Saul is going to be among those who start well but do not finish well. It’s been the prayer of my heart since I started ministry that I would finish well.
There are times in a long pastorate (or a long commitment of any kind, including a career or marriage or parenting or service) where you do ask yourself, “Now tell me again, what am I doing here? Is this worth the investment, worth the endurance?”
Maybe you ask yourself that question about church as well. Is it worth the time, worth the money, worth the tradeoffs?
Listen, life is hard. And sometimes it’s confusing. We see through a glass darkly. It doesn’t always make sense.
But I am here to remind you that your life has meaning. The meaning is greatly enhanced when you invest yourself in the give-and-take of community. That community calls you ever deeper into service. That’s why we are here. Amen.