Great Expectations

1 Samuel 8: 4-22; 11: 14-15
3rd Sunday after Pentecost, Year B
June 8, 1997

 © John Ewing Roberts, 6/8/97


INTRODUCTION

The late sage of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken, used to say cynically that the American people should get what they deserved, good and hard. Samuel must have been in a similar dark mood when the elders came and said they wanted to be ruled by a king. He felt that if they wanted a king, they should get one - "good and hard."

That mood of disquiet in 1 Samuel 8 swings dramatically to a mood of affirmation and joy in 1 Samuel 11, the second part of our scripture lesson today. The elements of this shift on the part of all the players involved offers us some insights for our lives.

ELDERS FOR CHANGE

"Elders for change!" is not exactly the sort of thing you would expect as a rallying cry for revolution. Yet it is the elders who request the change, the last group ordinarily to want a new mode of government. The old-timers are supposed to be for the status quo and suspicious of newfangled ways. But these elders want change, perhaps because they have grown rich and believe that a centralized government under a king will protect their wealth against the Ammonites, Hittites, and other "-ites."

A more sympathetic reading of the elders' request for a change in government comes when we listen to their comments about Samuel's sons who do not follow in the ways of their father.

Samuel does not argue the point. A good parent, such as Samuel, will find a way to offer support to adult children when they are wrong without allowing family loyalty to go to seed and condoning evil behavior. Samuel is neither defensive about his children nor about the observation that he has gotten old.

To his credit he hears the elders' request for new forms to preserve old values, a point to which we will return in a moment.

SAMUEL - A CASE STUDY

The people are disillusioned; the leader in despair. Samuel's response offers us a case study in group relations, leadership and prayer. Again to Samuel's credit he does not fly off the handle or go to pieces. He steps back, takes a deep breath, and prays. In his prayer he tells God how he feels, holding nothing back. The prayer time is an occasion to listen to God and to process what God suggests amid the present circumstances.After praying Samuel is ready to obey God and listen to the people and solemnly warn them of the consequences of their choice.

Finally, Samuel learns "not to take it personally" when the people reject the old form of government (judges) for the new (kings). What we have in Samuel is a man who...
- can understand that old values may need to be expressed in new forms;
- can face the facts about his adult children when they are wrong;
- can listen to people even when he doesn't like what he hears;
- can accept the limits of his age;
- can learn not to take things personally;
- can express his feelings honestly in prayer;
- can through prayer process new information and new approaches.

THE RESULT OF THE PRAYER PROCESS

After prayer Samuel unburdens himself of quite a speech. Perhaps as he processed the concept of the monarchy, he remembered something recorded in Deuteronomy 17: 14ff.

When you come to the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, "I will set a king over me, like the nations that are around me;" you may indeed set as king over you whom the Lord your God will choose....Only he must not multiply horses...(and) wives...nor silver and gold for himself. And when he sits on the throne of this kingdom he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law...that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren...

Now that kind of king may be all right, a king like David on his best days, not a king like Solomon on his worst. Doubtless, people thought of Solomon's taxation schemes when they remembered Samuel's warning after prayer, his list of all the terrible things a king might do. Notice how many times the word "take" appears in 1 Samuel 8: 11-18. (I count six.)

No doubt about it, Samuel says, kings will do bad things:
- forced military service, even women required to be "perfumers (?!), cooks      and bakers";
- forced agricultural support;
- forced manufacture of weapons;
- confiscation of land and crops for gifts to courtiers;
- taxes on grain and vineyards and flocks;
- conscription of slaves and animals.

But still worse, "you shall be his slaves" (1 Samuel 8: 17), as bad off as you were back in Egypt. And absolutely worst of all, the Lord will not answer you when you cry out (v. 18). Slaves without a prayer! On that note Samuel tells them to go home. (v. 22)


GILGAL

There is an amazing mood swing when we get to 1 Samuel 11.

The last word in chapter 8 had been "Go home!" The first word in the second text is "Come to Gilgal." Gilgal is such a special place that we need to step back for a moment and see its significance in the history of God's people.

The word, "Gilgal," means "circle of stones." Ancient peoples often erected circles of stone, the most famous being Stonehenge in England. Marylynn and I have visited a smaller version of Stonehenge in the Cotswalds. A sign warned against nighttime religious rites because New Agers and others interested in alternative if not bizarre worship practices are attracted to such circles of stones.

Debates rage between the scholarly, the superstitious and the curious as to the meaning of the British circles of stones, but we know about Gilgal.

When the children of Israel ended their exodus from Egypt and emerged from 40 years of wilderness wandering, they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land at Gilgal, near Jericho.

There was a nice symmetry - when they left Egyptian bondage, they crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. When they entered the Promised Land, they crossed the Jordan River on dry land. Their leader Joshua had them take twelve stones from the Jordan River and erect them in a circle. (Exodus 14: 29; Joshua 4: 18)

Joshua said to the Israelites, "When your children ask their parents in time to come, 'What do these stones mean?' then you shall let your children know, 'Israel crossed over the Jordan here on dry ground.'" (Joshua 4: 19-22, NRSV)

Gilgal is a very special place.

Gilgal is a place where the old wanderings in the wilderness of sin and rebellion are left behind.

Gilgal is a place where the waters part and miracles take place.

Gilgal is a place where fresh starts begin, where promises of deliverance come true.

Now we can appreciate what a difference it is in being sent home with gloomy forecasts of monarchy ringing in one's ears and coming to Gilgal, a place where the past is left behind, where miracles are celebrated, and where fresh starts are made.

Samuel has made a journey from grave reservations to renewal of the kingship. The textsays the people made Saul king, but one ancient translation, the Septuagint, says Samuel made him king. Whoever did it, the texts agree that it was done "before the Lord in Gilgal," and that they offered "sacrifices of well-being before the Lord."

Instead of all those "takes" on the part of the king in chapter 8, we have free will gifts on the part of the people. And they are called, "offerings of well-being," a wonderful term expressing their change in status. To me the term suggests ideas I associate with shalom, wholeness, healing, integrity and peace.

TRANSFORMATIONS

The mood swing is of course much more than that term implies. God is involved in this process from beginning to end. God is always transforming bad situations into good ones.

In the first book of the Bible there another biblical story of family problems. The sons of Jacob, like the sons of Samuel, are "acting out." They sell Joseph into bondage in Egypt. False charges, prison, famine and all sorts of bad things follow.

But through God's transforming power they all end up one day standing before Joseph in a palace in Egypt. By God's transforming power he chooses to break the cycle of bitterness by preferring forgiveness to vengeance. Joseph could have crushed his brothers; perhaps he wanted to do so. But instead he forgave them and said in one of the great verses of the Bible, "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good..." (Genesis 50: 20)

God is always transforming bad situations into good ones.

On a hill outside the city wall of Jerusalem a loss of integrity by civil servants and a handful of religious leaders along with the fear of a few once faithful followers placed a just man on a cross for a death that was too painful, too soon, and too unfair for words.

But instead of bitter recriminations, instead of angry words, instead of self-serving speeches, God's transforming power was revealed once again.

Jesus of Nazareth looked down from the cross and said to those who put him there - those present and those absent and those of us who would put him there again and again across the centuries by our sins - "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." (Luke 23: 34)

CONCLUSION

What are we to make of all this? What do we take from this text and bring to our individual and church situations?
     A. Individual

We have Samuel as our example, as a man who
- can understand that old values may need to be expressed in new forms;
- can face the facts about his adult children when they are wrong;
- can listen to people even when he doesn't like what he hears;
- can accept the limits of his age;
- can learn not to take things personally;
- can express his feelings honestly in prayer;
- can through prayer process new information and new approaches.

That's a pretty fair set of actions to emulate as needed.

     B. Congregational

Expressing old values in new forms is the continual mission of the church. We proclaim Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today, tomorrow (Hebrews 13: 18), but in ways accessible and intelligible to our time.

Our new building has old church architectural forms - a nave, a tower, a cross, a baptistery. But the style is contemporary, not the Georgian or Gothic architecture of another time, not the architecture of those who persecuted Baptists in another time.

We will be discovering new ways in the new setting to declare the old, old story of Jesus and his love. There will be surprises, disappointments, delights and imperfections - all part of the old values in new forms.

We will even have our own equivalent of Gilgal - not a circle of twelve, but two special stones of remembrance. The threshold to the columbarium is a piece of marble from the Church House (educational building) at our old Eutaw Place location. And the center of our new communion table will be the black marble top of the Eutaw Place table.

Kings can be good or bad or mixed; individuals and buildings are the same. But we worship a Lord who transforms the bad into the good, a Lord who could raise up a king like David, "a man after God's own heart," and a son of David who will one day be King of Kings and Lord of Lords." (1 Samuel 13: 14; Revelation 19: 16)


© John Ewing Roberts
Woodbrook Baptist Church
(Formerly Eutaw Place Baptist Church)
Baltimore, Maryland

[This sermon is for circulation within the Woodbrook congregation and may not be reproduced without permission]