Mtr Kelli Joyce
Friends in Christ,
Today's Daily Office reading from the Hebrew Scriptures is from 1 Samuel 16, and tells the story of the anointing of David to become king of Israel. I teach the Rite 13 youth class each Sunday, and we've been usingThe Pathto go through the major stories of our faith together. We covered this story - God's rejection of Saul and choice of the young boy David - the week before last.
A little background helps make this story make more sense, since the Daily Office Lectionary just drops us right into the middle of the action. I'll recount the story to you all like I did to the Rite 13 students on Saint Philip's Day.
After the Israelites were done wandering in the wilderness for a few decades, they finally got to return home to the land of Canaan, where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had all lived. Moses died, and God called a man named Joshua to be Israel's next leader. After that, there was a continuous cycle that went something like this:
The Israelites promise to only worship God, and not to get mixed up in the religious practices of their neighbors.
The Israelites decide that, while God is awesome and stuff, Ba'al seems pretty awesome too. Perhaps even... more awesome?
God says "If you would like to rely on Ba'al for protection, be my guest. I don't think this will go as well as you think."
Some other nation promptly begins oppressing the Israelites and taking all their stuff.
The people cry out to God, who picks someone to be a "judge" - a hero - for the people.
The judge beats the tar out of whoever was oppressing Israel.
Return to step one, repeat ad nauseum.
Eventually the Israelites decide they don't want any more judges - they want to have a king. Why? "Because everybody else has a king." God recommends against it. But the people insist, so God gives them a king: Saul. Saul, according to the Bible, was the hottest, most attractive fellow in the whole country. He was also very tall. He looked like a good king.
But he didn'tactlike a good king. He was rash in decision-making, selfish, arrogant, and repeatedly went against God's specific instructions, because he thought his idea would work better. God decides, for lack of a better phrase, that Saul is cancelled.
Which brings us to today's reading - Samuel, God's prophet, goes to Bethlehem to find the next king. And he's still working with the old template - someone strong, and tall, and powerful. Someone who looks like a king. But God's had enough of kings who look like kings - instead, God chooses the youngest son, an awkward teenage shepherd boy. Because God cares far more about the heart than about what makes sense by human standards.
Don't get me wrong - David does not get everything right. He, like all of us, gives in to the temptations of sin - pride, and selfishness, and greed, and hurts others in the process. But it's still worth reminding ourselves that we follow a God whose heart is with the outcasts and underdogs, not the respectable and impeccably credentialed.
In peace,
Kelli