Sam and Saul

So, I just had a thought. Being that Hannah (see previous post) gave up her son to the Lord, making good on her promise, what if she wanted this son so badly just to get her sister wife off her back, hmmm?

Well, on through the book of Samuel. He becomes a prophet and his “word came to all of Israel.”

“Now the Israelites went out to fight the Phillistines.” Why, why? More bloody battles with tens of thousands killed and the ark of the covenant captured by the P. As they move it from tribe to tribe, each place is cursed with a multitude of disasters and plagues. Again, I am reminded of Indiana Jones. So they say, hey, we don’t want this thing amongst us anymore, so we gotta give it back. They equip it with “guilt offerings” of model tumors and gold rats (to symbolize what was happening) and put it on a cow driven cart. If it goes to its own territory, we’ll know it was God’s hand in our disasters.

The cart ends up in Beth Shemesh, and they all there say cool for us, but 70 men are killed by the Lord for looking at the ark. (Right, Indiana?)

For twenty years the ark is away from the Israelites. Samuel becomes their leader and inermediator with the Lord even as warring continues back and forth with the Philistines. He was a good judge all his life, but his two sons, whom he’d hoped would succeed him, were not as virtuous. The people beg him to name a king over them. So, it seems a judge makes decisions, but a king rules. He warns them that they don’t want that. That a king will be dictator. But they insist.

[This makes me think of George Washington, who had the healthy ego and lack of arrogance to refuse a kingship when this country started. I always thought how remarkable that was. It would be so easy to be flattered into unlicensed power.]

God picks out Saul to be king (pissed off because He sees this as upstarting Him), giving him the gift of prophecy. But naturally, some of the men reject him and so Saul cuts 2 oxen into pieces and says, “this is what happens to anyone who does not follow Saul and Samuel.” OMG! Then there is the obligatory slaughter of enemies, led by Saul.

Samuel and the Lord really struggle with this king issue. You see, the fear is that there is only one “king” to serve, and that’s God, so having a king leads either to a disconnect with God or idolatry. But God finally tells the Israelites that as long as they still obey Him, they can keep their king.

This whole section sets up the interesting conflict between church and state. We have faced many, many social, legal, moral issues where church and state conflict. When that happens, wherein lay your allegiance and submission?

Consider: conscientious objectors, the Pledge of Allegiance, doctors ordered to perform abortions against their beliefs, being scheduled to work on Sunday, Christian Scientist parents of cancer patients, euthanasia, polygamy, Muslim-American girls being ordered to remove their head coverings in school, and on and on…

It also points to the easy way out using Divine Right of Kings philosophy; if we believe our king is God’s intermediary, then there is only one direction to take: his! Instant infallibility. Boy, that must have solved a lot of problems for those pre-Magna Carta rulers. Life was a little tougher once you had to follow your own rules. It was all downhill from there.

Confession #83: There is a part of me, deep inside, that really detests authority. And this is partly why. Because a king ruling over me could be wrong, could be corrupt, could set himself above the law (yea, I’m talking to you, w.!). And godly authority, when it comes from someone else telling me what God says or wants, smacks of the same potential contamination.

Confession #84: The authoritative structure of most religions mirrors that same design which leads to a suffocating, poisoning relationship between God and a man, vs. God and Man.

Confession #85: That above statement makes sense to me, but I swear it looks convoluted written down. Do your best.