[Sermon preached on 2 Pentecost at St. Patrick's, Dublin, Ohio. Text: 1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15)]
It’s
one of the most used and oft remembered Parent-isms. It’s that phrase that escapes maternal or
paternal lips when one’s offspring is trying to convince you that they should
be able to do something that one of their friends is doing just because one of
their friends is doing it. The action in question is usually fraught with peril
from the parental perspective. The child
can’t see past their own wants and desires.
In frustration and impatience, the Parent-ism rolls out off the tongue: “If your friend decided to jump off a bridge
would you do THAT too?”
This
is the image that comes to mind when I read about Samuel’s displeasure in
hearing the elders of Israel ask for a king to govern them so that they “can be
like other nations.” The elders weren’t asking for a change in
governance. You might think that given
the fact that Samuel’s sons were abject failures. No, the elders said they wanted a
LEADER. That’s when Samuel knew they
were in trouble. That’s when Samuel knew
HE was in trouble. It was all confirmed
in his prayers to Yahweh: “They have
rejected me from being king over them.”
Yes,
the elders said they wanted a leader.
But, that’s not what they really wanted.
That’s
never what we really want.
We
want order.
We
want protection.
We
want direction.
And,
we want someone to blame when it’s not handed to us freely.
We,
like the elders, want someone else to fight our battles. So, we appoint and
elect and hire in the sincere hope that we will get what we want. Then, when that person fails (and they always
do because we’ve set the systems up that way) we don’t have to take any responsibility
for failed leadership.
The
LORD knew that Israel’s desire would not be good for them. Earthly kings would conscript young men for
war and force young women into work below their abilities. Earthly kings would take the best of the
fruits of their lands and labor – the tenth that belonged to Yahweh would
become the spoils of the powerful.
Eventually, their earthly king would fail or betray them and they would
be lost to neighboring nations.
Israel’s
dilemma, like that child’s request to be like one’s friends, is that the desire
to be like others often results in the loss of one’s God-given identity. The desire to be accepted and loved by the
ones we admire combined with our need for protection, order, and direction, is
a recipe for disaster.
Even
within a collective, protection, order, and direction are achievable only in
the short-term. Kings and so-called
leaders are too often corrupted. The people eventually become slaves to the
systems.
The
formation of the nation of Israel was to be set apart. The point was that they were God’s
people. They were not to behave like all
the others. The purpose of Israel was to be the city on the hill; the example
for all the other nations. The very reason for the existence of their community
was the practice of justice for all, without regard to social station or
economic advantage. The request from the
elders to appoint a king over them – the request to be like other nations – was
a demand for Israel to forsake Yahweh. Forsaking
Yahweh meant forsaking justice.
Forsaking justice meant forsaking the essence of who they were.
Driven
by fear and the desire for security, people have given themselves over to
charismatic authority figures over and over and over again. Are we still willing to jump off that bridge
because our friends are doing it? Or can we begin to see ourselves as a
community committed to a shared purpose – the proclaiming of God’s Kingdom and
working toward God’s justice?
Before
you answer that question, I have to give you fair warning: There is no business plan. We only know where we are. Together,
we have to determine where we want to go.
What makes it even more fun is that we will discover our limitations
while we are on the road and will need to work through them as we move together.
There also is no room for apathy. Everyone must participate in this leadership
activity – shared purpose and shared leadership requires that all are engaged
in activities that support it. We require
enough integrity to hold ourselves accountable to our shared purpose and call
ourselves out when we begin to avoid difficulties by distracting ourselves with
work or emotionalism.
The
proclaiming of the Kingdom and working toward God’s justice isn’t anything we
are likely to accomplish in our own lifetime.
The children of Samuel lurk in the shadows of commerce, in the halls of government,
and – yes – even in the sacred chambers of religious institutions. They work to
undermine the children of God by insisting that the way we’ve always done
things is the only way to do things.
Their desire is for the security they know, the direction they’ve always
gone, and the order that continually feeds them the lion’s share of the
system’s resources. When the children of
God ask why these are so, the children of Samuel respond with replies bound to
pique our emotions and distract us from the adaptive work at hand.
As
God’s chosen community, we must find our security in the knowledge that God has
never given up on God’s people. Even
though they desired a king, God blessed Saul.
When Saul fell to his own corruption, God blessed David. On and on it continues, through the time of
the Judges, through the times of the prophets, even to this very day. We must
see order as a means to an end and not the end itself. We must travel in the direction of our
purpose, but not be afraid to listen for the Spirit telling us to take a left,
right, or U-turn.
You
know, there’s an interesting thing about the word purpose. Its roots come from the Indo-European word
that means FIRE. Our purpose should set
us on fire. Our shared purpose should
give us the energy to change the world.
On
Pentecost Sunday, Stephen asked us to be a people on fire with the love of God.
Today, I’d like to ask you to be on fire
for an even higher purpose – that the world come to know God’s love through our
works of justice and that we commit ourselves to become more and more empowered
to do those works.
We do
not need to jump off the bridge of conformity.
We are
not expected to be like other people.
We
should not be like other people.
We
need to be who we were created to be: the
people of God.
Amen.
(c) 2012 Ciritta B. Park, all rights reserved. With thanks to the Clergy Leadership Project and Hugh O'Doherty. :-)
