Two heads are not better than one

Friday, February 4, 2022                                            (today’s lectionary)

Two heads are not better than one

Until this morning I did not think of Goliath when I remembered the big buffalo head, beautifully preserved, above the fireplace in our friend’s family room. Mounted just below that big black and brown head, the Sharp’s buffalo rifle that did the shooting waits, unloaded, ready for whatever comes next.

Charlie and his dad were buckskinners, and every year or two they packed up their tepee with its 20-foot poles made from lodgepole pines and headed out for a week-long Rendevous with other crazy guys like themselves. Not crazy asylum, but crazy for the old ways of the old days. All they wanted sometimes was to have been born a hundred years earlier.

But this buffalo was not shot by Charlie and his dad, rather by Charlie and Tina, his intrepid wife. With the help of a few strong young men they piled the buffalo into a pickup, spent a full day skinning it, and filled two freezers with “just about everything from the buffalo that could be eaten.” And they ate (or shared) every bit of it.

In my ice-storm-quiet mind this morning, their tale runs parallel alongside today’s lectionary. David (and Goliath) and John the Baptist, and the buffalo were all giants in their own rambunctious ways.

Killing buffalo is “like shooting cows,” Charlie said. Nothing to it. Did David think that way too? Picking five smooth stones from the riverbed, refusing the king’s armor, calling out Goliath the way he did? Who is this Goliath? Why, he’s just a cow. Nothing like those lions in the desert attacking my father’s sheep. I’ll just knock him down and cut off his head.

David in Israel, he made sport of lions as though they were kids, and as a youth he slew the giant and wiped out the people’s disgrace. David called upon the Most High God, who gave strength to his right arm.

Our friends pray. They pray all the time. They have been in love with Jesus together for nearly fifty years.

David prayed.

With his every deed he offered thanks to God most high. With his whole being he loved his Maker and daily had his praises sung. Before daybreak the sanctuary would resound.

I think Goliath missed all of this. He may not have been a praying man. But John the Baptist was. Jesus praised John as Sirach praises David:

The Lord forgave him his sins and exalted his strength forever.

The pride and fear that ruled the life of Herod’s family caught John the Baptist by the hair and imprisoned him. King Herod liked to listen to his prisoner, although he was confused by John’s powerful prophecies. We all know the story of Herod’s daughter’s dance at his birthday party. At her mother’s demand she asked for John’s head, and the terrified Herod gave it to her. An hour later the executioner brought John’s head into Herod, spoiling his party.

David cut off Goliath’s head with his own sword, and the Philistine army was destroyed by the Israelites.

Then there’s the head of that buffalo.

God’s way is unerring, the promise of the Lord is tried by fire, he is a shield to all who take refuge in him.

David prayed, and killed Goliath. Herod did not pray, and killed John, who did pray. God way is unerring. I don’t pretend to understand, except I see that the culture man created outside Eden runs in blood. The path of God tracks through the blood we shed, but I expect it follows a stream of living water back into eternity. Our prayers lead us there.

(1st painting, “Salome with the head of John the Baptist” by Caravaggio, 1607-1610, National Gallery, London)

(2^nd painting, 2013, Daniel Hill’s blog)

(Sirach 47, Psalm 18, Luke 8, Mark 6)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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