Saturday, January 13, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Glad tidings
When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the Lord assured him, “This is the man of whom I told you: he is to govern my people.”
Kings and presidents and rulers are chosen many ways. In America we choose our president via electors, who are themselves chosen by votes of registered men and women who make it to the polls or submit absentee ballots, which may or may not be received and counted, depending on the mail.
For many years citizens of countries like France, England and Spain did not choose their king at all. When one king died, a relative took his place. Or her place. The Queen is dead! Long live the Queen!
In other countries, a military coup forces one king/president/prime minister to abdicate, and another steps into power on the coattails of the generals. Heil Hitler! And countless other demagogues.
On the road to power, all kinds of things go wrong. The process, democratic or not, seems a little like a crapshoot most of the time, and even in office, our eventual leaders are subject to all kinds of persuasions and manipulations. However, there is plenty of fascinating history about Democracy Awakening, and good reasons why it can be defended as the best way to choose a leader.
From a flask Samuel poured oil on Saul’s head and kissed him. Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord anoints you commander. You are to govern the Lord’s people Israel, and save them from their enemies roundabout.
Earlier Yahweh told Samuel that the people, who clamored for a king, were not rejecting Samuel the judge. They were rejecting God – Yahweh, Creator of everything and Lord of all. But it does not seem to me that God was angry or bitter. He simply described the Israelites’ state of mind. And He did not prevent them from heading off into a history which, incomplete as it is even today, chronicles the way men led other men, sometimes for better, often for worse.
Now the asses of Saul’s father Kish had wandered off. Kish said to his son, “Take a servant with you, then go out and hunt for the asses.” They looked and looked, but they failed to find the asses anywhere.
This passage is of course about donkeys, but it reflected my own thinking about how badly we have done during four thousand years or so of ruling ourselves. We look and look but “fail to find the asses anywhere.” We have looked everywhere except in a mirror.
Now don’t be sarcastic, David. You are just trying to be clever.
Lord, don’t you also get disgusted by the way we hurt each other in the guise of governing?
It is much better for you to notice the way good is sometimes accomplished. What did Jesus say? What did Paul say? What do I say? Be patient. Get to know my love. That is all you need.
The Lord sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, and to proclaim liberty to the captives. Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
It’s easy for me to complain about injustice and ineffective governance. It’s harder for me to reach down in front of me and help someone up who has fallen. But most of the time, it’s the only political act worth anything at all.
 (1 Samuel 9-10, Psalm 21, Luke 4, Mark 2)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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