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(1 Samuel 25-27)
How many times do we say we’re sorry, but how many times do we actually mean it?
Throughout the story, Saul says he’s sorry, but actions that follow dont back his words. His son, Jonathan, once confronted him, telling him that he was acting foolish in the way he was treating David. Then, in a moment of sobriety it seems, Saul looks at his son and says, “You know what? You’re right. And I’m sorry.”
But does he stop trying to kill David? Is he really sorry for sticking to his personal vendetta, fueled by selfish jealousy and insecurity? No.
Later he’s just exited the cave where David could’ve killed him, but didnt, shearing just the corner of his robe instead. Then it’s David who confronts him at a distance, asking Saul, “Why? Why are you acting this way? What have I done?!” And Saul again, for just that moment, says “I’m sorry.”
Now again in today’s passage–another opportunity for David to kill Saul, sneaking into the camp seemingly to do just that but leaving with only Saul’s spear and water jug. Again, it’s David who asks Saul why. And again, Saul admits to being wrong.
But by the end of my reading today, Saul’s back at it, pursuing his selfish vendetta against a servant who has only been faithful, even when he had every reason not to be.
Saul might have said he was sorry, but he didnt stick with it. It may have sounded good; it was certainly genuine–that moment of clarity perhaps–but without follow-through, the words were empty as a bag of coffee when the last pot’s been brewed.
We have to stick to our sorries, or sorry is just a word.
Our apologies are only genuine if actively practiced.
Repentance is a lifestyle, not a printed confession in some church bulletin that’s run week in and week out.
We must live the words I’m sorry, not by thinking that we are somehow making up for what we have done, but by trying to go and surely sin no more.
In life we get stuck in ruts, and we come to God and loved ones saying we’re sorry, but it often tends to be the same thing we’re apologizing for; subsequently, there comes a point–I believe even with God–that the words just dont cut it anymore, not without actions.
Saul said he was sorry and he meant it, but he didnt follow through with it. We must go out and, yes, say we’re sorry, but then we need to stick with it–to break that pattern, to pave a detour around that road that has become a rut, to start living in a way where the words “I’m sorry” appear in our vocabulary less and less.
No matter how hard we try, there will always be occasions for apologies–it’s just how we’re put together, beastly beauties that we can be. But by Grace, each day, we can begin anew, just like every player gets to skate out of the penalty box.
(1 Samuel 23-24)
If you’ve been following along, you’ve noticed I’ve taken a huge leap forward in my chronological reading of the Bible. This is because I’ve been leading a Bible study on my favorite Old Testament book and we have (in several months) made our way through the first 22 chapters. (For those who are nearby, we meet every Tuesday at 10:30 to read and discuss at least a chapter.) So having become once again really familiar with the story, I’ve decided to start at the point we left off in my Study Group and read from there.
And what a great story to continue on with, one that teaches us about the inevitably of making enemies in our life. Keith Kent, the author of the “Paradoxical Commandments”–a list of commandments that as a pastor I turn to again and again–says that “If you are successful you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.“
This is what happened to David. With all his successes he won a true enemy in Saul. Up to this point in the story we have seen Saul slowly deteriorate because of his inability to control his emotions–jealous, insecure, tormented by some mental demon that best resembles a bi-polar personality disorder, Saul has seen David as a threat and a bitter enemy, even going so far on several occasions to kill him–by spear, in his bed, by sending him into battle situations where he thought he’d be killed. But as we have seen, and especially in today’s reading, the enemy-thing was a one-sided affair.
Unfairly seen as an enemy by Saul, David refuses to return the favor and make an enemy of Saul. In the cave, when Saul is relieving himself, David had the opportunity to kill him, but instead snips just the corner of his robe. And though we think this is completely justified, saying “Good for David,” the future king is filled with remorse at even doing that, for he refuses to see Saul as an enemy but as the king of Israel, albeit with several major flaws.
I learned somewhere along the line, even before coming across the “Commandment” above, that just because someone wants to make an enemy of you doesnt mean you have to make an enemy of them. It’s a good way to avoid conflict. It’s an even better way to function as a person, saving you from being drawn into heated conflicts that are unbased.
When someone sees you as an enemy, rarely is it based in truth. It’s either something someone thought you did, or thought you said, and most always because of a distorted view that they have of you, and of themselves.
People need enemies to make themselves feel better. I dont know why this is, but it’s true. And so they’ll pick up on something you’ve done, misrepresent even the best of intentions, and make you their enemy. Suddenly you’re in a fight that almost every single time you wont even be aware of.
But the lesson? Be like David. Dont take the bait. Dont take up the sword of your tongue or fists. Just let it go and look at them, not with hate or anger–but with the love that Jesus tells us to have, even for our enemies. Look for what might be going on in that person’s life. Try to understand that person. Apologize if you need to. But no matter what dont take it personally.
You’ll save yourself a lot of needless hassles.
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Postscript: Note to self. I think you just came up with a new personal beatitude with that last one. #6 (borrowed from somewhere; I think it’s one of the Four Agreements) Dont take it personally. I’ll be adding that to the left of this page, where you can see my other five personal beatitudes.
(Deuteronomy 14-16)
Ev’ry seventh year,
all debts were supposed to be
cancelled, forgiven, forgotten.
Ev’ry seventh year.
Ev’ry seventh year,
all slaves were supposed to be
set free, unless they wanted to stay.
Ev’ry seventh year
It didnt matter what had happened
those previous six years. It did,
but not so much that it couldnt be
forgiven; that it couldnt be cancelled out.
That didnt mean in those six years
you were supposed to spend it up
to max it out, to run up your tabs.
But if you had gotten yrself into
a jam—overhead or underwater—
this was the way out, the only way out.
The idea of grace did not begin with the birth of Jesus Christ.
Ev’ry seven years
all debts were cancelled,
all slaves were freed,
the past was sealed.
Ev’ry seven years,
everyone got to start over,
begin anew,
to try again.
Ev’ry seven years.
Were I to tell you that this was the seventh year …
those who are overhead or underwater,
those who have watched their interest rates
up and down, wondering, “Did I really agree to this?”
those bought their dream, only to realize that
dreams cant be bought, they can only be taken away,
those who’ve watched the “sale” in their sign
get scratched out and turned to “closure,”
those who’ve been told that they’re cutbacks,
those who’ve been told “We’re not hiring,”
those who are trying to pay reconnect fees,
those who are waiting for their food stamp cards,
those without heat,
those on the street,
… oh were I to tell you that this was the seventh year
and all debts were off!
It’s not.
It doesnt work like that anymore.
Someone always has to get paid
at your expense,
but
I can tell you
there has been
one debt cancelled–
one debt paid,
and it’s a big one.
Dont wait seven years to figure that out.
Preaching on Genesis 32, I talked about how Jacob faced tough times, yet tried to work things out himself–dividing his property, trying to bribe his brother, Esau, from killing him. And as he wrestled with the fear and uncertainty that he faced, God met him where he was–God wouldnt fight the fight for him, but God would fight with him. That’s my take on the “wrestling with God thing.”
For my illustration (and how could any preacher not use this story this week) I talked about Gregory Smith, who was facing hard times and tried to work things out for himself–robbing a store. And there in the fear and uncertainty he faced God met him where he was–in the form of a woman named Angela, who talked with him–who prayed with him–who helped him understand that, indeed, God’s grace was enough.
This is their story:
(Numbers 21-22)
This is one of those funny God stories. When the people are griping and complaining, what does God do—sent them snakes.
“Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?!”
I agree with Indiana Jones and the Israelites, ANYTHING else but snakes. EXCEPT wasps—I need an explanation from God on the existence of wasps.
Yet when the Israelites were complaining, God sent snakes. Why? To show them that life really bites sometimes. Figuratively, literally. THEN, when they cry out saying, “Okay, okay, we GET IT?” what does God do? Does God take away the snakes?
NO. God tells Moses—”You know that logo you see on the side of drugstores, hanging in doctor’s offices–the snake wrapped around the pole thing? Yeah, do that and tell people to look at it. Then they’ll be alright.”
God doesnt take away the snakes; instead God just gives an antidote for snakebite in the pole that Moses lifts in the wilderness. Later, isnt it in John that Jesus compares himself to this snake on a pole? The point being that Jesus didnt die and rise again to make us sin-free, but to free us from sin so that we might live in Christ.
Anyway, the point so that I can wrap this up and head to the Presbytery Assembly meeting where we’re installing our new Presbyter for Common Life. The point: GOD WONT TAKE YOUR PROBLEMS AWAY. I’m sorry, but God wont. Life does bite sometime. YET GOD HAS GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO DEAL WITH YOUR PROBLEMS. We have grace, forgiveness, new life. We have truth. Hope. We have faith. Above all we have love. None of these will take our problems away, but dont they make them a lot easier to deal with?
Innocence.
When God came to Jeremiah, the prophet-elect responded by saying, “But I am just a boy.” But that’s why God chose him. Because of his innocence, because of his youth, because he had yet been corrupted by age-old negativity and the deeply set ways of the people. He would be a breath of fresh air to the people, would they listen to him. And it wasnt so much that he would introduce them to anything new. Through him God would breath fresh life into the people and get them back to the purity, the simplicty, the essence of being the people of God.
In contrast to Jeremiah’s blessing of innocent youth, the people were, as already mentioned, set in their ways. And when God would tell them of their guilty–that they had been neglegent in their faith, turning away from God to accomodate themselves–their wishes, their desires–creating gods for convenience, gods for excuse to justify to themselves that they were right–there was nothing they needed to change.
“We’re innocent,” they cried out when confronted. The same response as Jeremiah, but different. They had no such excuse. They were old enough, had been around long enough to know better. There was no room for the gods of selfishness–there was no room for the gods of shady deals made in back rooms, human lives the wager–piles of coin the reward.
The destruction of which God speaks is not so much God’s idea but the product of inevitability, for there comes a time when all actions have a final result–all decisions have a consequence. And the people had gone so far that theirs was not only the train barreling down the mountain from the North, there would be no breaking.
And yet it wasnt too late to turn back–it wasnt to late to change–it’s never too late to do that.
“Return to me,” the Lord’s plaintive cry to God’s people–the jilted Lover begging for their beloved to return. We see politican’s wives take them back–stand by their side–after their infidelities. I wouldnt expect my wife to do the same. Once a covenant like that has broken, it’s broken. There’s really no going back, at least not to the way things were. Things will never be the same. They are forever changed.
But that’s how it is with human relationships, and probably how it should be in most cases. There are forgiveable but uncondoneable things that transpire between two people that cannot be overcome, they can only be reconciled for the best. But we’re talking about God here. No matter how unfaithful, how far we’ve strayed, we can always come back and, unlike any other relationship we may ever experience in our lives, things can and will be the same. We can pick up, right where we left off. We can return and fall deeply in love all over again.
How big of a God is that? How loving? How faithful? To take back, unconditionally, the unloveable and unfaithful people–the guilty innocent people we can be at times.
A break from the ordinary. A commitment to read more of the Bible every day.
A few months back I purchased the Everyday Bible (NCV), half-price or less as all my Bibles are. So far I like the NCV for a daily devotional. It’s relatively true to the original languages, sometimes a little to basic in it’s English, but altogether readable–esp. for the longer passages I’ve committed myself to reading. If you’re looking for a new daily devotional Bible, this is a good one and called the everyday Bible because it has a reading plan in the back where you will read the entire Bible in 365 days. I’m picking up near the end of Isaiah–Jeremiah begins Monday.
He was wounded for the wrong we did.
The suffering servant passage always chokes me up. Whether or not Isaiah in all his humanity, living centuries before Jesus was born into his earthly existence, could’ve imagined this servant coming from a carpenter’s home and doing what he went on to do in his thirty years of earthly existence we cannot say. But for Christians reading this passage centuries after Jesus was born to Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, buried–risen–we cannot but see our Lord and Savior, carrying his cross, telling the daughters of Jerusalem not to weep as blood-mingled tears streamed down his face, forgiving his executioners, and telling the penitent thief that Paradise awaits.
Why would a person so willingly suffer for me? Why would a person be willing to take on my sin? Why would a person be willing to be wounded for the wrong I did? I sin no less than the other–there is no sin too great or too small–it is something we all share but was borne for all upon a cross, the electric chair of antiquity.
In the sixteenth century, Jesus would’ve been beheaded for our wrongdoings; in the 19th century, he would’ve been hung; early in the twentieth century he would surely have been electricuted; today, he would’ve been killed more “humanely,” with a shot that numbs the muscles but not the mind–to soothe the conscience of those who would’ve stood at a distance–with another that stopped his breathing, the final to stop his heart–all for our wrongdoings.
Do I feel guilty? Do I feel ashamed? Do I say I’m sorry to Jesus every time I mess up? No. God wouldnt–God doesnt want that. God wants us to feel blessed.
Blessed.
Because one person who did no wrong would make everything right.
Because one person was willing to suffer for us.
Because every morning I can get up, regardless of all the wrong I have done in my life–I’ve got another chance, another day, another opportunity to do the good God would have me do, even if it means that I too may suffer a little, I too may have wounds to bear for another, I too may lay my life aside so that I may help another live.
Saints Peter & Paul Day
Ezekiel 2.1-7; Acts 11.1-18
The Gospel is for everyone. It’s major themes are universal.
First, the idea that God is all about love. Loving the earth, loving its creatures, loving each and everyone of us, calling us to love one another. Everyone wants to be loved–desperately. There is no greater feeling than being loved or being in love. Who dares not believe in love?
Second, forgiveness. In a world of revenge, retaliatory strikes, grudges held like a toy by a child who doesnt want to share–where else do we find the promise of unconditional forgiveness? Everyone struggles. No one is perfect. Everyone screws up every now and then. And anywhere else, they arent allowed to forget it. Mistakes once made become like tattooed letters branding us with letters–L, for liar; F, for failure; I, for ignorance. But by the marks on his back, Christ removed all those marks from us, so that we are no longer known for what we have done wrong, but what we can do for Christ.
Third, hope. Looking forward. Beyond the trial, beyond the hardship, beyond whatever the siutation. On the way to the cross, Jesus never once looked toward Golgotha. He looked at the crowds, the daughters of Jerusalem, his broken-hearted mother. And he looked forward to the coming day when he would be lifted up from cold death. In a hopeless world where bills are the only mail we have to look forward to, grace is a pan of fresh brownies, waiting for you every afternoon–a morning commute where all the lights are green and it’s back to back to back Radiohead on the i-Pod–a bright day after a long week of sticky humidity where you even have to put a zip hoodie on in the morning after emerging from the womb of the blankets you hadnt buried yrself under since early June–after eight years, more, being able to lie down at night, looking back and looking forward–content.
Love, forgiveness, hope. Who doesnt want these things of all things? To know that you are loved; to know that yr mistakes are not all there are of you; to know that just over the hills where electric fingers emerge from the dark clouds from which sheets of water stream–just to the west, there is clearing.
And people say it’s silly to believe such things.
Ezekiel 43.1-12; Hebrews 9.1-14
Where to find God?
The first peoples found God in nature.
In caves they painted the pictures of these god animals—
the buffalo, the elk.
They wore skins and antlers, and they believed.
Far away and long before anything significant happened in Bethlehem.
Beyond these cavernous sacred places, they built Temples.
The people of Israel built a Temple.
First there was a Tabernacle for the Coffer of God,
some sort of Temple at Shiloh, one with corrupt priests,
and finally—Jerusalem—a great Temple finished by Solomon.
People believed that’s where you went to see God.
To bring God gifts, bribes.
Only the priests, though, could go into the holiest of holies.
Only the Western Wall of it stands today.
Where to see God?
Jesus was the gift, the bribe shall we say, for God to forgive us.
And now we see God face to face, where?
Love.
The musical version of Victor Hugo’s classical novel by the one-masterpiece-wonders: “to love another person IS to see the face of God.”
Joan Osborne’s bluesy voice, wondering if God WAS one of us.
People used to go to caves, Temples.
People still come to church expecting to find God.
But where do you find God?
Certainly not in a building.
God …
through the breeze blowing through the trees,
through the sound of the birds singing,
the geese honking on their descent, home, to the reddish-orange water,
the laughter of youth,
the wisdom of our elders,
the tears of a stranger’s grief that feels like your own,
hands held in a circle,
palm in palm, heart to heart,
Christ in the middle.
Not in a cave.
Not in a Temple.
Not in any building.
In us, among us, beyond us.
That’s where we find God.
“How can we die to a life where sin ruled over us and then invite sin back into our lives?” ~Romans 6.2, vnt
It’s a good question, one Paul himself struggled with and only came up with a single answer. Being human. Being human is our greatest weakness sometimes:
Being human means putting your foot in your mouth.
Being human means stretching the truth.
Being human means being selfish.
Being human means doubting yourself.
Being human means holding a grudge.
Being human means sometimes wanting to pull the blankets over your head and spend the whole day in bed.
Being human means being a knucklehead sometimes.
Thank God we are more than that. We have some bit of heaven in us. An indwelling Spirit—the very breath of God—filling us so that the air we breathe, if we savor it, bears a hint of eternity.
And so we aspire to live beyond our weaknesses. Seeking truth. Sharing love. Living hope. Accepting our imperfections while honing our strengths. In all things glorifying God with thankful hearts. Daring to be other-than-human. Daring to be the children of radical grace—forgiven and driven.
