Through Whom?

Security is wonderful. We all need it; we deeply want it. I am speaking about securities that protect you from enemies, enable access to food, water, and shelter. To pursue happiness, to have freedoms, and to have essentials for life, are blessings. Having them we are moved to offer thanks. Having your basic needs feels wonderful indeed. As people of faith, we look to God for such blessings and offer deep thanks to God when they are realized. Remember our hymn which we call the Doxology: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

We look to God for these amazing blessings, but through whom do they come? By what agency are the main blessings secured? In the weeks between Memorial Day and Independence Day we likely think with profound thanksgiving at how, deep in the founding principles of this nation, we seek to secure the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Welling up within us is gratitude for individuals who have sacrificed in ultimate ways for our freedoms.

In the days of Samuel, in the Old Testament, the people craved this sort of security just as much as we do. They looked at the basic blessings of life as gifts of God. The question there too was through whom do these divine gifts come? In the days of Israel’s trek all about the wilderness, it was through the agency of the prophet Moses, that they were led to stay in the will of God. It was a survival journey, hoping to make it through the harshness of nature itself. When they entered the promised land, it was under the leadership of a different sort of prophetic figure, Joshua. He was a military leader with the mission of settling the tribes of Israel among the dangerous affairs of human powers.

They settled in the promised land as a confederacy of tribes, the children of Israel, and there rose the leadership of judges, who advised in the wisdom of God. It was called for especially when the various tribes needed a central authority to shore up strength against powerful neighboring enemies such as the Philistines. You might remember the names of Judges whose stories are recorded in the Book of Judges: Gideon, Deborah, and Sampson. The last in the line of Judges is Samuel.

As Samuel got on in age, the people knew his sons did not have the integrity to lead, and they were more afraid than ever, so they sought another system for their security. They cried loudly for a king to rule them. Samuel got an earful from them but interpreted it as a faulty, and sinful turning away from their allegiance to God, toward loyalty to a human. Here are a few parts of the passage we have as our First Lesson tomorrow. They are from various chapters in 1 Samuel:

All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and run before his chariots; … He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

They wanted a centralized form of authority and government, not “as needed” but permanently, and they were warned that this would cost them dearly and that they must realize that God would choose the king, and would not be displaced by this human agent of God’s care and direction. The people were challenged to realize that God is their help and their shield even if that help came through kingship. This cry was granted and it leads to the anointing of Saul, and at length to the classic, celebrated messianic line of King David.

It is important to remember that we look to God, as the source of all blessings and of life itself. We must not get lost in the figures and or agencies through whom this care comes. Our ultimate allegiance is to God. God’s people make up our family as Jesus said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:35) We look not to temporal sources, remembering what St. Paul said, “We look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)  All our hope in God is founded. Consider the first and last stanzas in this hymn (665)

All my hope on God is founded; he doth still my trust renew,
me through change and chance he guideth, only good and only true.
God unknown, he alone calls my heart to be his own.

Still from earth to God eternal sacrifice of praise be done,
high above all praises praising for the gift of Christ his Son.
Christ doth call one and all: ye who follow shall not fall.