Jul 04 | How to hold power: Summer 2018 Preaching Series, Part 4
Today’s citations:
Now that church school is over we welcome the children of St. Margaret’s to join us for our preaching series on kings. The grownups may notice that I’m changing my tone a bit to be more accessible to our children.
This is our fourth Sunday working through the story of the first kings of Israel, Saul, David, and Solomon. We’ve noticed so far that many of the stories are given to us in chunks with big gaps.
And guess what? Today there’s another big gap!
The Hebrew Bible passage today is David’s lament over Saul and his sons, killed in battle. A lament is a way to express sad feelings – usually in song. So David sings a song about how sad he is that Saul and his sons are dead.
Now this might be confusing, because Saul and David are rivals. We learned that the people of Israel wanted a king, and though God didn’t think it was a good idea, she chose Saul to be their king. But Saul wasn’t a very good king, and didn’t listen to God, so God decided to make David the new king.
Saul was not pleased with this, and he was especially not pleased with the fact that David and his son Jonathan were best friends! So Saul tries to kill David, but David always escapes.
That gap I talked about earlier includes David trying to escape from Saul, while becoming a famous warrior. Unlike Saul, David always listens to God. Unlike Saul, who spoke to God only through the prophet Samuel, David can speak to God directly, one-on-one – and he does whenever he’s about to do something important.
David is also shown to be a good person. Twice in the story, he spares Saul’s life even though he has a chance to kill him, while Saul forgives David each time…and then seems to forget all about it. Saul also fights with his son Jonathan, who tries to tell Saul that David has never done wrong, but Saul won’t listen.
One day fate catches up to them, and Saul and Jonathan are killed. David cries for his best friend…and Saul, and sings about how brave they were.
David’s heart is full of kindness and mercy toward others, and trusts totally in God. In these chapters, David is a role model, showing us how we should be with God.
What’s interesting, though, is that David does not stay perfect forever. We will hear about that story in the next couple of weeks.
What happens to the good king David? It might have to do with power.
See David isn’t born a king. He is born a shepherd, the youngest of the sons of Jesse. When Samuel asks Jesse to bring his sons to Samuel because one of them will become king, Jesse doesn’t even bring David! He thinks that there’s no way David would be the one. And yet, David is the one.
And of course many of us know the story of David and Goliath. David goes out to meet the giant Goliath [and help me out, everyone].
Does he go out wearing armour? No! Saul tries to put armour on him and it’s too heavy, so he takes it off!
Does he bring a sword to kill Goliath? No! What does he bring? Five stones from the riverbed, for his slingshot. And he doesn’t even need five! The first one brings Goliath down.
David is not powerful on his own. God is always with him. But you’ll notice that once David becomes king, he does well for a little while, but eventually falls victim to pride and greed.
This is different from what happened to Saul, whose sin was never really trusting God. David trusts…but maybe the power started to go his head.
David is at his most generous and kind when he has no power, on the run from jealous Saul.
Not everyone who has power is unkind, just as not everyone who has no power is kind. But when we know what it’s like to be weak or helpless, it’s often easier to help others who are. History shows us that the more power a person has, the more they want. And the longer someone stays powerful, or rich, or celebrated, the harder it is to remember a time when they weren’t. And if you have always been those things, it’s even harder.
You can see this with all of those isms: racism, sexism, classism, ableism, nationalism, homophobia. All of these things are ways for one group to say they’re better than another, to say that the other group is stupid or evil. They all come from one group having power over another, and trying to hold it instead of letting go.
Jesus, a king greater than David, shows us how we should really hold power.
In the story, a kind person, Jairus, begs Jesus to save his daughter. I say he’s kind because back then, a lot of people believed that daughters were not as important as sons. Jairus loves his daughter so much that he begs Jesus to save her, even though the people with him think there’s no point because of how sick she is.
Jesus being Jesus of course agrees to help – by using his healing power.
Then we get the story about the woman with the hemorrhage. A hemorrhage is a constant flow of blood, which sounds bad enough, but it was even worse. Not only had this woman spent all her money trying to get better, but the ancient laws written in the Book of Leviticus wouldn’t allow her to be a full member of the community because of her illness. Desperate, she sees Jesus, and her faith in his power is so strong that she decides to touch his clothes. This was a risky thing for her to do. Jesus was a rabbi, a holy man, and again, according to the ancient laws, a sick woman like her should never touch him. It sounds mean, but people believed back then that you had to be healthy and ready to do or touch something holy, because if you weren’t you could get hurt: the ancient version of touching a hot burner.
But the woman touches Jesus anyway, maybe thinking he wouldn’t notice.
Again, Jesus being Jesus, he does notice.
Listen to the words the story uses: He became aware that power had gone out from him.
Jesus in this story is like one of those big transformer batteries – humming with power. And this woman reaches out, and a little bolt of goes from him to her, like lightning hitting a tree. Maybe it felt that way to her too. All of a sudden she stops bleeding.
Jesus has so much power, but he’s happy to walk through a crowd letting anyone touch him. But even though the disciples tell him nothing happened, he notices, and looks around until the poor woman comes forward. She’s afraid because she touched a holy man, and thinks he won’t be happy, because a holy man knows those holy laws.
But he doesn’t scold her. He congratulates her for her faith, and says it has made her well.
It sounds funny: the story already said she was healed, but Jesus says she’s healed again.
Maybe this let everyone else know that she was healthy again, and could come back.
All kings have the power to divide and unite.
And of course, the story doesn’t end there, because then, after Jesus willingly shares power again: power enough to bring a little girl back to life, giving her the chance to rise up and be known as one who conquered death. I see this story as a feminist story, if you can’t tell. Little girl, get up – rise up, claim yourself.
This is what King Jesus wants for all of us – to come to him with all of our fears and hurts, to not be afraid to touch him, to come to him even when we think it’s too hard or too late to do so, because it never is, never.
Any king can be cruel, and any king can be kind. What makes King Jesus special is that he came not to be served, but to serve.