Word to the Wise
Friday, January 18, 2008 - FRIDAY IN THE FIRST WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
[1 Samuel 8:4-7, 10-22A and Mark 2:1-12]"Grant the people's every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king."
Students of government, history and organizational psychology will recognize the process going on in the incident with Samuel, the people and the desire for a king. The implication in the incident is that the people have been paying more attention to what their neighbors have and little or no attention to the rule of the Lord. It may be that the elders noted that having a single leader would unite the tribes more easily for common battle. God tells Samuel that the people are rejecting the Lord and will consequently pay the price for having a king. Samuel gives them a list of the dangers. The people deny all of it and insist on a king. What they get is Saul, who was very unstable and given to paranoid rages! In fact, when all is said and done, Hezekiah and Josiah are the only kings that get high grades in the biblical chronicles. David is important because God made the promise of a savior in his line, but David could be charismatic at one moment and lecherous at another. It goes on and on. Only Saul, David and Solomon get to reign over a united kingdom. It all falls apart just as Samuel predicts. It is amazing that we will accept the convenience of a secular government that consistently makes bad decisions or decisions that cause sorrow and despair to a large number of citizens. We call it "the price of democracy" or a necessary nuisance in a free land! And we blame these decisions either on that government or on those who hunger or suffer from whatever injustices are caused by legislative greed. We certainly don't blame ourselves. After all, all we did was to vote as citizens of a free land! We don't see our votes as moral acts, just making choices for governmental convenience. We don't see this as rejecting the rule of God, only making sure we have a stable ruling mechanism! The prophet Samuel simply says what Lord Acton would say centuries later: "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." Our civic choices are gospel choices whether we like it or not! AMEN
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