Homily: 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
Friends,
in our first reading today, we’ve been given this tiny little snippet of a much
greater story contained in the first book of Samuel. The snippet conveys the message that the
Church wants us to receive, but it doesn’t convey the drama of the moment. That’s a shame, because it’s a great dramatic
moment and I think that we would benefit from a more detailed telling of the
story. Without going back and reading
the whole thing to you, let me try to put some “meat” on the “bones” of the
story that we heard today.
Saul
was the first king of the Israelites.
The great prophet, Samuel, who had been the de facto ruler of the
Israelites for many years, was in his final days and his sons were men of very
poor character: none of them truly worthy to succeed Samuel and govern the
Israelites. So the people asked for a
king, in spite of the warnings from God about the suffering a worldly king
would create. Samuel gave them their
first king when he anointed Saul. Saul
was the king they expected at first: winning military victories and giving the
Israelites a prominent name among the kingdoms of the Ancient Near East. Saul disobeyed the Lord, however, and thus
was doomed to suffer a series of military defeats before he himself was killed
in battle.
It
was during one of these defeats that David came into prominence. The Philistines (the Israelites’ arch-enemy)
were camped against the Israelites, prepared for battle. They had a champion warrior, Goliath, and so
sent him out to battle the best soldier from the Israelite camp: one-on-one,
winner takes all. No Israelite soldier
would step forward, except David. And we
know this story: with one rock and a slingshot, David defeated Goliath. From that point on, David would be a lead
officer in Saul’s army, winning his own prominence that began to supersede
Saul’s.
Saul
became furiously jealous of David: eventually deciding that he had to kill him. David fled and Saul (with his elite officers)
pursued him doggedly. David, with a
small cohort of men who were loyal to him, managed to keep ahead of Saul and
his army. Enter today’s story.
One
night, David and his right-hand-man Abishai discover Saul’s camp. David and Abishai sneak into the camp and
somehow get all the way to Saul (the reading tells us that God was working for
them, as he had put all of the army and king Saul into a “deep slumber” so that
they wouldn’t wake up). There, David has
the opportunity to kill Saul outright... with Saul’s own spear, even! Abishai, too, recognizes the import of the
moment: “God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day!”, he says. So excited is Abishai that he offers to kill
Saul himself. David, however, thinks
twice.
You
see, David was a man whom the Scriptures described as being “a man after God’s
own heart”. His first loyalty was to the
Lord, the God of Israel. David knew that
Samuel, the great prophet of God, had anointed Saul king because God had chosen
Saul. Therefore, David knew that,
without a clear message from God ordering him to do so, to kill king Saul would
be a grave offense against God. It’s
almost as if David thought, “If God has chosen him, then God must decide his
fate”. And so, instead of taking the
opportunity to kill king Saul, he simply stole Saul’s spear and water jug so as
to prove that he had the opportunity to kill him and thus, hopefully, to
inspire Saul to end his pursuit of him (spoiler alert: it did). /// We can
acknowledge this as a very noble decision on David’s part, of course; but
perhaps we should pause for just one moment to recognize what a truly difficult
decision it was that David made.
Imagine
for a moment that you had to abandon your house and your livelihood because
someone in power over you has decided that you should die. (Maybe for some of you here, this isn’t so
hard for you to imagine. Maybe you or
someone you know has experienced this very situation in your home country.) You have a small band of friends around you,
but day-in and day-out you are in hiding: constantly in fear of being
discovered; and, having been discovered, of being killed. Now imagine that, as you are running, you one
day discover that you are in a position of advantage over this person who is
pursuing you and you are handed a perfect opportunity to attack and completely
neutralize this enemy: could you really resist attacking? Imagine how angry you’ve been at your
pursuer. Imagine praying to God that
this pursuit would end: perhaps even that he would give you a means to bring
this pursuit to the end. Now, there you
are! A perfect opportunity to end this
pursuit and even exact revenge on this person who has ruined your life: with
his own weapon, nonetheless! Is it
really going to be easy to do the “noble” thing and walk away with only the
proof that you could have revenged
that wrong? Are you sure? ///
Let
me ask it this way: when you are slighted (offended) by a friend, family
member, coworker, neighbor, your own spouse—by anyone, really—how easy is it to
resist cutting that person down when you are “venting” to someone else? Or do you not immediately begin to think
about the opportunity you’ll have to destroy that person when talking to others
later (or, worse yet, on social media)?
If you’re anything like me, it’s incredibly hard to do the noble thing
and to keep my mouth shut, when all I want to do is lash out. Often, that’s exactly what I do: I enact
revenge on the one who hurt me as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
As
I said, David was “a man after God’s own heart”. He knew that God’s justice would serve him
much better than any “vigilante justice” that he could enact. He remembered, as our Psalm response reminds
us today, that “the Lord is kind and merciful” and so he showed Saul
mercy. He also knew, as Jesus taught his
disciples in today’s Gospel reading, that the “measure with which he measured
would be measured out to him”, and so he showed Saul mercy, because he believed
that one day he may need mercy shown to him.
(Sure enough, one day David would need God’s mercy and he would receive
it.)
Friends,
let’s take a moment to imagine what our world would be like if we—even just us who
are Christian—would strive to live this teaching of Jesus. Wouldn’t hearts be changed? I’m convinced that it would be. There’s a scene in the TV series The Chosen, in which Jesus and his disciples
are on the road and encounter a band of Roman soldiers who force them to carry
their equipment on their way in the opposite direction. The disciples resist, but Jesus instructs them
to do as they’ve been told. The soldiers
even force the disciples to wear their helmets in order to deride them further. After one mile, the soldiers decide to relieve
them of their burden, but Jesus looks at them and says, “The town is still one
mile further; we’ll keep going.” At
this, the demeanor of the soldiers changes. They remove their helmets from Jesus and the disciples
and stop deriding them the rest of the way.
David
changed Saul’s heart by showing him mercy, instead of enacting revenge. Jesus (in this fictitious example) changed the
hearts of the soldiers by showing them kindness, even in the face of their wickedness.
Friends, this is the kingdom of God; and
we are called to build it.
Friends,
open your bibles this week to the first book of Samuel, chapter 26 and the Gospel
of Luke, chapter 6, and read through this story of David and Saul once again in
light of Jesus’ teaching about loving our enemies. Then reflect on where in your life is the opportunity
to love as Jesus commands. Then, pray
the Lord’s prayer, especially focusing on the phrase, “forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. In doing so, you will make yourself more open
to living out the grace that we celebrate and receive in this Eucharist: God’s
mercy given to us.
Given at St. Augustine Parish: Rensselaer, IN – February 22nd
and 23rd, 2025
Given at Sacred Heart Parish: Remington, IN – February 23rd,
2025
No comments:
Post a Comment