Sunday, February 23, 2025

Mercy and kindness changes hearts

 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

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