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David Part 1: 1 Samuel 16:1-11
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
When someone speaks and you cannot sense an honest humility in their voice and in their views and perhaps more importantly in their confidence in themselves, this is not someone you should get in line to follow. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad you're here, and we hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Welcome.
Speaker 1:My name is Jeremy. It's great to have you here with us. We just finished a series looking at the three temptations of Christ. We'll look back at that in a moment. Today, we are starting a new series focusing on the life and stories of David.
Speaker 1:We'll get there shortly as well. But, of course, this is also the Sunday closest to Canada Day. And so we want to celebrate the incredible privilege that it is to live here in Canada and to be able to worship freely as we do. That is a blessing, and we do not take it lightly. But, of course, to celebrate the sesquicentennial also means to acknowledge the many first nations and indigenous peoples who lived here on these lands long before Canada was founded 150 ago.
Speaker 1:And so for all of those reasons, it really is a privilege for us to live and meet here in Canada on treaty lands, and we want to acknowledge that. Now last week, we wrapped up a series called anxiety. You can always catch up online if you missed anything. If you hit up commons.church on your phone, you'll find the links to our podcast and our YouTube channel at the bottom of the page. But the last series is complete.
Speaker 1:It's on the Internet, we have to move on to new stuff. So hopefully, can find that as a resource if you need it. Today though, we begin with David. And when you publish all of your teaching schedule and all of the artwork a year in advance like we do here at Clemens, you inevitably have people who like to read ahead and prepare for what's coming. That's great.
Speaker 1:We love that. But since the artwork for the series has been available for a year now, we have been asked all throughout the year, what is with that DVD series coming up? Of course, you know now, this is not a series about DVDs. Does anyone even remember those? Man, life comes at you fast, bro.
Speaker 1:But no, this is a series about David. And that DVD moniker that's on the screens is actually the Hebrew spelling or at least an anglicized Hebrew spelling of the name David. You see, in the Hebrew language, they don't have vowels. Now, of course, they have to pronounce vowels. And so much later on in the development of the language, a system was developed by a group of scribes called the Masoretes to make a series of dots and dashes above and below the words to signal how the vowels are pronounced.
Speaker 1:But the core Hebrew written language was originally just consonants. And so the original spelling of the name David is simply Dalet Vav Dalet, with the English equivalent DVD. So that's where the artwork comes from. But there's also something interesting here for us as followers of Jesus as well. Because the Hebrew language was obviously quite primitive when it was first created.
Speaker 1:And so these consonant letters were also used for the numbers in Hebrew. An English equivalent would be something like a equals one, b equals two, c equals three. But if you take the Hebrew letters, Dalet, Vav, Dalet, and you find their numeric equivalent, you get four six four. Or if you add that up, 14. And if you were to take the number 14 and you were to flip to the start of the New Testament, you would find this strange passage right at the start of the gospel of Matthew where the writer sets out to give us the genealogy of Jesus.
Speaker 1:And that might sound pretty boring, but there's something interesting here. Because the writer lists three sets of 14 generations. And then he says, thus there were 14 generations in all from Abraham to David. 14 from David to the exile in Babylon and 14 from the exile to the Messiah. Now, there is no realistic historical way to take the claim that there were exactly 14 generations from Abraham to David, from David to exile, and from exile to Jesus literally.
Speaker 1:But that's not the point here. Because just like in our last series, when the writer wanted to say that Jesus was in some sense the new Moses, here these genealogies in the Gospel of Matthew are saying Jesus is in some sense the new David. Or perhaps you might say it this way, a son of David. Jesus is the messianic king come to claim his rightful place in the world. And so fourteen fourteen fourteen is a way of saying right from the opening words of the gospel, David, David, David, Jesus is a son of David.
Speaker 1:And what that should tell us is that exploring these stories this summer is not just an exercise in finding fun tales to tell, although they certainly are that. But, no, the story of David is the imaginative soil from which the early Christian understandings of Jesus began to emerge. In other words, knowing the story of David and its place in the Hebrew tradition is actually vital for understanding the story of Jesus and how he brings the larger story of the Bible to its fulfillment. So let's pray. And then today, we have the introduction to DVD.
Speaker 1:Lord, in the light of the celebration of our nation's founding, would you remind us once again of the blessings we experience by virtue of where we stand? For all the ways that we are privileged to work and live in worship and freedom here in Canada. We thank you. And so in that thanks, we now recommit ourselves to the common good. We pledge to extend our voice and our resources, our energy, everything we have to give back and contribute to this place, to this neighborhood, this city, and this country that we call home.
Speaker 1:Yet in doing so, we recognize both the beautiful and the tragic moments of our shared history. We acknowledge the histories of indigenous peoples that extend much farther back than our own. May we choose to learn diligently from the past and to serve humbly in the future so that your kingdom might come here in this place in new ways. Now as we turn our attention to these ancient stories, to the Hebrew kings and the glorious heights and the tragic failures, would we be prepared to listen and to learn and to watch for the ways in which Jesus is present to us even here in these stories. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Alright. We are starting David today. And so it would seem to make sense to start at the start, and yet we actually need to start before the start. Because even though David is absolutely the most famous king of Israel, he is not the first king of Israel.
Speaker 1:That's important. You see before the kings, the Israelites had judges. And instead of being monarchs who ruled by family lineage, these judges were leaders that rose up in times of crisis to rally the people and lead them through. And so in the book of judges, have men like Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, and Gideon. But then you also have a woman named Deborah who rises to lead the nation in a time of crisis.
Speaker 1:The fact that even in an ancient patriarchal society, a woman like Deborah was able to rise to the highest position in the land should have told them and by extension us that leadership based on nothing but your name and your social designation was not going to be a good idea. And yet, in the books of Samuel, who by the way was the last judge of Israel, we read that when Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel's leaders. The name of his first born was Joel. The name of his second was Abijah, and they served in Beersheba. But his sons did not follow his ways.
Speaker 1:They turned aside after dishonest gain and they accepted bribes and perverted justice. So the old saying is the apple may not fall far from the tree, but sometimes it falls and then rolls down the hill into the ditch and that's what happens here. All the leaders or the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and they said to him, you are old and your sons do not follow your ways. Now appoint a king to lead us such as all the other nations have. So what we have here is a little international envy.
Speaker 1:Everyone else has a king. Why don't we have a king? Miss Canadians, I think we can identify with this a bit. We sometimes have a little envy when we look south of the border. Although probably not as much right now.
Speaker 1:Regardless, Samuel doesn't want to do this. And he realizes that even his sons, if they are bad leaders, at least they are just leaders. You see, to make someone a king, to call them a monarch in that way would be to usurp the place that was meant to be reserved for God in the Hebrew imagination. Now, up until this point, leaders were leaders and they would come and go as needed, but God was king in Israel. And so in first Samuel, God actually says that by asking for a king, the people have rejected me.
Speaker 1:God takes this all very personally. And so god says, listen. A king is not what you want. A king will take advantage of you. A king will take the best for himself, and he will leave the scraps for you.
Speaker 1:You really do not want this. But the people say, yes. Absolutely, yes. We do. And it reminds me of my son a while ago while I was drinking some tonic water.
Speaker 1:I really love tonic and lime, and there's this other thing that I put in there sometimes, but I can't remember it right now. Anyway, was drinking some of this tonic water, and my son asked me if you could have some. And I said, you won't like it. And he said, yes, I will. And I said, no, you won't.
Speaker 1:And he said, yes, I will. So I went, and I got some tonic, and I poured him a very small amount of straight tonic water to let him try it because I knew he wouldn't like it. And he took a sip. And he made this ridiculous face as it touched his lips because let's be honest, three year olds do not like quinine. And then he turned to me and he said, through squinted eyes, I do like it.
Speaker 1:And now I have a son who asks for tonic all the time just to prove me wrong, and this is a thing that happens in our house. But there is something here for all of us to learn about the allure of toxic leaders. God says, this is not going to be good for you. And the people say, we don't care. We want it anyway.
Speaker 1:And you see, as human beings, we are often drawn to the things that are not good for us. And when it comes to leaders, we are often drawn to the loudest voices. The person who looks the most confident. We're drawn to the person who speaks not with the most earned authority, but with the sharpest sense of artificial clarity. And we fall into this trap in politics.
Speaker 1:We fall into in churches. And, apparently, we have been falling for it for a very long time. About a decade ago, Jean Lipman Blumen actually wrote the book on this phenomenon. It was called the allure of toxic leaders. And in it, she identified the basic needs that drive us to look for leaders that act like kings.
Speaker 1:She said we have a need for clarity. And so we tend to look for someone who sounds like they're in charge. We have a need for security. And so we look for someone who claims that they can keep us safe. We have a need to feel special and important.
Speaker 1:And so what happens is we look for someone who tells us that we are unique in the world, someone who can clearly identify who the good guys and the bad guys are for us, and then tell us over and over and over again that we have the power to defeat our enemies. But if that's the kind of king that God is trying to save us from here, then perhaps we shouldn't buy it when people try to make God sound just like that. So in all of its blazing irony, I will say this with whatever authority I have here in this room. When someone speaks and you cannot sense an honest humility in their voice and in their views and perhaps more importantly in their confidence in themselves. This is not someone you should get in line to follow.
Speaker 1:Now that's not to say that we don't need leaders. Of course, we do. We all play different roles in community and some of us are called to lead in unique ways. But too often, the people that we look to are the ones who need to learn how to follow first. However, even after warning them, in all of his graciousness, God relents and he allows Samuel to anoint a king in Israel.
Speaker 1:There was a Benjamite, a man of standing whose name was Kish. And this man Kish had a son named Saul. As handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else. And that obviously sounds like a great reason to choose a king, doesn't it? He was rich.
Speaker 1:He was handsome. He was tall. Boom. Let's make this guy the king. What could ever possibly go wrong with that?
Speaker 1:And yet, despite all the incredible signs that Saul, son of Kish, would have been a fantastic king, things do go wrong almost from the start. And even before Saul's reign can get its feet underneath it, a regime change is brewing. God actually says just five chapters later that he regrets allowing Saul to be made king. And that brings us now to the introduction of David. And we're gonna read first Samuel chapter 16 from verse one through to verse 11 today, and I'll make some comments as we go.
Speaker 1:And this will introduce us to David and set up the stories that will follow this summer. And so in verse one, we read that God said to Samuel, fill your horn with oil and be on your way. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem for I have chosen one of his sons to be king. But Samuel said, how can I go? If Saul hears about this, he will kill me.
Speaker 1:Anointing a new king while there's an old king is not a good move. But the Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate. Now, this is interesting.
Speaker 1:Because if it's not sanctioning lying, then God seems to be sanctioning some light deception here. If you're a fan of the show Arrested Development, I believe the term is light treason. And if you didn't chuckle at that, then you need to go and watch Arrested Development, at least season two one more time. But we have to read this through the lens of an ancient storyteller anthropomorphizing God. As Walter Brueggemann says about this verse, this may not be an outright lie.
Speaker 1:For Samuel does take an animal for the occasion, but this is pretty clearly an authorized deception. We know that God will not lie, but here we see that he is for David. And so Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, do you come in peace?
Speaker 1:Now remember here, Samuel is the one who anointed king Saul. And so people know Samuel is a bit of a big deal. And even if he's an old man, when Samuel comes to town, people get nervous. Perhaps, the falling out between Samuel and Saul may have leaked out into the towns. And so people are worried, is he gonna draw us into some kind of trouble here?
Speaker 1:Is he gonna try to recruit us in some kind of rebellion and against the king? We don't wanna get involved. We just wanna go about our lives. But Samuel replies, don't worry. I have come in peace.
Speaker 1:I'm here to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me. And then he consecrated Jesse and his sons, and he invited them to the sacrifice as well. So Samuel has done everything God has asked him. Now we're about to meet Jesse's boys, and Samuel is going to anoint one of them as the new king.
Speaker 1:Verse six. When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and he thought, surely the Lord's anointed stands before the Lord. Now Eliab is the first and the oldest of Jesse's sons. And whatever Samuel sees here standing in front of him, he is pretty impressed. And yet in verse seven, the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height for I have rejected him.
Speaker 1:The Lord does not look at the things that people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. It's kind of a famous passage here. Now we don't know anything about Eliab other than this, and this language the Lord has rejected him has to be read with some nuance to it. The point here is not that Eliab is some bad guy and God doesn't like him.
Speaker 1:The point here is that Eliab fits the mold of what a leader is supposed to look like, and God has rejected that filter. So hear me because this is important. Tall, attractive, muscular men like myself, we're not the bad guys in the story. Okay? That was a joke.
Speaker 1:I know it was subtle, but it was a joke. No. The point here is that Israel tried picking a king based on this type of criteria, and it didn't go well. Now God wants to try something different. And one of the really interesting things here is the personality with which God speaks.
Speaker 1:In English, the translators have supplied the title of the Lord liberally in this passage. And that's just to help us make sense of the flow, to help us understand who's speaking. But in the Hebrew, what God actually says is something more like my way of seeing is not like yours. I see to the center of things. And the translators have used this English word heart, for this Hebrew word here.
Speaker 1:And that makes a lot of sense in English. It's a good translation except that we sometimes use heart a little too flippantly to really properly translate levav. Perhaps something more like inner being or perhaps even inner world would be more appropriate here. In the New Testament, when Jesus calls back to Deuteronomy and he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. That, like all of that is levav.
Speaker 1:One of my dictionaries describes levav this way. This is the comprehending mind, the affections, and the will together. All of that. So God is not looking at how strong you are. God is not looking at how smart you are.
Speaker 1:God is not looking at how you feel about things. God is interested in all of that together as the totality of you. And so if you have ever felt like because you didn't lean into those aspects of your personality that looked like traditional leadership qualities or because you didn't fit the mold of what others around you looked for in a leader, that that meant you were somehow destined to play a secondary role in God's story. That is nonsense. Because when God looks, God sees you.
Speaker 1:He sees this unique constellation of different strengths and commitments and weaknesses and abilities that comes together to create you here in this moment. All of that is what God gives witness to when he looks at you. And so to Samuel's surprise, it is not Eliab that God is after. There's something deeper that God is looking for. And so Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel.
Speaker 1:But Samuel said, the Lord has not chosen this one either. Jesse had Shema pass by, but Samuel said, nor has the Lord chosen this one. Jesse had seven of his sons passed before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, the Lord has not chosen any of these. And so he asked Jesse, are these all the sons that you have? Well, Jesse answered, there is still the youngest, but he is out tending the sheep.
Speaker 1:And this is, of course, where we're going to meet David, where we finally meet the protagonist and we will be off and running for the summer. But before we get to that introduction of David, there is one more thing we need to speak of here. Because we have already mentioned the importance of numbers in the Hebrew culture, and seven is an important number in Hebrew as well. It's often described as the number of God or it's the number for completion or even perfection in the Hebrew imagination. It's a number that shows up all through the Hebrew texts.
Speaker 1:And when you read the number seven, you really should be at least open to the idea that something metaphorical rather than historical is happening here in the story. The the writer's trying to do something, signal something. And yet, how is the number seven used here? Well, seven sons are paraded in front of Samuel. The number for completion and perfection and still the new king hasn't been found.
Speaker 1:The story is supposed to be over and yet it's not. You see, if you're an ancient Hebrew reading this and Eliab and then Abinadab and Shammah is passed by, you're starting to say to yourself, okay, I think I see where this is going. We've got more sons. There's gonna be seven of them, and it's gonna be the last one, the final one, the one who brings the story to its completion, that closes it and wraps it all up. That's where it's gonna go.
Speaker 1:I get it. And yet, except just when you think it's going to go that way, the text subverts those expectations and says, Jesse had seven sons passed before Samuel, and God still said, nope. Well, that doesn't make any sense. The story is over, and there's still a chapter to go. But that's the point here.
Speaker 1:Because this placement of David as the eighth son is signaling that God's choice in this story is an actual and honest outsider who comes from outside the bounds of the expected story. The one who will not play to type, the one whose father didn't even think to call him in from the field for the ceremony. And what's really fascinating about this is that in first chronicles, written hundreds of years after David, where the stories of David are recaptured and rewritten to be celebrated. David is referred to there as the seventh son of Jesse. That's first Chronicles two fifteen.
Speaker 1:When the chronicler looks back and wants to memorialize David, he wants to say that David was the chosen king, the final and the complete son. He says he was the seventh son who became the king we needed. And he completely misses the point of the story. Because the story of David is all about not the king we wanted, not the one we expected. This is about how God uses people who don't fit the mold to break the mold.
Speaker 1:And so trying to retroactively put David back in the box as the seventh son misses the point. Just as if we were to read through the stories of David this summer and try to gloss his errors and lionize his victories at the expense of the rawness of these tales, we would miss the point as well. Because this story of David is all about how the people who don't fit are exactly the people that God is intent on bringing into and using in his story. And so Samuel said, send for him. We will not sit down until he arrives.
Speaker 1:And this is where we will end this week. On the verge of entering into a story that will require us to suspend our assumptions and reserve our judgments and to look past where we think the story is complete to recognize that God is interested in writing another chapter. To read honestly and openly expecting only that God will undermine our assumptions this summer and invite us to see him in new places through new people. And in that surprise, my hope is that you might come to see yourself in new ways as we read these stories of DVD. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, help us to immerse ourselves in these stories of David this summer, to sink into the depths of his mistakes and the tragic flaws in his character, and the hurt and the pain that's caused through his lifetime. And yet also to celebrate the victories that he has, the good choices that he makes, and the way that he shapes your story as it leads toward your son. But God, would you help us not simply to gloss over the mistakes and lionize the victories, but to really experience the rawness of what we're reading. In the way that it doesn't play to type. In the way that it subverts our expectations, in the way that we think when the story is done, there is always something new to be said.
Speaker 1:And God, once we get that, and we see your storytelling in these tales, God, would we then be able to look at ourselves with new eyes to recognize that where we may think there's a dead end or where we may think a chapter has ended, you are just starting to begin a new imagination for what comes next. God, would we be able to look at ourselves? Would we see the people around us with bold expectation of what could be? Not writing people off or shutting things down, but being open to the future the way that you are. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen.