St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
1 Samuel 8: 1-22
Marianne Niesen
June 7, 2015
Just Like Everyone Else
Samuel was a prophet in Israel. And he was a good one. But he was getting old and so he
began to transfer power and authority to his sons. I’m sure he hoped they’d learned well from
him and would carry on with justice and grace as he had. But they didn’t. And the people
weren’t happy. Listen . . .
Sometimes the events we read about in the Bible are difficult to understand. Sometimes
we read about customs that are obscure or demands that trouble us . . . like when Abraham
passed Sarah, his wife, off as his sister and offered her to another man. Or when a father gives
his daughters to the men of the city to rape. Those kinds of things ought to trouble us and bring
us up short. But that is not true with this text. Though we are separated by thousands of years
from those Israelites, every one of us here knows what it is like to want to fit in. “Sam, your
sons aren’t like you. We’re thinking need to get us a king.” A king? Why a king? “So we can be
like all the other nations.”
This is a significant moment in Israel’s history. From the beginning, they had known
themselves to be ‘a people set apart.’ It was, frankly, their identity. They had no constitution –
they had a covenant. With their God. And, unlike the god of the Canaanites, the God of Israel
was nameless. When asked for a name, their God had replied “I am who I am.” That was it.
And so their God could only be described. Their God was . . . the Holy One, the One who led
us out of Egypt, a Rock, a Fortress, a Deliverer, our King. There was no earthly ruler. And there
was no legislature. Just a covenant with an un-named God. They had rules, of course – rules
that came from God, specifically designed to set them apart. The Israelites were different in
what they ate and what they wore and how they worshipped. It had to be difficult to be a people
living a covenant with a God who had no name and who could speak anywhere – in a bush, on a
mountain, in a dream, in a still small voice outside a cave, in a prophet’s warning. They were
indeed a people ‘set apart’ which was both a privilege and a pain.
In today’s text, we find them in pain. And so they went to their trusted resident prophet
and said we want a king just like the other guys have! You can imagine the conversation
spilling over into things like . . . then we’ll just let the king talk to the One-Who-Cannot-BeNamed - or maybe - then we won’t stick out so much - or maybe - then we can relax a little. Or
maybe . . . then we won’t have to worry so much about those irritating covenant rules like being
kind to our enemies or keeping the Sabbath. The arguments for a king got quite practical when
we actually hear them say in the text . . . then we’ll have someone to go out before us and lead us
into battle. That may, of course, been the real presenting issue. There were enemies all around
and these folks were just plain tired of waiting and trusting and hoping in the Holy One.
It is interesting in the text that Samuel doesn’t want to listen to them at all - but God does.
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God’s love seems to be indulgent and though God’s covenant partners are clearly wanting to
stray, for God, the covenant love remains steadfast. God only asks a reluctant Samuel to warn
them what they are in for. And so Samuel does. His speech is literally a catalog of the abuse of
royal power. Kings will do you in, he warns – which of course is exactly what happens later in
Jewish history. But he also describes much of what would have been evident all around them.
Royal abuses abounded. Open your eyes, Samuel warns! He is like a parent . . . is that really
what you want? Being like everyone else isn’t what you think it is. You’ll be sorry! (Have you
ever tried to warn a growing child or a determined teen about the ‘what ifs’ of certain behavior?
Think of a time you were warned and were later sorry. At one time or another, we’ve all been
there.) The most surprising character in the text is God who, at the end, says simply give them a
king. And, while clearly saddened, God doesn’t abandon the covenant.
What’s the message for us? This is a snapshot of a moment in our ancestor’s history
when, in the midst of crisis, they wanted to quit. From the beginning, the Israelites knew
themselves as a covenant people in partnership with God. They were different from others.
They lived by different values and a different ethic of leadership. They were partners with God
in doing good. They were to work for a different kind of justice in the world – an economic
justice where all had enough. They were to recognize God’s sovereignty and keep one day of the
week holy, thus deferring to God’s power. And they didn’t want to do it any more. Alternative
living was just too difficult! And, folks, that hasn’t changed. The world has changed. The issues
have changed. But the difficulty of the challenge to ‘do the right thing anyway’ remains.
From a Bible Commentary on this text, I found this. “A man whose father was a pastor
in California at the start of World War II confided that his father had been guilt stricken for his
entire life because he had failed to say a word of protest when a close personal friend and
neighbor of Japanese descent was taken to an internment camp and had his home and business
seized. As a pastor in the community, he thought he might have made a difference, but he
remained silent. The crisis of war with Japan was real, but he compromised his deepest faith
commitments because of the pressure of public sentiment and the fear of seeming different. It is
a pressure to be “like other nations” that we have all known. At its simplest, it is a personal
unwillingness to be identified as a person of faith in our communities and workplaces. At its
most demonic, it is a church that accommodates itself to evil in the name of patriotism and
produces a Nazi Germany or an ethnic cleansing.”1
The temptation to ‘be like everyone else’ is fundamentally a spiritual one. It always has
been. Following Jesus is a call to re-focus our lives on covenant values. Jesus didn’t start
something new so much as he called people back to a covenant that distinguished them. He
challenged his followers to be about the business of healing the sick and feeding the hungry and
welcoming the outcasts – whether they deserved it or not. He took time to pray and to rest even
amidst the busyness of life. And perhaps most strikingly, he refused to use violence. And so he
led those who would follow him in the way of offering compassion, working for economic
justice and living non-violence. And over and over again the church, and good Christian people,
1
The New Interpreters Bible, Vol. 2, Abingdon Press, ©1998, p. 1030.
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have gotten into trouble any time we have tried to fit in better rather than be faithful to the call.
The Crusades, the Holocaust, various wars of religion, slavery, gender discrimination – have all
been justified by misinterpretations of the Bible and are evidence of the dangers of ‘wanting to
be like everyone else.’ It is interesting today that the most significant work for justice for
LGBTQ people in our ‘Christian’ nation today is being done not by churches but by the state and
the courts. I’m proud that our church, St. Paul’s, has studied this issue and, at the risk of making
some folks angry, has committed to follow Jesus on this one and to welcome all people in to the
full life and ministry of our congregation. It can be difficult to not fit in with what some would
call ‘traditional Christian values.’
Which all goes to say . . . we have more in common than we think with those Israelites.
They wanted to be like everyone else because living in relationship to God and each other took
work. Lots of work. It took listening and openness and discernment. It took a willingness to
make mistakes and try again. And it is to that kind of faith that Jesus calls us. And it won’t be
any easier for us than it was for Samuel’s folks. And there will be times we’d just like someone
to tell us what to do. That’s what the request for a king was about.
When he was 19 and a sophomore at Harvard, a man named Kent Keith wrote some
leadership challenges for high school student council leaders. It was during the 60’s and he
wrote them to challenge young people to have the courage of their convictions in a very
tumultuous time in their lives but also in the culture at large. He says his efforts were well
received. But then, he moved on and he continued in his life and work. Then, in 1997, he was at
a Rotarian meeting. It was just after Mother Teresa died and one of the members said he’d like
to read a poem she had written. Imagine Keith’s surprise to hear old familiar words, his
‘paradoxical commandments’ for student council leaders now attributed to Mother Teresa! Of
course, she never claimed to have written them. Someone had simply seen them on the wall of
one of her children’s homes in India and made an assumption. That fact alone fascinated Keith –
and moved him. He was astounded that his words, written so long ago for teens, had mattered to
someone like Mother Teresa. Still, they were his words and he had the book they were in to
prove it! But, he didn’t do the usual thing, the thing ‘everybody else’ might have done . . . sue
somebody for copyright infringement. Instead he simply wrote a little book telling the story and
sharing the commandments again. They go like this:
People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered,
LOVE THEM ANYWAY
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down
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by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
THINK BIG ANYWAY
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
FIGHT FOR A FEW UNDERDOGS ANYWAY
What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY
People really need help but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU'VE HAVE ANYWAY.2
The desire to fit in, to be expedient, to be like everyone else, is a human one. But, as followers
of Jesus, we are called to another way. It is a way rooted in the covenant God made with our
ancestors. It is the way of compassion, justice and non-violence. If we dare to follow we will be
odd to some, irritating to others and just plain different overall. Let’s follow Jesus anyway!
2
Kent Keith, Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, ©1992.
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