They Have Rejected Me...

 1 Sam. 8: 4-20

Charles J. Tomlin, May 16th, 2021

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Series: The Roots of God’s Justice 6/20

 

 

Dear People of God, 

Today, I continue preaching on God’s requirement of justice for all people.  Although next week is Pentecost Sunday, today we talk about a tongue of fire.   Sometimes the power to tell and live the truth, burns  ‘like a fire’.  

     Recently I watched a story about Irish resistance to British dominance, which reminded me of our own American desire for independence.  But the Irish weren’t as successful, and in this story an Irish resister was shot in his hunger and fight for freedom.  Like a cowboy movie, they attempted to remove the bullet with a knife, then after removing the bullet, they took a poker from a fire and burned the wound to cauterize it and stop the bleeding. 

     A fire poker is a fitting picture of our subject today in our human pursuit for justice; the fire of truth-telling which is the fire of rebuke.    Rebuke is sometimes the only way to try to correct one another in a broken world.   The hope is that words of truth can be a more peaceful and constructive way to bring change and address human needs than war and strife.  Rebuke can be painful, but a strong attempt to slow the bleeding and loss of life that comes through injustice. 

     An important precursor to our text, is an obscure passage in the book called Numbers.   After some unrecognized folks were prophesying and preaching without the proper credentials, leaders came to Moses asking him to stop them.  Moses refused, responding quite unexpectedly that he wished that all God’s people become prophets (Num. 11:23).   

      While it may not be realistic that everyone start preaching,  the point Moses was making is that we all need to constructively, compassionately and considerately,  tell each other the truth, even if it hurts.   That’s what Jesus was doing, when he rebuked Peter after Peter refused to accept the idea that Jesus would suffer on the cross.  Rebuke is also what Paul was doing in Galatians, when again Peter is being rebuked for going backward on the gospel that accepts the uncircumcised.  Poor Peter, but his own errors than required rebuke remind us that even the best need to be held accountable with the truth.

     Rebuke is what Samuel is doing in our text today.  Now, let’s look closer at how rebuke fits into the call to God’s people to be a prophetic people and truth-telling people who pursue and do justice in an unjust and broken world.

 

GIVE US A KING (5)

     In this story about Samuel the final Judge of Israel, who is also considered the first Prophet, we have a story about a religious figure rebuking the political wish of the people for a King.    Samuel is using rebuke as a way to challenge people to seek justice among God’s people.  Acting like a prophet, Samuel is speaking the truth to the people in a way that later on the prophets will speak the truth both to people and to Kings too.    In this story, we are reminded that Prophets were truth tellers, not future or fortune tellers.   Since the prophets told the truth, their words were not only true but often predictive of what would happen in days to come.  By telling the truth and helping people face the truth, God was not so much trying to tell the future, as to move the people into their future with their eyes wide open to what having a king really means.  That is at the heart of what biblical prophecy was and is about; opening the people’s eyes to the truth of what they need to see and know to have a future with true hope of justice for all.

      Interestingly, prophecy  was not unique to Israel.  We know that through an ancient letter that was discovered in the ancient Semitic city of Mari, located in today’s Syria.  In 1933, a Bedouin discovered over 3000 letters dating back to before 2000 BC, to a Semitic, pre-Hebrew society located on the Euphrates River.  These letters contained a political and religious prophecies, mixing religion and politics, suggesting how religion  was already questioning the use of human, political power in that world.   What became unique in Israel was how ‘one God’ questioned the human use of power.   The spin that Hebrews put on everything was that all truth, and human truth too, found its ultimate source and truth in the one and only true God. 

     The rise of biblical prophecy went hand in hand with the rise of politics in Israel.    It was the desire for a king, and the rise of the power of kings in Israel that required the need of prophecy.   Prophecy was a primary way to wisely guide and properly question the use, misuse and abuse of human power.   Even today, the best use of biblical truth is help guide and call into question human uses of power so that the use of powerful remains more helpful, than hurtful, constructive, rather than destructive, responsive to human need, rather than self-serving, corrupt or oppressive .

     Most all of you who are over 60 remember the Watergate trials that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.  Those you over 40 will remember the trials that rebuked President Clinton for the Monika Lewisky affair.   That too was a historical moment of ‘speaking truth to power’ .   In another, more positive moment President Ronald Reagan spoke truth to power when before the Berlin, he uttered those unforgettable words, ‘Mr Gorbachov, take down this wall!’    That too was powered , speaking truth to power.   More recently, speaking truth to power took on a different angle with the Harvey Weinstein trial and the rise of the Me Too Movement.    This was also a brave, prophetic example of women speaking truth to and about powerful men who have physically and verbally abused them.  

      Perhaps the greatest examples of truth speaking to power are when Moses stood before Pharaoh demanding that God’s people be set free;  or when Jesus stood before the Roman Governor, Pontus Pilate and even by hardly uttering a word, Jesus made it look like Pilate was the one who was on trial.  Finally, the other major historical moment was when  Martin Luther started the Great Reformation.  He was standing before the Pope’s tribunal in Worms, Germany and spoke straight to the power over him, refusing to give up his preaching on injustice practices of the Roman Church:  ‘Here I stand, I will not recant.’   Luther spoke the truth to power and exposed the abuse of the church that had veered too far from biblical teaching Luther saw as a better way of redeeming people.

           More recently, the truth about abusive Priests within the Catholic church has been exposed, as people spoke the truth to power.    As the old saying goes, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.    This constant potential for abuse of power and privilege is why rebuke and protest is a needed and necessary practice, especially in a democracy like ours which is ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’. 

 

THEY HAVE REJECTED ME (7)

     In this story before us, however, the rebuke and protest, spoken through Samuel, as it will be spoken by most of the prophets too, comes directly from God.   God informs Samuel that it isn’t Samuel, but God himself who the people have rejected. As the people request a King, both the power of the King and the politics that come with having a King, will bring God’s own power and agenda into question.   By having a king like other nations, Israel will be in danger of losing their God given mission in the world, and could lose their focus on the special and unique calling God has given them.  

This clarifying rebuke of the will of the people is necessary because the ramifications of any human having such access to ‘power’ is corruptible both to the king and to the people themselves.    We all know how the biblical story itself, begins with humans trying to assume ‘godlike qualities’, as Adam and Eve follow the devil’s temptation to reject what God has commanded and attempt to live life by their own rules.   In that story, the devil tempts Adam and Eve into believing that God is trying to withhold something from them, rather having given them necessary  boundaries to assure continual access to the tree of life.

This same kind of thing is depicted in an even more personal way, by the the great German writer, Goethe. Goethe wrote Faustus, the most popular play in the German language.   In that play the main character Faustus,  makes a deal with the devil to trade his own soul so that he can have all the pleasures and riches of this world.  When he finally realized what he’s done, Faustus speaks one of the most tragic, but revealing lines, as Dr. Faustus finally realizes his mistake.  He says: “Was glänzt ist für den Augenblick geboren; Das Echte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.”   Translated, Faustus has realized that ‘Shiny things are only for a moment, but what is real impacts the future forever.  In other words, as we say, all that glitters isn’t gold.  We need to live for what is real and eternal, not what lasts only for a moment.  That’s what Dr. Faustus learned, but it was too late.   His soul was lost by going after all the wrong things in life.

C.S. Lewis, in his life as one of England’s brightest and best scholars, also came to understand that the ‘power’ and ‘promise’ of this world is nothing compared with he God’s promise of the world that is still to come.  In his book, “Till We Have Faces,” Lewis wrote: “I was the happiest when I longed the most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from.”

              Perhaps this is at the heart of the rejection Samuel feels and is the most important insight into the rebuke God delivers to His people, through the first prophet.   In this world, we can go after fine things, better things, and bigger things, just like the people who wanted a king, and thought that all their problems would be answered, and all their dreams would come true.  But the real truth is not about having, but its more about being and doing what is right, fair and just.   As the saying goes, life isn’t at its best when we are getting something, but life at its best is to  bloom where we are planted’ and how to be the people God has called us to be, right now in who we are and the right we are called to do.

            Most of you recall the Backstreet Boys, who were one of the most successful ‘boy’ bands in popular American history.  One boy who seemed destined to be one of those ‘boys’ rejected his chance for fame and fortune, and decided to enter the ministry instead.   Through his previous friendship with the Backstreet Boy’s founder Lou Pearlman, Burk Parsons was invited to audition for the group and was selected as part of that band which that was poised to be a group as popular as the Beatles. 

     Many of Burk’s Christian friends told him it would be a great platform to witness to the world.  But for Burk, it all came down to answering within himself whether he could be really be faithful to the Lord while singing all the  ‘lust-filled’ music of show business.   So, after rejecting that invitation, he later turned down becoming a member of N’Sync as well.   Burk decided, not once, but twice that he would rather keep his ‘soul’ than have the ‘world’.  He says he never regretted his decision, not even once, especially since most of the members of Backstreet Boys and N’Sync too, eventually went into drug rehab.    

 

THESE WILL BE THE WAYS (11)

     Can you understand what God was warning the people about?   This prophetic way of rebuke was to warn the people of the truth about power, which now serves as a way for us to continue to warn and tell the truth to power.  It’s a way to remind them, and us too, that everything we go after in this world comes with its costs, it’s  risks, and our success or gains come with greater responsibilities too.  And if we also exchange God’s rule over our hearts with human desires for prestige and power,  we too will create a new distances and spaces between us and the God who loves us as we are.   When we do that, it can have all kinds of negative consequences that can threaten our own true sense of self and soul.   

     However, in spite of the warnings and knowing the consequences, haven’t we all made decisions or gone after things, that we wished, we didn’t?  Haven’t we all wished we listened to some wise counsel, or to our parents simple words of advice, but we were too busy ‘going our own way’.   Part of that is normal in growing up and find our own way.   It was part of Israel’s growth process too.  But sometimes we grow too fast, and we go too far, so that we stop listening to those who try to warn us, and we end up making mistakes we live to regret.

There is a great line of wisdom in the book of Proverbs, which says that ‘rebuke is better than flattery’ (28:23).    Of course, there is something wonderful with having people praise us, complement us, or say good, positive words of support to us.  We need that too.  But we also need constructive criticism and honest evaluations too.   The world is a dangerous place and there are many wrong turns.  Sometimes the best, most positive word we could ever have said to us can be a ‘no’, rather than a ‘yes’.   

            I recall in my first pastorate; the parsonage was located at an intersection about a mile from the river.   One year, they had to make repairs on the bridge and they put up a bridge out sign on the road near our house.  Although the sign was put there so people could avoid making the 2 mile ‘out of the way’ trip,  I couldn’t believe how many people ignored the sign and made the trip anyway, not believing the sign that was put before them in order to help, but many people didn’t seem to want to acknowledge the ‘no’ and receive the help.

This ‘no’ in order to find the ‘yes’ is what ‘rebuke’ is always about in the Bible too.  The Bible itself if a signpost of warning, and sometimes sounds a stern rebuke for our own good.  As Paul wrote to young Timothy: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, REBUKE, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths (2 Tim. 4:2-4 RSV).  

The point here is that God is never trying to keep us from the joys and  good, healthy pleasures of life, but God tells us like it really is, as a warning, and as a guidance to help us avoid the worst missteps and wrong turns we might take in life; trying to prevent us from going down a ‘primrose path’ that will do us much more harm than good; not only bringing unnecessary hurt to ourselves, but possibly hurting others as well.  This is why the word and way of ‘rebuke’, which we might call  ‘protest’ today,  is so important for a  free democratic society.  Careful Rebuke and constructive protest, are an important part of pursuing and doing justice’ in our world.   

 Rebuke and Protest are still the necessary and needed ‘crosses’ to bear of living in a free and developing society.   When God gave his own people ‘freedom’ one of the first things God did was to warn about making or worshipping any kind of idol.  That is basically what ‘power’ means.  We gain power for ourselves by giving ourselves to another ‘power’ that promises to give you something in return.   You earn money to gain the power to spend.  You stay strong, in order live the best life you can.  You try to achieve some kind of success in life or in your job, so that you gain the power to make a living.  You start a family so you can have joy and purpose in life.   Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of these pursuits, until they become an idol of ‘power’ than gets between you and the most important pursuit, the pursuit of the truth and knowledge of God who is the only true source of life-giving power for all your life.

This is why we need all need friends who love us enough to tell us when we they see us on the wrong track.  This is why we need to allow our friends to be candid and tell us the truth, even when we don’t want to hear it.  This is also why we need parents, who aren’t simply friends with their children, but who actually guide are parents to their children, them, guiding and correcting them too.   It’s also why in a society like ours, we need to allow the dissenting voices, the rebuking protests, even when they sometimes get it wrong or get out of hand and have to be corrected too.   A society that isn’t free to speak the truth to each other, or who loses the ability to speak the truth to the power that is over them, is a society headed in direction that is dangerous and deadly.   We must always be free not only to speak out, but we must also be free enough to listen to everything that is being said, even if we don’t agree.  

  Once, the great scholar, who was also an expert in the teachings of the Hebrew prophets, wrote a letter about the American election back in 1972.   Abraham Heschel wrote this to his colleagues:

“The forthcoming election confronts everyone of us as American citizens ....  Our country is in a state of profound moral and political crisis.  In a free society, some are guilty---but all are responsible...  At this serious moment of American history, I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the moral decline and confusion in our sense of priorities.  If the prophets Isaiah and Amos were to appear in our midst, would they accept the corruption in high places, the indifferent way in which the sick, the poor, and the old are treated?  Would they condone the indifference ...that has allowed some of our finest…to be shot dead?   Surely it is the duty to help change a society that tolerates this.”

Isn’t this the Spirit of what Samuel and what all the prophets were doing, in the face of wrongdoing and injustice?   They spoke up, just like we too must sometimes speak up, not simply to give the world a piece of our minds, but to speak to the truth so that we can all come to see light and keep trying to get it right, to create a space of justice and righteousness for all of us, together.   Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

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