Each
year of my childhood, my older brother played summer baseball. So we spent a lot of time at the
baseball fields. The first couple
of summers, I remember asking my parents, “Can I go play under the
bleachers?” They would reply, “No,
we’re watching Chuck’s game. We
can’t go with you and watch out for you.
You need to stay here.”
And I would say, “But everybody else is
getting to play there, and their parents aren’t watching them. Why can’t I?” My parents would reply, “You are not everybody else.”
When
I was in 6th grade—still in elementary school there and then—I asked
my mom, “My legs are so hairy. Can
I shave them?” She replied, “No,
you’re too young.” It just so happened that Judy—a close family friend who was a
high school senior—overhead the conversation. She supported my mom saying, “Once you shave your legs, the
hair will grow back all dark and stubbly.
Then, you’ll have to keep shaving them. You won’t have a choice. Wait another couple of years.” I persisted.
“But everybody else is shaving their legs.” And my mom replied, “You are not everybody else.”
Now
you may think when I grew up, I was freed from this exchange . . . but no. When she was in 4th grade,
MM asked me, “Why do I have to wash my own clothes?” I replied, “You need clean clothes to
wear to school. Each person in
this family has responsibilities.
It’s your responsibility to wash your clothes.” And MM replied, “Mrs. Y doesn’t make Ke wash her clothes.
Mrs. H doesn’t make Ka wash her clothes. Nobody else has to
wash their clothes.” I replied,
“I’m not Mrs. Y or Mrs. H, and you’re not Ke or Ka”—a
variation of “you are not everybody else.”
About
this same time, our girls asked us, “Why can’t we live in the Woods or the
Plantation? (These were neighborhoods with nicer homes than ours—close to the
school where I worked and which the girls attended). Kevin and I told them, “It would cost a lot more money to
buy a house there than it costs for our house here. If we bought a house in the Woods or the Plantation, we
would not have money to do special things together like take family
vacations.” And the girls
persisted, “But, everybody else lives there.” And we replied, “We are not everybody else.”
Give us a king like all the other nations have. “Everybody else has a king,” say the Israelites
in today’s text. “We want to be
like everybody else.” The problem
is, they are not everybody else.
About a thousand years before, God had offered a covenant with the
patriarch of the their clan—Abraham.
God had promised to bless all families of the earth through Abraham’s
family. Circumcision was the
physical sign distinguishing them from the other peoples they encountered. Worshiping the God who covenanted with
him was the spiritual sign distinguishing Abraham and his family from the other
peoples they encountered. Abraham
& his descendents—the Israelites—were not to be like everybody else.
750 years later—about 250 years before the
events narrated in today’s text—God raised a leader, Moses, to liberate the
Israelites from bondage to the Pharaoh. Leading them out of Egypt, Moses
brought them to the sacred Mt. Sinai, where God re-established God’s covenant
with these descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. “I
will be your God and you will be my people,” God said to them there. “I will set you apart—making you my most
treasured possession among all peoples of the earth.”[1] There at Mt. Sinai, God gave the people
the law—the law which placed God first and foremost in their hearts and minds
and lives; the law which would guide their communal living; the law which set
them apart from the other peoples they would encounter. The Israelites were not to be like everybody
else.
After
Moses died, for 250 years, the Israelites lived in a sort of confederation of
tribes brought together from time to time by a succession of men and women who
led them—usually in some kind of military engagement. Some of these “judges” were faithful, strong leaders intent
on doing what God showed them to do.
Others were weak and immoral. Give us a king like all the other nations have. “We want centralized, strong leadership,” the
people say. It is as if they do
not realize they are already governed by God, the Protector and Preserver. They have shut their eyes and ears and
hearts and minds to their divine king.
They have forgotten God’s covenant—“I
am the Lord your God.” They
have forgotten God’s law—“Worship only
me.” They have forgotten who
they are and whose they are. “I will be your God and you will be my people.” They have forgotten they are different
from the other peoples. They want
to be like everybody else.
God
commands Samuel—the current judge of Israel—to tell the people what it will
mean to have a king. The king will
take their sons for his army, their daughters for his household, their harvest
for his table, their land for his holdings. The king will blur their identity as God’s covenant
people. But that doesn’t change
their minds or their hearts. Give us a king like all the other nations have. We want to be like everybody else.
Every
summer during baseball season, some kid got hurt playing under the
bleachers—skinned knee, broken arm, mild concussion. At sleepovers, I started borrowing a razor to shave my
legs even though my mom had told me not to. Guess what, my leg hair did grow back dark and
stubbly and unlike my cool, free, hippie-type friends in college whose blonde
leg hairs could not be seen, I was chained to a razor or to Nair. Her first week at college, MM was aghast to report her dormmates did not know how to use a washing
machine. They didn’t know how much
detergent to use, which clothes to wash separately, which clothes to wash in
cold water, which clothes not to put in the dryer. And just last month—out of the blue—SL said “I’m glad we
didn’t buy a house over in the Woods.”
We asked her “Why?” And she
replied, “Because I’ve been
thinking about our family vacations. We got to do a lot of fun things, and I
have some great memories.” Funny
thing—on the on the other side of “why can’t I? everybody else is” –parents seem to know what they’re
talking about.
Denying God’s sovereignty,
lacking faith in God’s protection, turning their backs on relationship with
God, the Israelites demand, There must be
a king over us so we can be like all the other nations. Our king
will judge us and lead us and fight our battles.” We want to be like everybody else. Just as God has been doing since humans
first broke relationship with God in the Garden of Eden, God sought a way to
reconcile the relationship. God,
the Preserver provides not just a king but a monarchy anointed by God to rule
the people. When the kings turn a
deaf ear to God’s word, God, the Reconciler sends prophets to speak God’s
message and open their ears. When
the priests and the people turn a blind eye to God’s law, God, the Almighty
uses military defeat and exile to humble the people. When the exiles cry out
for mercy, God, the Sustainer leads them home and encourages anew the hunger
and desire to offer God’s justice to all.
In the fullness of time, God becomes incarnate. God, the Son, comes to live as and
among humans to bring ultimate reconciliation between Loving Creator and beloved
creature. Living within us, God
the Holy Spirit continues to draw us back to God the Loving Parent—reminding
us, “You are not everybody else. You are my beloved child.” God, the Holy
Spirit works within us, transforming us so that we will live the lives of God’s
treasured people.
But
living as a set-apart people means living counter to the culture. “The lure of conformity is seductive .
. . [and] the pressures of
alternative living are too great.”[2]
It’s easy to get sucked into a pattern of acquisition and consumption—working
longer hours to buy more stuff.
Everybody else is doing it.
But God whispers, “Spend your time with me and with your family. Relationships—not stuff—will fill that
empty space in you.” It’s easy to
be swept away with self-interest and self-fulfillment. Everybody else is doing it. Then God puts a lonely person as your
next-door-neighbor, a transplanted east or west-coaster as your officemate, a
child with only one parent in your daughter’s dance class—and God opens a door
to a friendship. In relationship,
not in isolation, you will find fulfillment.
“The
lure of conformity is seductive . . . [and] the pressures of alternative living
are too great.”[3] We hear about homelessness but since we
do not see anyone living on the streets or in their car here, we wonder if
homelessness is exaggerated or even real.
We hear about hunger and respond with food for the food bank assuming
our donation will solve the problem of hunger. We hear about “the poor” but
question the motives and needs of those who seek assistance from PACA, our
Thrift Shop, or other helping agencies.
You see, everybody else lives and works and plays in a framework of
“them” and “us.” But God says,
“You are not everybody else. You
are Christ’s disciple. Engage in
conversation. Donate your
attention, your time, and yourself as well as your goods. Relationship is the key to
discipleship.”
“The
lure of conformity is seductive . . . [and] the pressures of alternative
[being] are too great.”[4]
This church needs to grow. What
this church needs is . . .
more—more children, more youth, more young adults, more people, more
money. That’s what everybody
says: a church needs—to grow—in
numbers. But God invites us “come,
grow with me in your faith; grow with me in your love for others; grow with me
in your awareness of those who need me; grow with me in your commitment to one
another.” Relationship—will grow
us—individually and as a community of faith.
We
don’t need a king like other nations have, for we have a sovereign God to whom
we belong in life and in death. We are not like everybody else, for we are
God’s treasured possession.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God through Jesus the Christ.
Knowing
this, may we plant ourselves in the soil of God’s promise. May we be watered by the rains of God’s
love. May we be
tendrils—intertwined with others and supported by the latticework trellis of
the Holy Spirit. May we—the
congregation who is 1st Presbyterian Church, Paola, KS—be a healthy,
fragrant, flowering, extending vine in the garden of God’s world. Amen.
[1]
Exodus 19: 5 – 6
[2] Bruce C. Birch. “The First and Second Books of Samuel,”
in The New Interpreters’ Bible: a Commentary in Twelve Volumes. Vol. II. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1998. p. 1030.
[3]
Bruce C. Birch. “The First and
Second Books of Samuel,” in The New
Interpreters’ Bible: a Commentary
in Twelve Volumes. Vol.
II. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998. p. 1030.
[4]
Bruce C. Birch. “The First and
Second Books of Samuel,” in The New
Interpreters’ Bible: a Commentary
in Twelve Volumes. Vol.
II. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998. p. 1030.
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