And Now This

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, 

"No! We are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles."

When Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord.

The Lord said, "Listen to their voice and set a king over them."

Samuel then said to the people of Israel, "Each of you return home."

- 1 Samuel 8: 19-22

If you want to be a "biblical" sort of person, I mean one that shapes their life according to the God-breathed Word.  I think you ought to pay attention to the history of people with their kings at moments like this.  Here's the back story: God had rescued Israel out of slavery in Egypt, the Pharaohs of Egypt were the prototype for ancient kings, they ruled an empire that was much more than just a small corner of the world.  They were far more than glorified chieftains or tribal leaders.  Egypt genuinely qualified as what we might call a nation.  God had brought this little band of Hebrews out of the brick pits and fields of a great empire, they wandered in the wilderness for a generation and finally inherited the promised land.  They were set up to live as a nation under God alone.  No king, only judges, no ruler except the Lord.  The Word was to guide them and the Name of the Lord was to give them their identity.

Except that wasn't enough for them.

After their God had liberated them from the mighty Pharaoh, and led them and guided them into the promised land, after the Hand of the Almighty had picked them up from the mud, once they were comfortable and concerned primarily with safety and security, then things started to fall apart.  As it says in that ominous and blood soaked ending of the book of Judges: "In those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did was right in their own eyes."

Samuel, to simplify a bit, was both the first prophet and the last judge, he is a hinge point in the history of Israel.  The people ask Samuel to give them a king, because they didn't trust that Samuel's kids would live up to the role.  They were now intimidated and fearful of the Philistines, and the other little nations that surrounded them.  It would seem that they had forgotten entirely how God had liberated them from Pharaoh, so when they asked for a king, Samuel first reminded them of that reality.

Honestly, the Philistines were nothing compared to Pharaoh, neither were any of the other foes Israel faced until the Assyrian Empire rose in the north.  But they had lost faith and trust in God, they wanted to take steps to do things on their own and they wanted a king to do it for them.  God told Samuel to remind them what having a king was like, to paraphrase: "he will take your sons to fight wars and make his war machines, he will take your daughters to serve in his palace and he will take your wealth and your property and put them to his work."

Samuel ends his warning with this: "In that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day."

This is a sad moment in the history of God's people.  For their sins, they are given Saul, a great warrior, just the strong man that they wanted, and also a madman.  It would seem we still haven't learned our lesson about kings who promise us security, even after all this time.  Even now in a democracy, we still go through the king making season every few years.  Every time we choose based on the person we think will be the greatest king, even though our very identity was formed by throwing off a monarchy, we still look for the illusory presence of a great leader.

I'm not even going to make specific comment about the impending choice before us, I've had too much of that for my guts already.  I'm saying here that no human leader will ever be able to do everything you think they will.  They are at best, merely human, they are at worst something rather more sinister and dangerous. The hope of the framers of our nation was to rise above the need for kings.  The office of President was rather carefully crafted so that it would not be easily confused with the throne of a king.  But you have to give human depravity some credit for managing to work around those careful plans.

Ecclesiastes, (and Battlestar Galactica) tells us that what has been will be again, and what is now has been before, in other words, nothing new under the sun.  Despite the hope and covenant promise of being the chosen people of God, Israel demanded a mere mortal king.  Despite the promise of freedom and democracy, we neglect our own political duty so gravely that we ultimately look, with false and misguided hope, towards a single person to change our course for us.

I know a little bit about what I'm talking about, because churches tend to do this to their pastors as well: the leader is the fixer and the one who takes on the obstacles.

It's not a good system, it doesn't work in the long run and chews people up and spits them out. Our great and powerful leaders leave office clearly the worse for wear.  Pastors burn out of churches at an alarming rate.  I suspect we all watch that scene in Cool Hand Luke where Luke shouts "Stop feeding off of me" with a certain rueful understanding.

This may just be a lesson in reality.  Honestly, the situation at the end of the period of the Judges (and mostly during it) was not what you would call a utopia.  Maybe its just a fact of our fallen world that we just can't handle true self-rule.  Maybe all of this is really just vanity and chasing after the wind.

I know it's certainly not going to be solved in this or any other election cycle, no matter what the outcome. It's got to start within our hearts with an understanding that God alone is worthy of our allegiance, and all other loyalties come after that.

That's what I'm working on this morning.