Thursday,
1/19/12
For some
time now our first readings have been from the First Book of Samuel. They
seemed to have been tales sung by court story-tellers after the time of King
David.
When I was
a seventeen-year-old seminarian I took down a book of sermons by John Henry
Newman, and I read one that explained why God rejected King Saul while he
called David.
He said that
although David had committed some awful sins, afterwards his sorrow over offending God almost tore him apart.
Saul, on the other hand, had no feeling for God. He only used religion as a
political tool. Let me mention three occasions on which he showed his religion
to be fake.
One time
was when Samuel was to offer a sacrifice for the Israelite’s success in a
battle with the Philistines. When Samuel was slow showing up Saul offered the
sacrifice himself, though he wasn’t a priest, he didn’t see that it mattered.
Then,
when the battle was going his way,he thought a fancy religious thing for him to
do was to vow under pain of death that none of his soldiers would taste food
until sundown. Then, when his son Jonathan, not knowing about the vow, ate
something, Saul ordered him killed as part of his religious charade. The
soldiers had to explain to him that our loving God would not be pleased by a
father killing a son.
Then, to
show off his religious side he banned all witches and soothsayers from his
kingdom. But when his cruel campaign against David brought him to the edge of
defeat he himself had recourse for help to the Witch of Endor.
To be
truly religious we must have an ongoing relationship with God, trying to know
what he wants of us.
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