+Z’ev

Today’s Assigned Readings:

1 Samuel 13:5-18, Acts 8:26-40, Luke 23:13-25

He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people began to slip away from Saul. So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the offerings of well-being.” And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, Samuel arrived; and Saul went out to meet him and salute him.
1 Samuel 13:8-10

These stories of Saul come from a time before not only the Davidic Kingdom but, seemingly, from before the tribe of Levi became the priests - or even before Aaron’s family got the job. I say that for two reasons - we’re not dealing with the tabernacle and Levites. Samuel is just a local priest at the “shrine” of Shilloh. This material seems to come from before the priestly rewrite of the stories that became the Torah. It seems you have to nearly bend over backwards to read stories like this and then say “the tabernacle and the temple and their priesthood were all there ever was in Israel.” It’s almost as if, for the duration of this story, this YHVH person is just a local deity at Shiloah, maybe in change of war?

As I ask those questions, I end up questioning my own Biblical Fundamentalist logic, used at times in the past. My own membership (back in the 80s) in the Moral Majority, was built on fundamentalist assumptions. My membership in Orthodoxy was as well.

Saul offers the sacrifices - a job appointed by the Torah for the priestly caste, not the king - and Samuel not only gives him what for, but Saul also gets punished by God: his kingship is taken away.

Remember when God tried to tell the people they didn’t REALLY want a King? This was the reason why: in all the tribes around the area, the King was at least the priest of his people. In some places he was also the living embodiment of the tribal deity. Israel doesn’t need a priest-king. Or, a possible reading, maybe at one time they had one just like everyone else and here we see the passing of the vestiges of that old order, in preparation for the new new one under Solomon and the temple priesthood? Don’t know.

But I do think it’s interesting that we get this reading the day after the Fourth of July in the USA, a country that, while never really fascinated with Kingship, has always had to draw a very careful line between Church and State because of how strong is our national tendency to weave them together in society. Israel is learning the difference between religions of state and the state religion.

I rather like Saul’s reasoning, (in verses 11 & 12): well, you were late and the people needed to be entertained… and national security was threatened, I saw I hadn’t been pious in front of the people, so I put on a little show of my faith.

Now, imagine if we could just dismiss politicians for putting on little shows of their faith! The main party candidates would be cut down to one or two each and there would be no minor party candidates at all, apart from the Green Party and maybe Michael Bloomburg. Instead of acting like Samuel, most of our modern religious leaders would rather sidle up to men and women (left or right) who pick up religious trappings in their secular offices; and like the people of Israel in the story, the rest of us go along for the ride. Again, I’m calling into question my own assumptions that the secular authorities are intended to manifest the Kingdom of God - regardless of how I define that kingdom (ie one of “peace and justice” or one of “morality and law”).

The Gospel stories this week carry this theme too, although obliquely: Herod and Pontius Pilate are pressed by the religious leaders to do their will against Jesus, even though they - the secular authorities - realise this is a religious squabble, out of their ken. And we attempt to press our leaders in the same way - to battle for us against the forces of evil.

This is not to say that secular leaders should not be expected to be moral, or that in a democracy we shouldn’t lobby for “our side” in a given issue. But so often we do so by decking an issue out in religious garb, failing to recognise devout people of faith on the other side, struggling to make their own faith-based choices. My own experience, on left and right, has been one of exclusion. The “other” is 100% wrong, mistaken, even evil. We demand our Barabbas, failing to see Jesus on the other side.