When we looked at books like Genesis and Exodus we discovered they were highly complex literary writings. They use a lot of patterns. They also even sometimes use self-contradictions to teach. We discovered that to read them literally is not only wrong but missing the way the authors originally intended them to be interpreted.
There is a drawback to those books, however. That is that when we study them we have no real outside information about the world at the time. Times, dates, world events and the like are too vague. We are only able to enter the story world and not the greater world around the story. There’s nothing wrong with that, however…
Starting with the kings the historical picture becomes much clearer. We have not only multiple accounts of the kings in the Bible we also have the beginnings of hard archaeological evidence, writings from other cultures that mention the Hebrews, and that sort of thing. We can study not only the authors of the Bible’s words but also others around them. We can compare how one culture is viewing a world event, like say the rise of the Assyrian Empire, and we can also see how the Israelites are viewing the very same event. On the whole then, we are able to get a much richer picture to interpret the Bible.
The first thing to remember is how small they are. From the Bible texts it may appear that these Israelites are a massive empire of regional, if not global, domination. Not so. A look at maps tells a different story. Israel was tiny, insignificant. Some maps of the region don’t even include them because they were so insignificant to the wider world.
Throughout its entire existence the Israelites were bullied around by their neighbors. Small neighbors: the Philistines, the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites would make raids and cause problems. Bigger neighbors, like the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and the like treated Israel like a vassal state. In fact only in rare times of a regional political power vacuum did the Israelites actually have any independence at all. We’ll get to that in the weeks to come, but let’s just say that even though they had their kings they were only semi-independent at best.
Today we are looking at the situation before there were kings. According to the Bible story line – the books of Exodus through Joshua - the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, led out by Moses and then conquered the Promised Land under Joshua. I understand that archaeologically there very well could have been a migration of people into the area at that time. Don’t forget though, that the land was not empty. There were other people living there. The Israelites conquered some but not all of them. The book of Joshua gives us a mixed picture. In one some places it depicts vast sweeping annihilation of all the locals. In others they let many live.
What did set apart the incoming Israelites was their belief in one and only one God. The other cultures were polytheistic. The Israelites were monotheistic. It is also worth noting both from the Bible and archaeology that there were already people in the region who were monotheistic. The Bible contains some of their writings. They were also a major group in what would become the kingdom of Israel.
In any event, at the time of our reading from 1 Samuel, which is around 1000 B.C, the Israelites were a disjointed collection of tribes claiming common ancestry. They had no king and no real government. There was no standing army. There were no real cities. And as for religion, while they may have claimed in some form or another to live by the laws from Moses, there was nothing really organized. The were no religious structures, no temples, no organized priesthood or any real leadership. And it is safe to say that very few of these Israelites were actually monotheistic believers.
If you remember the Bible’s storyline you’ll know that instead of a king or government God would raise up a charismatic leader who would take care of any outside threat when they arose. These leaders were called “judges”, even though they weren’t at all like a judge today. You’ll recognize some of the judges: Samson, Gideon, Deborah (Yes, the leaders could be men or women), and Jephthah are the big ones. After the threat went away the judge’s leadership would also end.
Sometimes threats would be taken care of by military might. Sometimes by trickery. Sometimes by doing nothing and just faithfully waiting for God to act.
The point is, that at the time other nations around them were developing governments the little Israelite tribes were not. They were called by God to live in a situation of radical trust. God would be the king. God would provide. Period.
It sounds like a quaint enough idea, but how would you feel if we didn’t have an ongoing government structure? How would you feel if our country had no real central leadership, no standing army, no food safety regulations, no standards for materials, no road system, (no infrastructure at all) no court system or legal records, no police,… and on and on. And very significantly, no currency - no actual money.
Other civilizations around the Israelites were developing these things. It all looked good to the Israelites. But they did not have a king. They did not have an established government. Again, they were called on to put radical trust in God each and every day.
The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how he emerged as a leader, but Samuel came to be a judge. So in as much as there was a recognized leader among the Israelites it was him.
We’re going to discover as we move forward in 1 Samuel that actually not many Israelites did recognize Samuel as a leader. It won’t be until King David that any central leadership really develops.
For today though, we have Samuel as an old man with at least some leadership respect from at least a couple of the tribes of Israel. The people approach him and say they want to be like the other nations around them. They want a king.
Samuel reminds them that they have a king. God is their king. God has taken care of them in the past and God will take care of them in the future. But they insist that no, they want to be like the other nations around them. They want their own king.
Samuel reminds them of all the things a king will do to them and take from them. He tells them they are better of without a human king. But they insist. Samuel then conveys all this to God. I get the image of a parent reluctantly giving into a child and saying, “Okay, if you’re sure. But don’t come crying to me when it all goes wrong.” But indeed they are sure. They want a king.
What this really is, is a shift away from trusting God and the beginning of trusting a human for leadership. They want leadership that is more regular and that they can see.
They also want leadership they can have more say in. While people may see a king as ruling supreme, a king can also be influenced. A king can be flattered, or if he is corrupt, bought. You can make political deals with a king. You can create strategies that benefit you. That is not possible with God as king.
Now let’s make some theological connections. Jump 1000 years forward to the coming of Jesus. We call Jesus Lord and King. Jesus is cited as being in the bloodline of David, the true bloodline of the Jewish kings. Therefore Jesus is God coming to be king. The sign over Jesus’ head on the cross said it clearly – The King of the Jews.
Right now God is our king. Though we have a government structure we are still called to depend upon God. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “thy kingdom come”. We just finished reading through Matthew’s gospel. Over and over again we saw a conflict of kingdoms. It was the kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of this world. It is God’s kingdom we should seek.
But that is hard. It is much easier to seek, and believe in, human institutions. It is easier to sleep at night if your possessions are well insured, or maybe if you have a burglar alarm. It is easier if you have a big investment portfolio to rely on rather than possibly needing support.
It is also easier to believe in religious institutions and become devoted to them rather than to the God who calls us. We maintain our buildings and think that doing so is accomplishing God’s will. We give offerings and somehow think it is automatically making God smile. We believe that attending worship, or having it regularly is somehow a more valid – more faith-filled devotion to God than to not.
But Jesus, our king, does not call us to an hour worship each week, or the maintenance of a building, or a settled life in a snug house with a healthy bank account balance;
or a massive military
or a huge social safety net
or the praise and approval of friends and neighbors
Jesus, our king, calls us to faithful living in his kingdom. And that will take us out of our earthly kingly comfort zones and into the unsteady and downright dangerous.
Don’t get me wrong. That’s not a call to be stupid. But it is a call to the same trust that Samuel was reminding the Israelites to have in God as king.
God – through Jesus – is our king. Let us live in trust knowing that God is a good ruler. God knows our needs. And God will provide, even if our lives feel too small and insignificant to make it on the map.
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