1 Sam 8:4-20
Mark 3:20-35

It is clear that the ancient authors of our scriptures disagreed about a number of points. In fact, when I was in seminary I was taught that four key sources (not the one traditional source: Moses) were responsible for the contents of the Torah. It went: JEDP: “Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomic, and Priestly.” I won’t get into all the differences, mostly because I don’t know them. But, also because the more important point is that there ARE differences. There are disagreements on the way things happened and there are disagreements on the meaning of those things as they pertain to God.

I admire the biblical authors for having the courage to put their differences right smack next to each other. In today’s passage from 1 Samuel we find ourselves right in the middle of a big one. If we were to keep on reading into 2 Samuel we would find God’s enthusiastic election of David as king over God’s people. We’d even find God promising that an heir of David would rule over God’s people forever! But, here in today’s passage we read of a God who hears the people’s request for a king as yet another example of their infidelity, of their inability to trust in God, and to find in God their king. Clearly, the ancient authors had different opinions about kingship.

I think that tells us something about the bible. We should be careful if we are using it to support our arguments. We’ll likely find that it does just that, and we’ll also likely stay stuck just exactly as we are.

I think we are better served by hearing the point at hand and doing our best to think about how it applies to us, or how we apply to it. Samuel’s first concern is that ultimately a king will essentially make slaves of them. He’ll take your sons for his armies and your daughters for his kitchens. He’ll take your best lands, your livestock, your servants. In asking for a king you are asking for your own demise, your own subordination. You’re giving yourself over to the empty promise and the false hope that a king represents. You have God to give yourself to! Why would you give yourself to something less?

But, the people insist. That’s what they want. And, God is willing to let them have it.

As I read the passage I wondered about our tendency today to make similar choices. I wondered about the extent to which we enslave ourselves or willingly devote ourselves to false hopes and empty promises. In our part of the world one of the great idols calling for our devotion, of course, is wealth. It is very easy for us to let money matter most, or to let its gain drive us. How much we make becomes a source of self worth. Making more of it dominates our thoughts, our attentions, our time, and our energy. Some of it, of course, satisfies, but the quest for more can turn into worship, and the worship leaves us empty and looking like people we would rather not be.

Money is just one idol. You might ask yourself if there are others.

The really alarming message from Samuel’s people is that they want to be “like other nations.” Wrapped up in this request for a king is also a willingness, it seems, to sacrifice the distinctive and defining character of covenant identity that has been so important through the ages. They are the people of God, God’s chosen, and a light to the nations. Their request for a king is rooted in a desire for a more traditional identity, to be like the others, to assimilate to a certain degree.

And the problem with assimilation is that it runs the risk of robbing a community of its ability to offer a meaningful alternative to the ways of the world around it. What prophetic word will they have to offer, what word of hope, when they have surrendered their ideals for the sake of conforming?

This too is a question for Christians to think about. If we are as honest in writing our modern history as the ancient Israelites were with theirs we would admit that the biggest divide between us, bigger than any social issue, is related to this very issue.

Half of Christendom is convinced that the other has watered down the faith to the point of being totally devoid of any particular truth claims because it is afraid of offending anyone who may, and certainly has the right, to disagree. The other half sees the first as owning a faith that is so rigid and dogmatic that its essentially turned its God and its dogma into the same idol, robbing God of any beauty, dynamism, and love all for the sake of being able to cling to some clarity and control.

The one side is accused of assimilating too much and the other not at all.

Which is the faithful way? Which is more in line with what the Spirit of God is doing in the world and in God’s people?

It is interesting that this is our question now given how not knowing the answer to it seems to be the downfall of both the scribes and the family of Jesus in our gospel text for the day.   Jesus has been engaged in some radical ministry. He’s called and people have suddenly followed. He’s cast out unclean spirits. He’s taught with authority in the synagogue. He’s cured lepers. He’s forgiven sins; he’s embraced sinners; and he’s healed on the Sabbath. He’s caused a fuss, and now that’s he’s back home a crowd has surrounded him. His family wants to reel him in; they think he’s crazy. The scribes want to shut him up; they think he’s possessed.

And Jesus tells them that the one unforgivable sin is blaspheming against the Spirit; it is not knowing the difference between what is “of God” and what is not. His family thinks they are doing the right thing; the scribes think they are doing the faithful thing, but what they are really doing is the safe thing. They are conforming, and in their conformity they have lost the kind of religion that keeps their hearts and minds open.

I have to tell you, I believe that Jesus is intentionally overstating his case. I don’t think there is such a thing as an unforgivable sin. But, he calls it that it to make a point, to impress upon them the significance of this particular sin – not because of its punishments, but because of its consequences, because of what it turns people into. After all, what’s worse, what’s more empty and unpleasant, than a religious person who as forgotten the love of God.

I think that Jesus is overstating his case because discerning between the ways of God and the ways of the world remains a tension for us all. None of us is perfect at it and when we get too close we run the risk of worshiping our own perfection, our own notions of what being truly faithful are. Thomas Merton who, among other things, was a great peace advocate applies this principle even to peace. I love these words. He says, “So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”

The ways of the Spirit, the ways of God, are out there and visible in the world. God is alive and active. But, to see it, to discern it, we need to let the Spirit have her way in our hearts and in our minds. I can’t think of anything more beautiful or more powerful than a group of people who have learned to do that together.