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To King or Not to King
It was the beginning of the end, the power no longer sprinkled among men and women.
Samuel had been an extraordinary and patient leader. But he wasn’t robed in the glamour and the elegance of the man in charge that the Israelites wanted. Nope. Other power houses had a KING. WOW. One leader. One who made all the decisions. One who wore a crown and God knows what other things that haven’t trickled down to us in stories.
 Apparently, Samuel’s offspring had not shown up as winners or men of sufficient intelligent to run a nation, at least not the Israel nation. And maybe Samuel bowed his head a bit embarrassed that his sons had not turned out to be the leaders that maybe they should have been. So the elders of Israel started demanding “Give us a king to govern us.” Now I ask, what was so different about a “KING” - other than the fact, everyone else had one?
Samuel was not happy with this project. And of course he prayed to the Lord and the Lord said to Samuel, It’s OK. Listen to the voice of the people, what they say to you, what their complaint is. It’s not against you, Samuel. It’s against me, the Lord declared.
The Lord had been the King over all Israel and really all things since creation. But it wasn’t satisfactory in their minds of the citizens because God wasn’t walking the walk on earth nor was He physically present so they could argue with Him face to face or seek advice with an answer they could hear, or whatever the powers of everyone else’s King were able to do, I guess. Make decisions they could hear. Win battles they needed to win. Beat the bad guys when the bad guys had too much power, even though they might have been good guys of a sort.
God was probably exhausted with their behavior because since He brought them out of Egypt, saved them from the cruel life under Pharaoh by throwing at him 10 plagues (blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock pestilence, boils, hail locusts, darkness and the killing of all first born children) as they learned appealing to other gods that weren’t really powerful or of The GOD, was just making a mess of things which was not beneficial to their religious life. They had even sneaked in other minor gods when The God wasn’t allowing them to do what they wanted to do or having the results they wanted. It sort of had the flavor of modern political leaders, those presidents that only want power and not caring about the people, those presidents who demand attention but have no solution or respite, but war and violence.
God tells Samuel, listen to the voices. He told Samuel only he himself could solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them. He had to be honest about it. Or he might lose his power and respect.
So Samuel explained to his people: it won’t be a party or easy to have a King reign over you. A King doesn’t listen to you, doesn’t care about your opinions. In fact a King will take Samuel’s sons and oblige them to be their chariot drivers and horsemen and runners in front of the chariots; And “he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap harvest and to make his implements of war and equipment of his chariots. and the daughters will become perfumers and cooks and bakers. And no longer will they have fields or vineyards, olive orchards, but they will have to be gifts for the king’s courtiers. And he will demand one tenth of their grain and vineyards and give it to his officers and courtiers:” leaving nothing for Samuel’s people. And this was good news?
Worst such a King would take the best of his male and female slaves, and the cattle and donkeys, and all will be his slaves. And then people will start moaning and groaning and praying again to God Almighty and saying - we made a mistake, we erred, we don’t like this life. But, the Lord will just look away and remind them that they chose this king for themselves. They wanted to be like other nations. and they had wanted a king to go out to govern and fight their battles. And look what happened.
Royalty rules and has power. History is full of royal families all over Europe, and of course in Egypt and the Far and Middle East and in many parts of Africa and the historic Aztec and Indies. Though their numbers were maybe few in a country but their production, i.e. kids, illegal ones and legal ones, and their personalities and minds and favors and intelligences and lack of - would make or break a nation or a line of inheritance. Like the British royalty - and crusaders - why did men go on crusades?? What was the point? Sport or overcoming the or building churches or getting badges that said one had been a crusader, albeit a successful one. The crusades were wars against the Muslims, the Abrahamic monotheistic religion, those who worshiped Muhammad as the messenger of God. But on the pilgrimage trails, who dominated over whom? Who owned what? And crusades were more about war than a pilgrimage, which was calmer and a trip to touch and pray around at places, palaces and cathedrals, where saints and history occurred.
In modern times there have been a few cruel and inhuman pretenders to the King throne - wanting to be when it was not in constitutional rights. We in the United States have just pulled out from under a horrific wannabe King aiming to control everything and everyone. God stopped that one in his tracks, thank you Lord. But there are Kings galore: The British throne, now of Queen Elizabeth, covers 16 nations; Then there are Kings in the Kingdom of Bahrain, of Belgium, of Bhutan, of Darussalam, Cambodia, Denmark, Eswatini, of Japan, of Jordan, of Kuwait, of Lesotho, of Liechtenstein, of Luxembourg, Malaysia, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Tonga, United Arab Emirates, and they call the Vatican City one because the form of government is a monarchy. Well, seeing this list, I’m shocked at the number of so called “KINGS” (or Queen - only one) reigning today. I wonder what God or Allah think of this.
Even in Jesus’ time, as we read in 2 Corinthians, the people of Jesus did not want to lose heart. Their outer nature was wasting away, their inner nature was being renewed day by day - this made more sense. For in order to prepare for an eternal glory beyond all measure, men and women needed to look not at what could be seen but at what could not be seen; for what could be seen was temporary (IE THE KING), but what could not be seen was eternal (GOD). We are reminded that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands but is eternal in the heavens. I would say in the above list, the Vatican is the most precious because it is all about being the home of God on earth and the Pope being the connection for his subjects to the Heavenly Host.
In Mark 3, reporting on early days in Jesus’ ministry, we find that crowds surrounding Jesus and his disciples were so suffocating that no one could eat. At this time, no one really understood Jesus and his mission. They had never heard such words before, nor such brazen claims that He was the Son of God - the Only Son of God. So the general public was saying “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes from Jerusalem, because Jesus could cast out demons, accused him of being Beelzebub. But Jesus never doubted who He was and commented, think about it (we’d say “get real!”) “How can Satan cast out Satan”? He explained, if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided he cannot stand, then his end has come, his power and life are one and done, and all we have left, we in the modern era, is the saying “The Devil made me do it.” We have to blame it on somebody, it seems. But truth is, our errors, our sins, are because we did them. Only we can carry the blame. And all we have to do is pray to God and ask for forgiveness as each error or sin comes along in one’s daily life.
Jesus said, shockingly, I suppose, denying his mother and brothers in that moment, that all of those who do the will of God are his mother and sisters and brothers, and He promised that people who humbly ask for it will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but there is one unforgivable sin, so listen good: whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit - which had just poured down upon at least 120 followers - can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. And can join Satan at his hell house.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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