Lessons: Psalm 5, 6; 1 Kings 1:38-2:4; Acts 26:24-27:8; Mark 13:28-37
The news is filled just now with the ongoing difficulties in the Middle East. Egypt is a mess. Syria has held my heart's attention these last weeks as the world and America has been hesitant to realize the use of chemical warfare by the government which is a republic under an authoritarian regime whose elected leader is more a monarch/dictator than a president. The same family has held the title president since 1970. We may wonder at the West’s responsibilities, yet the truth is we have been in and out of there for a long time. The West’s involvement is a mixture of self-serving and humanitarian. I’m not sure how one sees which is which.
Governments are always unstable even when they are stable. There is always displeasure as well as pleasure. I prefer to think of representative government as a chosen form of the tension of stable and unstable. We have the power in the US to change up our leaders as we debate the course the government takes. Yet there are powers of self interest that seek to influence how the government will organize us in care for elements or the whole of the nation. Thus we hear much talk of special interest groups and efforts to fund politicians to represent their interest and laws to seek to regulate how much a politician can be bought.
In 1st and 2nd Samuel we read about the governing of Biblical Israel and how a nation came to be a nation. 1st and 2nd Kings takes us on the next chapters of ruling and becoming and falling apart. Just now we are invited into the ever complex moment when one generation of leader is being replaced by the next. The Biblical story is invested in where this does and does not please God. This is largely told by who anoints the King. Is it a bought anointing or is it a prophetic anointing?
As we read yesterday Adonijah’s was a moment of self promotion. It seemed logical as he is now the eldest of David’s sons. That works in England. But it does not work here. Once word is out that Adonijah has set up his own anointing before David is dead, the prophetic voice moves in. Solomon, the son of Bathsheba and the younger has already been prophetically identified and identified by David as the one to reign after David dies. So even as Adonijah celebrates his take over, those in Jerusalem anoint Solomon with the right religious, political process and approval thus undoing the coup. The gift ahead is one of if not the wisest leaders in Israel’s history. Solomon’s life will surpass David’s in moral integrity. Perhaps this adds to the nation’s stability.
From that day to this there is always a just question about the moral integrity of those who lead. How one comes to power, how one sustains power, how one abdicates power and passes it on are up for scrutiny. So too in a democracy is the process by which we give power to those we elect. We who elect need to weigh out the voices that claim to be prophetic, to speak for God or God’s values. This is not always simple but it is essential at all times if we believe we live under some obligation to be pleasing to God. It is our core belief that God judges all human activity and our spiritual responsibility is to act in accord with God’s values and will.
Jesus in the Gospel speaks of the coming of this Judge and the need to weigh the voices that guide us. It is simply a reminder that we do not have the luxury of being inattentive either in daily life choices which include politics.
Therefore, keep awake-for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake." Mark 13:35-37
I am uncertain what exactly our nation’s responsibility is for Syria. I am clear it is however not to turn a blind eye. Even here we must stay alert for we will be judged.
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