View today's sermon on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ8qGSZZdzw.

Our guest lay preacher, Peter Schay resides in Burlington, NC, and works as a cybersecurity operations manager, having 52 years of professional experience in information technology and consulting. His extended family has owned a home on Jellison Cove Road in Hancock since the late 1980s.

Peter has been an active member of UCC churches in Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut and North Carolina. He is currently chair of the Board of Trustees at United Church of Chapel Hill, NC, which he joined in 2014. He has also been active in the UCC above the local church, serving as a lay member on the Committees on Ministry of the Fairfield West Association (Southern New England Conference) and Eastern North Carolina Association, a member of the Executive Committee of the UCC Southern Conference, and as a voting delegate from the Southern Conference to the UCC 2023 General Synod.

Peter has a BS from Yale University, MS from Northwestern University, and MBA from Boston University.

1 Samuel 15:1-3, 8, 10-17, 24-25

Samuel said to Saul, “I was sent by the DREAD GOD to anoint you ruler over God’s people, over Israel; now then, hearken to the call of the words of the INSCRUTABLE GOD: Thus says the SOVEREIGN of heaven’s vanguard, “I will punish Amalek for what they did to Israel, setting against them in their ascent from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and put to holy destruction all they have; do not spare them and put them to death from woman to man, and from infant to nursing baby, and from ox to sheep, from camel to donkey.” 

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Saul seized Agag ruler of the Amalekites alive, and put to holy destruction all the people at the edge of the sword.

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The word of the SOVEREIGN GOD to Samuel was: “I regret that I crowned Saul as ruler, for he has turned away from me, and my commands he has not instituted. Then Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the GOD WHO HEARS, all night. And Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, and it was told to Samuel: “Saul went to Carmel, where he erected monument for himself, then turned around and passed by going down to Gilgal.” Now Samuel came to him and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you by the HOLY ONE OF OLD; I have instituted the command of the HOLY ONE OF SINAI.” Then Samuel said, “What is this sound of sheep in my ears, and the sound of cattle I am hearing?” And Saul said, “They brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and the cattle, to sacrifice to the HOLY ONE your God; but the rest we have put to holy destruction.” Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! Let me tell you what the ANCIENT ONE said to me last night.” Saul replied, “Speak.” Samuel said, “Though you are small in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The HOLY ONE anointed you ruler over Israel.”

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Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; for I have transgressed the utterance of the DREAD GOD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now then, I pray, pardon my sin, and return with me, so that I may worship the HOLY ONE OF OLD.”

Mark 6:14-29

Now King Herod heard of [the teaching of Jesus], for Jesus’ name had become known and some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead and that is why these powers work through him.” Yet others said, “It is Elijah” while others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets [of old].” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

For Herod himself had sent men who seized John and bound him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, for Herod had married her. For John had told Herod, “It is not right for you to have your brother’s wife.” Now Herodias had a grudge against him and she wanted to kill him. But she could not. This was because Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous man and a holy man and he protected him and listened to him, though greatly perplexed; yet it pleased him to listen to him.

Now an opportune time came on Herod’s birthday when he gave a banquet for his courtiers and commanders and for the leaders of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, pleasing Herod and his dinner guests, the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.” And he swore to her repeatedly, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” And she went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately she returned to the king with haste and asked, saying, “I want immediately for you to give me on a platter the head of John the baptizer.” The king was deeply sorry, yet because of his oaths and the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier under orders to bring John’s head. And he went and beheaded him in the prison. And he brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl and the girl gave it to her mother. When John’s disciples heard, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb. 

Abuse of Power

4 August 2024

1 Samuel 15:1–3,8,10–17,24–25

Mark 6:14–29

Hymns:

The God of Abraham Praise

God of Grace and God of Glory

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Since you don’t really know me, and I don’t really know you, I’d like to begin with an ice-breaking question, for which I’d like to see a show of hands. Who was already familiar with the story we read from the Hebrew book of 1 Samuel?

Well, to be honest, until I saw that it was in Gafney’s Women’s Lectionary for this Sunday, I wasn’t familiar with it either. The primary reason most of us are unfamiliar with it is that it does not appear in the Revised Common Lectionary, so it is almost never read in Church. 

Now that we’ve read it, it’s also obvious why it wasn’t included in the Revised Common Lectionary. The entire idea of God ordering that king Saul “put to holy destruction”—usually translated as “utterly destroy”—the entire A∙mal′e∙kīte people is incomprehensible to twenty-first century Christians. God was literally ordering that Saul commit genocide.

To try to understand what was going on here, we need to step away from the specifics of this story to two nested levels of context. The first step away is the scriptural context, to look at the covenant laws in the book of Deuteronomy that provided the basis for God’s order, through Samuel, to Saul. 

Deuteronomy chapter 7 says, “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy and he clears away many nations before you—…seven nations more numerous and mightier than you—and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them, … for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. … But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire.

Deuteronomy chapter 20 says “as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. Indeed, you shall annihilate them—…—just as the Lord your God has commanded.”

Finally, specifically regarding the A∙mal′e∙kītes, Deuteronomy chapter 25 says “Remember what Am′a∙lek did to you on your journey out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way, when you were faint and weary, and struck down all who lagged behind you; he did not fear God. 

Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies on every hand, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the remembrance of Am′a∙lek from under heaven; do not forget.”

Although this scriptural context provides the Old Testament legal justification for Israelite genocide of their enemies, it still begs the question of why God would make these demands in the first place. What was God thinking?!

For Israel to ultimately provide the fertile ground needed for the coming of Jesus and his message a millennium later, the Jewish people had to thoroughly internalize—and accept as irrefutable truth—the concept of strict monotheism. The God of Abraham, Yahweh in Hebrew, Allah in Arabic, was not just their god—in competition with the pagan gods of the other peoples around them—the Creator God is the one and only God.

Putting aside that humankind everywhere continues to this day to create physical and cultural idols of various sorts—in violation of the Second Commandment—God knew the immense temptation that the gods and idols of the Canaanite peoples would present to the Israelites. 

Indeed, the history of Israel, from entering Canaan through the divided kingdoms—spanning six centuries—includes recurring cycles of the Israelites falling into the worship of Canaanite gods—the Bā′als—followed by reforms intended to reinforce the worship of Yahweh alone. Correspondingly, most of the prophets living in this period—from the Judges to Ezekiel—focused their messages on God’s anger at Israel for its idolatry. 

So, what made Saul’s sin, by not utterly destroying the A∙mal′e∙kītes, so great that God would regret having anointed Saul as king over Israel? 

In 1 Samuel chapter 8, the tribal leaders of Israel came to Samuel saying, “appoint for us a king to govern us, like other nations.” Samuel prayed to God about this, and God replied that “they have not rejected you, but it is me they have rejected from ruling over them.” Samuel then warned the people about a litany of abuses which they should expect from a king. Finally relenting to the people’s demand for a king, Samuel, at God’s direction, anointed Saul, saying “The Lord has anointed you ruler over his people Israel.” 

In time, however, Saul fell victim to the inevitable temptations of power. He forgot that his power had been granted by God, it was not the result of any inherent greatness of Saul’s own. Keeping King Ā′gag of the A∙mal′e∙kītes alive as a human trophy, rather than killing him as God commanded, was just to satisfy his own ego. Keeping the livestock of the A∙mal′e∙kītes alive, rather than destroying them, was a purely economic decision.

Ultimately, not destroying the A∙mal′e∙kītes was an abuse by Saul of the power that God had granted to him.

Turning to the much more familiar story from the Gospel According to Mark about the death of John the Baptizer, we find another abuse of power much less ambiguous to us than that of Saul. 

Note that King Herod in this story is not Herod the Great, who was installed by Rome as King over Palestine in 40 BC. It was Herod the Great who rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem and, at least as recorded in the Gospel According to Matthew, ordered the killing of young children in Bethlehem. 

Among Herod’s sons were Herod An′ti∙pas, King (officially “Tetrarch”) over Galilee and the east bank of the Jordan River, and Phillip, King over northeastern Palestine. Keep in mind, of course, that all the Herodian kings—while absolute monarchs within their appointed territories—ultimately served at the pleasure of the Roman Emperor.  

It was the marriages of Herod the Great’s granddaughter Herodias—first to Phillip, and then to Herod An′ti∙pas, which precipitated today’s story.

The irony in this story is that Herod An′ti∙pas—while not known for being a particularly nice guy—didn’t intend to execute John. Herod’s first abuse of power was in unwittingly delegating that power to Herodias’s daughter (known to us from the historian Josephus as Sa′lō∙mē). Herod’s second abuse of power was in succumbing to “his oaths and his guests”—doing what he knew was morally wrong by giving-in to Sa′lō∙mē’s request—so that he would not be embarrassed in front of his guests, nor have his authority over the leaders of Galilee undermined.

What can we learn from these stories? 

Saul and Herod were both kings—absolute monarchs. Their autocratic decisions were not to be challenged. Absolute monarchy was the governance norm everywhere at the time. The earliest Greek democracies didn’t appear until hundreds of years after the time of Saul.

We have come to expect, as a given, that we live in a representative democracy, with checks and balances to prevent autocratic abuses of power. But like the Israelite leaders who came to Samuel asking him to appoint a king, there are those among us who believe that the answer to their fears about changes in American society is to choose an autocrat as their leader. Should that come to pass, I fear that this time around autocratic abuses of power would be inevitable, and I pray that it will not happen here.

Amen.

Benediction

The God Who Is bless you and keep you;

the Creator God make her face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the Sovereign God lift up her countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.