By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
1 Samuel 7:15-8:22, 10:17-25
Poor Samuel. He has tried so hard.
By the time we meet him in our Scripture lesson this morning, he has given every part of his life to leading the people of God in ancient Israel. He has spoken prophetically of God’s justice and love. He has led priestly rituals as a steward of God’s mysteries. He has settled disputes, led the people into battle, soothed their wounds, and kept the peace. They cannot even begin to imagine their lives without him.
But to everything there is a season, and by the time we meet Samuel in our Scripture lesson this morning, Samuel’s season is coming to an end. And he knows it. And so do the people.
So Samuel sets up a transition team. Joel and Abijah, Samuel’s two strapping sons, have more than enough wealth and training and God-given talent to take on the task. Samuel sends them off to learn the trade throughout the farthest reaches of the federation, expecting them to return to Ramah—the center of the federation in the time of Samuel’s judgeship—ready to lead upon his death.
It does not go according to plan.
While Samuel shows every indication that he has found his power directly from God’s anointing of his ministry, Joel and Abijah draw their power more from the job of judging, itself. They plunder the villages they have been appointed to serve. They take bribes for their economic influence. They twist justice at every turn in order advance their own agendas.
Or at least that is what history records. Truth be told, we never do hear their side of the story.
The bottom line is that something must be done. The question is . . . what?
It helps to understand what is going on in this Scripture if we take a step back from this tale of a transition gone south and focus on the even bigger transition going on all around the people of ancient Israel. Because at the time of our Scripture lesson, the entire political and social and economic structure of the land we still to this day call “holy” is also changing dramatically. The other, non-Israelite, tribal federations that live in the land with them have begun to centralize their governments and specialize their occupations and consolidate their militaries and emerge as nation-states. Every one of them ruled by a king.
Sociologists who study religion have begun to call the kind of sweeping societal change that is taking place in our Scripture lesson today something like a great big “rummage sale,” when people of faith re-evaluate our expected norms and practices in light of dramatic societal shifts. It happens every 500 years or so. The Protestant Reformation was an example. The emergence of Christianity in the first century as a form of post-temple Judaism was an example. And this transition from the period of judges to the period of kings was an example.
So Samuel’s pending retirement, in the context of the Really Big Rummage Sale that is swirling around their society, gives the ancient Israelites a chance to toss out what they don’t need any more and to make way for the new. Which is what the people rightly call for, even though Samuel gives them a whole lot of grief for it. And although though the first King—Saul—the one who is hidden in the pile of baggage—doesn’t work out so well, the next King—David—and the King after that—Solomon—are truly fabulous. They lead the glory days of ancient Israel. In hindsight, we can see that the people who are calling for a king do move the tradition forward. And they are to be commended for it.
The real point of the lesson of First Samuel is not about whether or not it is a good idea to transition to a king. The real point of the lesson is about whether or not we are trusting the God who has anointed the king! And every other leader who came before the king! And every other leader who will come after the king! Because the community of faith really is, always and forever, about the kingdom of God, regardless of whom God has anointed as their leader.
And it is the God who is our king, who will always and forever lead every one of us out of whatever bondage we are in, through whatever transition we are in, into whatever new life we are about to become. That is what Samuel is so concerned the people will forget if—and when—they finally get their all-too-human king.
Woe unto us if we forget it, too, here at Madison Square, as we turn toward the task of nominating and electing a Pastor Nominating Committee that will function as your “Samuel” in seeking a new installed pastor. Because as thorough as we have been in consulting the congregation in this season of self-assessment, this transition is not, in the end, about the individual pastor who will lead you for the next season. It is about the God who will guide you through every season.
And while it may have been an immediate pastoral transition that has been occupying much of our imagination in this interim period, we, like those ancient Israelites clamoring for a king in the face of Samuel’s pending retirement, do well to remember that we are caught up in a much larger transition as American Protestant Christians in the twenty-first century. Another of what the sociologists of religion call a “great rummage sale” of re-evaluating basic norms and practices in light of our own great dramatic societal shifts. And, boy, are we shifting!
While the national trends are less true in south Texas than they are in other parts of the country, the shifting reality for American Protestant Christianity is that we really are no longer a clearly culturally Christian society. And the so-called “mainline Protestant” churches are no longer the center of the society we are becoming instead. Even just in my lifetime—and I am of the “Generation X”—we have become more secular, more pluralistic, and more diverse. Changes which many of us actually might like. We are also much more consumed with a culture of individual choice, from the marketplace of consumer goods to the marketplace of ideas to the marketplace of religious practice.
We can lament the effects of these trends on our tradition, of course. And perhaps we do. We are—at least as a Presbyterian denomination—just as conflicted about “what went wrong” as the crowds and Samuel were in our biblical text for today. But the bottom line is that this shift is upon us, and it is not going away, and our challenge is to adapt our way of ministry in a new way for a new day, just like they did in ancient Israel. We just have to be clear about the God we are serving in the midst of this shifting.
Where the ancient Israelites were consolidating and expanding in response to their cultural context, we are decentralizing and diversifying and dreaming whole new ways of being church. Where the ancient Israelites were compiling their traditions into a grand narrative, we are opening up a multiplicity of new ways to tell “the old, old story” of Jesus and his love. Where the ancient Israelites were building a big temple for the common worship of God, we are learning to take the church to the people beyond the building. And there are some exciting new ways of “being church” that Christians across the country are exploring these days.
A pastor from my Interim Ministry training program is starting a church on the beach in California. Can you imagine taking the church to the people, right there along the shore of this new Lake Galilee, sharing communion and celebrating the Spirit of creation. Another pastor friend of mine in Louisville has founded an Eco-Justice worship collective, where they gather to reclaim our God-given gift of true stewardship for this creation in ecological crisis. The San Antonio version of ministry beyond borders is taking place at The Foundry coffee shop, where people young and old gather for coffee and community and the gift of God’s grace. I understand they are going out of business fairly soon, which is really too bad . . . or perhaps we at Madison Square might find a way to fill the gap?
The bottom line is that what we are learning in this great rummage sale that is the emerging 21st century version of American Protestant Christianity is that the church, itself, is a “mission field.” That we, ourselves, are rediscovering the meaning of the very “transformation” we preach. And that being on the margins of an increasingly secular society may in fact be just the kind of jolt we need to boldly proclaim the good news of God for all who are on the margins of society.
Which is, of course, exactly what the self-assessment of Madison Square has said you want to do. So let’s do it! The two things we have agreed to work on together in August when I come back from vacation are adult education and member care. One way to do that could be to say, “Well, this is what we used to do, and we got away from it, so let’s get back to it again. Or we could say this is a whole new season for God’s grace to be proclaimed, and we have bold new ideas to explore together. What new gatherings of community might God be forming in us and through us as we reach out even more beyond this sacred sanctuary? What new risks are we called to take as we let go of ways of being church that had their place and time but need to make space for something else? And what anxiety do we need to let go, in order to trust that the God who has always led us out of whatever bondage we find ourselves in is doing so again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and even with us?
Poor Samuel did not really get it wrong when the people clamored for a king. He just wanted their true king to be the God they worshiped and served. And we won’t go wrong if we remember the same. No matter what transition we are in.
I pray it may be so. Amen.
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