biblical narrative – Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

*David Attacks the Ammonites, by Gustave Doré, 1866*

Then Joab and the troops with him advanced to fight the Arameans, and they fled before him. When the Ammonites realized that the Arameans were fleeing, they fled before Abishai and went inside the city. So Joab returned from fighting the Ammonites and came to Jerusalem.

After the Arameans saw that they had been routed by Israel, they regrouped. Hadadezer had Arameans brought from beyond the Euphrates River; they went to Helam, with Shobak the commander of Hadadezer’s army leading them.

When David was told of this, he gathered all Israel, crossed the Jordan and went to Helam. The Arameans formed their battle lines to meet David and fought against him. But they fled before Israel, and David killed seven hundred of their charioteers and forty thousand of their foot soldiers. He also struck down Shobak the commander of their army, and he died there. When all the kings who were vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been routed by Israel, they made peace with the Israelites and became subject to them.

So the Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites anymore. (New International Version)

Outward Conflict with Ammon

You would think that showing basic human kindness to another would always end well… Yet, not always. And King David found that out, the hard way.

David, having become king of Judah and Israel, demonstrated that his reign would be characterized by extending the sort of mercy and kindness that is characteristic of God.

Whereas David’s kindness was most often accepted, when it came to King Hanun and the Ammonites, it was misunderstood and rejected. The Ammonites humiliated King David’s sent ambassadors.

The delegation wanted to express David’s condolences to Hanun in the event of his father’s death. Then, after the Ammonites saw that King David was upset about how his ambassadors were treated, they mobilized a mercenary force of Arameans with Hadadezer leading the charge.

Both the Ammonites and the Arameans underestimated the experience and skill of the Israelite army under their commander Joab. Even though Joab was outnumbered, he conceived of a strategy that evened the odds.

All of this conflict, with preparations for battle and an escalating war, came about because a king wanted to show kindness to another. Indeed, this can be a very messed-up world that we inhabit!

The result of it all is that the Ammonites and the Arameans were soundly defeated by a smaller, yet much stronger, army with King David at the head. The Arameans became subject to Israel, and the Ammonites were left slack-jawed, not knowing what hit them.

Inner Conflict with Oneself

So, here we have David, who like all of us, is a bundle of contradictions. On the one hand, King David had his heart set on showing kindness and reflecting the heart of God in his rule and reign. And on the other hand, David is a soldier and a man of blood, who does an awful lot of killing people in his lifetime.

King David is both a paragon of moral behavior, and an example of immoral living.

He did not lift a finger against his former king who was trying to kill him; and evidenced a tender spirit through musical skill and an ability to write the psalms and songs of Israel.

*Statue of King David, Copenhagen, Denmark*

Yet also, King David demonstrated for us some of the worst immorality, of which is clearly seen in the next few chapters of his story in the book of 2 Samuel. Throughout David’s adult life, he took thousands of human lives in battle.

He came to fame by beheading Goliath; made his mark in Israel by killing Philistines for King Saul; survived in the wilderness while Saul was trying to kill him by killing Amalekites; and secured Israel’s borders through an enormous amount of killing.

I won’t do to simply say that the people David killed had it coming to them, or that he did all the things he did for the sake of the nation. That sort of reductionism smacks of mental laziness and purposeful ignorance.

Coming to Grips with Conflict

At the least, it seems to me that we must accept the biblical narratives as they are, and not as we want them to be, whenever there is difficulty in understanding a story.

We have the human condition in front of us every time we read a scriptural story. Either making it all good, or all bad, just won’t do – because all of us, like David, are a bundle of contradictions and paradoxes that often don’t make sense.

It turns out that, throughout Holy Scripture, we find stories of people who are no better and no worse than we ourselves. The ancient persons, like David, are those for whom a gracious God chose to use and work through – despite either their sinning or their saintliness.

We get a glimpse of how things were and how the Lord operated through the people of the time in their own political, social, economic, and religious contexts.

God comes to us, not merely from the outside by simply mandating commands and imposing control, but enters our lives on the inside, taking us as we are and graciously working with and within us to accomplish good and just purposes on this earth.

And, as it turns out, God uses whomever God wants to use, without doing some sort of divine screening interviews to find out who the most moral candidate is available for the job.

If you are looking for a bottom line in all of this mayhem, then I believe it is this: God loves us. God is with us. And God holds us – all of us, with our maddening combinations of kindness and kookiness – to establish a truly right and benevolent world characterized by humility, gentleness, mercy, purity, and peace.

It’s a rather long and messy process of bringing in such a way of life, but God is patient and will take the centuries and even the millennia needed to accomplish it.

It’s Not All About Human Conflict

Although we are a flawed and fallible people, we are nevertheless God’s people. At the end of it all, we discover that none of this was really a story about Ammonites or Israelites or David or Joab or anyone else; it is actually a story about God – because God is both the object and subject of every biblical narrative.

And what we discover about God is that there are divine initiatives happening all the time which are meant to help us and save us from ourselves. The Lord is sovereign over all creation, and brings salvation despite what we do or don’t do.

God’s kindness – shown and expressed through our own human kindness – will eventually and always win the day.

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

*Top picture: Eli’s sons commit sacrilege; Bottom picture: Hannah and Elkanah bring the boy Samuel to the tabernacle; by William de Brailes, c.1230 C.E.*

Elkanah and Hannah went back home to Ramah, but the boy Samuel stayed to help Eli serve the Lord.

Eli’s sons were priests, but they were dishonest and refused to obey the Lord. So, while people were boiling the meat from their sacrifices, these priests would send over a servant with a large, three-pronged fork. The servant would stick the fork into the cooking pot, and whatever meat came out on the fork was taken back to Eli’s two sons. That was how they treated every Israelite who came to offer sacrifices in Shiloh. Sometimes, when people were offering sacrifices, the servant would come over, even before the fat had been cut off and sacrificed to the Lord.

Then the servant would tell them, “The priest doesn’t want his meat boiled! Give him some raw meat that he can roast!”

Usually the people answered, “Take what you want. But first, let us sacrifice the fat to the Lord.”

“No,” the servant would reply. “If you don’t give it to me now, I’ll take it by force.”

Eli’s sons did not show any respect for the sacrifices that the people offered. This was a terrible sin, and it made the Lord very angry. (Contemporary English Version)

Stories in the Old Testament of the Bible typically have two or more contrasting characters within them. One of the characters is good and the other not so much. The narrative is set up without having to tell us who is good and who is bad because the unfolding story makes it patently obvious.

This method of contrast is meant for us to look at the narrative and say to ourselves that we don’t want to go down the bad path but to walk in the good way of helpful obedient service.

In today’s story, we clearly see that, in the case of Eli’s sons, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Old Eli the priest is a contrast to the boy priest-in-residence Samuel.

Eli had many faults, especially when it came to dealing with his sons, who were also priests. Eli seems to have continually had an issue with not listening very well – which ended in making a mess of things.

His sons took the casualness to an entirely new level of bad. They were not only worthless but also interfered in the people’s sincere worship of God. The sons were more than simply incompetent; they were also downright evil.

The Law made it clear how the priests and their portion of the sacrificial animals was to occur. There were detailed instructions on the importance of what part of the animal the priests received; and that the sacrifice needed to have the fat boiled off before it was given to the priest. (Leviticus 7:30-36)

But Eli’s sons took whatever they wanted, and did whatever they wanted, with calloused impunity. They disregarded divine instructions. If they wanted to roast their meat, they did. If they decided to have a different part of the animal, they took it from the worshiper. The sons did not care about anyone, and especially about God. They were bullies of the worst kind.

When sincere worshipers tried to stop the insanity of the priests’ blatant neglect, the servant of the priests threatened them. Although Eli himself did not do this detestable practice, we are meant to see in the narrative that he is an absent father and grossly negligent as a priest.

That entire incompetent and insensitive situation raised the ire of a holy God. It would not end well for Eli and his sons. That particular branch of the Levite priesthood was completely eradicated by the direct judgment of the Lord.

The contrast between Eli and Samuel – both serving as priests – has an unexpected twist. Whereas one would reasonably expect Eli to be the good mentor because of his age and experience, it turns out that the much younger Samuel is the actual mentor to the good and right life of priesthood. Eli needed to take his cues from a child. But, alas, he did not.

*Hannah presenting Samuel to Eli, by John Flaxman, 1783*

Many adults seem to think that children have nothing to teach them. We who are the big people believe we’re the teachers, leaders, and mentors. Yet, in the kingdom of God, age hasn’t got much to do with it. In fact, generally speaking, children are closer and wiser to knowing how God’s kingdom works, often better than the adults do.

In many respects, I am more like an eight year old boy than the actual father and grandfather that I am. I consider that a good thing. It serves me well in living the spiritual life. And as a boy in an adult body, I say we need to take children more seriously. How can we do that?

Listen carefully. Listen with the intent to understand and learn. The best way of talking to a child is listening to them. Hear both what they’re saying and not saying. Jesus insisted that we must become like little children before we can enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:2-5)

Since we are to become like children, there’s no reason not to do your very best in getting on a child’s level and hearing what they have to say. After all, they’re the experts on being kids. The young Samuel is our model: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10)

Validate a child’s emotions, especially their fears. In truth, kids are some of the bravest souls on the planet. They typically have no real hang-ups on connecting with other people, whereas many adults have a lot of anxieties and fears concerning other people.

So, when a child is afraid of something, it’s wise to take notice. They have a special radar to reality that most adults lost a long time ago. I’ll bet the children of the community knew the score of Eli and his sons well before the adults caught on to it.

Observe children’s artworks. For those interested in learning from a child, their drawings with crayons say a lot; their sand sculptures and garbage art speak loads to us if we observe and take notice. Kids are communicating their worldview and how they make sense of things.

Art is about understanding life and the human spirit, connecting to the past and other cultures, and expressing emotions. Becoming open to what children create is a pathway to the divine and to what is important in this world. Eli’s sons removed the art and craft of priesthood; they made it a mere exchange of goods and services. And God was not happy with this arrangement. It took away something significant about connecting with the Lord.

By contrasting the way of Samuel with the way of Eli and his sons, we begin to see the wide chasm between a one-dimensional bullying approach to being a priest, with a multi-dimensional, beautiful, and authentic expression of priesthood that embodies the conduit between heaven and earth.

How will you go about living your life? What does the way you do things say about God?

Holy God, infuse in us your ability to remain present to your people. Help us to be there for the people who need us – for the young, the old, the needy, and the brokenhearted. Enflame our hearts with a spirit of service and obedience. And enable us to be open and ready to love. Amen.

Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

Tag: biblical narrative