So You Want a King?

Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."

1 Samuel 8: 10-18

Our story began in a Garden. Unlike any other Garden, this one was special. No thorns, no war, no pollution or poverty. It was perfect. But, there was one thing that man was not supposed to partake of.....the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God warned Adam and Eve that if they ate of that Tree that they would discover something called "death". Immortality and Knowledge of Good and Evil does not mix. And, then a lying, cheating, no good serpent entered the Garden and tempted them to partake of the forbidden fruit. Evidently, the lure of God- like knowledge was far more tempting than the fear of death. They would decide for themselves what was "good" and what was "evil". They rejected what God told them to do. The result was the "Fall". It created a separation of humanity from God. The results were horrific. The first death outside the Garden was the murder of one their sons by another. The flow of civilization and violence that proceeded forth became so horrific that the "earth became full of violence". So much so, that God decided to reboot the design. In his grace he chose a man, Noah, and his family and preserved animal life from a great flood that destroyed the evil world. But, like sand in the carburetor, it did not take long to discover that the seeds of sin sprung forth again like dandelions on a vacant lot.

God decided to make a covenant with a man, Abram, who was called out of the seat of civilization of his day. God told him he would take him to a new land and that through his seed, "all nations of the earth would be blessed". This was the story of the redemption of the human race. God changed his name to "Abraham" which means father of many nations. The story of his descendants, Issac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph show that God was involved in each of their lives in special ways. But, his descendants ended up as slaves in Egypt for 400 years.

The story of the Exodus (the second book of the Bible) is a story of deliverance of God's people. God choose a baby Hebrew, Moses, whose mother spared his life by hiding him in a basket in the reeds along the Nile river from an officially proclaimed governmental policy of genocide against Hebrew male babies. Moses was adopted by the daughter of the Pharaoh and grew up in the palace of the Pharaoh ( i.e. "King") of Egypt. When Moses murdered an Egyptian taskmaster, he fled to the desert of Midian to hide from judgment of the Egyptian legal system. It was there that God revealed himself to Moses on Mount Sinai and told him to return to Egypt to deliver God's people to a promised land. As God delivered him from the Nile as a baby, Moses delivered his people by having them cross the Red Sea on dry land before waters destroyed Pharaoh's army of chariots who were pursuing them.

Moses led the people of Israel in the desert; but, not as a King. He was a prophet of God. God himself tabernacled with the people directing their way and delivering them from their enemies. The people did not always appreciate deliverance. In fact, they grumbled. Nostalgic memories of home back in Egypt, on the plantation, caused them to cry out for the meat and fast food of the empire. Evidently, the choice between filling their bellies with food was more important than wandering in the desert with God. Exodus 16:3 reads that:

"The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."

Not a lot has changed in our churches today. Many would rather follow their human desires for food, pleasure and material things than to seek to walk in the ways of the Lord.

When they came into the promised land, they were led by Joshua. Following his leadership were a series of Judges whom God raised up to deliver the people when they needed deliverance. By the days of the prophet Samuel, the people looked around at their neighbors who were ruled by Kings and demanded that Samuel appoint for them a King. The desire for a King was motivated by the people's desire to like their neighbors.....much like the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden. God had chosen his people to be "set apart from the nations". They were to be "holy" and to be "his own". Instead, the people demanded a human king. In the passage above, Samuel told them what that would mean to them. However,just like Adam and Eve, they ignored the long term consequences for the short term lure of the gain of an earthly kingdom. They wanted to "be like the nations". The Bible suggests that we need to be careful about what we wish for. The stories of the kings that followed showed how human wisdom leads to depravity and vanity. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, ruled with a heavy yoke saying, " my father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions". (I Kings 12:11) It was no wonder that the people rebelled and the Davidic kingdom was fractured between Israel and Judah. When government becomes a burden to the people, it is often overthrown. Our forefathers threw the tea overboard in Boston harbor for a penny tax. Today, our systems of taxation take over 1/2 of what people earn between income taxes, sales taxes, real estate taxes, earnings taxes, gift, estate and generation-skipping taxes.

But of course with God, that was not the end of the story. Grace always triumphs over Judgment. For Christians, the battle is always between two masters. Manna and God. The model of our King is one of a servant who is meek and lowly. He commanded his followers to render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's; but, to give to God the things that are God. The great paradox of God's power vs. that of the world is that a barren old lady would become the mother of a nation; a shepherd boy would become their King and that a homeless baby would lead them home.