Listen Carefully, Act Humbly

1 Samuel 15:1-23

So, when Samuel reluctantly agreed to give the people their wish and anoint a king, Saul was nowhere to be found. Samuel looked high and low until he found him hiding in a pile of baggage. The people had to drag him out to be anointed by Samuel. However, when they did, Saul stood up straight and everyone was “super pleased” because he was really tall and doesn’t everyone want a really tall king? So, the bungling, budding king and his superficial people all stand together. As soon as he’s anointed, they cry out, “Long live the King!” Thus begins the disaster that was the monarchy in Israel.

Saul is offered plenty of guidance. He gets all sorts of instructions on how to lead the people from God, delivered through the prophet, Samuel. He even tries to stick with those plans. However, as soon as things aren’t going his way, he changes the plan. As soon as there is a way to please people, he changes the plan. All along the way, Saul gladly claims any success as his own. Saul is an unfaithful, people-pleasing narcissist, ready to follow God’s lead as long as it is convenient.

Let’s pause here…It is highly unlikely that any of us are ever going to be anointed king or queen. So, if this text speaks to us today, it won’t be in gathering tips on what to do if we are suddenly anointed. Instead, we need to listen and ask ourselves about times when we feel called to do something and how we handle that calling. There are roles we play in our families. Most of us are called to be a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a daughter or a son. In our working lives, we assume certain roles and bear responsibilities. In our communities, we sometimes take on positions (the school board, the village board, the library board) in which we have the power to make decisions. Some of us might even run for office. The question is what does it mean to be a faithful person in the roles we play in life. What would it mean for us to faithfully handle these callings?

What we see in Saul are simply these questions blown up on a scale large enough that we can see them and perhaps can translate them back into our own lives. Take Saul’s anointing as an example. Most of us have been tempted to hide from a calling. Did your knees knock a little on your wedding day? Did you feel competent to be a parent for the first time or did you want to file charges against the hospital for being so negligent that they would allow someone like you to actually take a baby home? The first time I performed a wedding, the thought in the back of my head was, “Wow…I fooled them!” If you overcompensated on your first day of work and tried to be super confident, don’t you sort of cringe now looking back?

So, the first experience of being called into a new, meaningful, responsible role in life is that we should feel humbled and daunted. For a person of faith, such moments lead us into gratitude for being given the chance to be married or be a parent or do this work. However, if we are really living our faith, that faith will deepen with the honest prayers we offer to God: “Hey God, me again. There’s no way this is getting done without your help. Lead me! Guide me! Walk with me!” Being given the chance to make choices that matter ought to humble us. We ought to discover our own limits. We ought to discover and accept the need for help.

One of the great distorting forces in this mix for Saul is that all of the people are focused on him. They want him to make their choices for him. When he does, they are so pleased with their new king. And when he is adored, all he wants is to be adored more. His power seems limitless so why not use that power to feed all of his own needs and desires. After all, if I’m king, shouldn’t there be a little “something, something” in this for me?

Of course, in our non-royal callings in life, similar temptations arise. It’s not always easy to remember that it is a gift to get the chance to be a parent or that it is a gift that someone else wants to love me through thick and thin. It is not always easy to be disciplined enough to practice a little self-denial, to defer gratification, particularly if we feel we aren’t getting the credit or adoration that we are so sure that we deserve. It is not always easy to stay on the path that we know is our calling. The tireless pursuit of living up to our calling can leave us depleted and wondering, “When is a little “something something" going to come back to me?”

All of this is to say that we probably ought to identify with Saul at least as much as we critique him. He’s guilty of being human. His calling blows up his failings and frailties so large that we can’t miss them. He has a prophet and God looking over his shoulder the whole time. And, he blows his calling again and again. If things don’t go exactly his way, exactly on his schedule, he panics and loses faith. (Haven’t we all been angry at God when life doesn’t measure up to our expectations and demands?)

In the 15th chapter of 1 Samuel, Saul is blowing his calling for the last time. He has been told that he needs to go and attack the Amalekites because they had ambushed the tribes when they were in the wilderness. (We can pause and recognize that this is the vengeful God that we often find in the Old Testament. If we want to make ourselves more uncomfortable, we can think about how many people still cling to the notion of a vengeful God. If we want to make ourselves really uncomfortable, we can ask ourselves how our own way of seeing the world limits our vision of who God might be.) In any event, Saul is to attack the Amalekites, and destroy everything and everyone.

We could spend all day asking whether the God we know and love would ever present such a calling. Our ancestors thought God did. (The person on 9/11 who didn’t like my prayer for peace and justice who yelled at me that I should be praying for God to smite our enemies believed in that vengeful God, too!) However, God’s vengeance wasn’t what was news in this text to our ancestors. The news was that the king was supposed to go win the battle and take nothing for himself. This isn’t going to be about getting to enjoy the spoils of war. This is going to be a selfless act: “I want you to do this and there is nothing in it for you.”

Saul fails this calling. He allows the Amalekite king to live, presumably not as an act of mercy but to parade the king around to show everyone what an amazing king, Saul, himself, is! Oh…and it seemed such a waste to slaughter all those lovely sheep and cattle, so, he allowed his men to take a few for themselves. Nothing made Saul happier than to see how those men adored him when he gave them what they wanted. All in all, Saul felt good. His brilliant leadership and the hard work of his men had allowed them to prevail. He’d gotten God’s job done! In short, Saul is totally clueless. (And again, we all should be able to understand this by being honest with ourselves about the incredibly oblivious moments in our own lives when we thought we were doing just fine when, in fact, we were blowing our calling completely.)

In the text, God sees all the compromise and the corners cut and the selfishness and the narcissism and tells Samuel, “I’m sorry that I ever made Saul king. He’s turned his back on me. He refuses to do what I tell him.” Samuel is livid. He’s ready to give Saul a piece of his mind.

The only problem is that Saul is not there. Where is he? Is he hiding in a pile of baggage again? No…he’s using some of what he had plundered from the Amalekites to make a burnt offering to God—you know—the stuff he wasn’t supposed to touch at all. While his offering is smoldering away, he sees Samuel approaching and is so oblivious that he calls out, “God’s blessings on you! I accomplished God’s plan to the letter!” Saul is so sure that he’s done exactly what God wanted and that he is doing something God wants in offering up the sacrifice.

Steam starts coming out of Samuel’s ears! (Okay…I added that part but the man is really livid.) Listen to Samuel’s words: “Do you think that all God wants are sacrifices, empty rituals just for show? He wants you to listen to him. Plain listening is the thing, not staging a lavish religious production. Not doing what God tells you is far worse than fooling around with the occult. Getting self-important around God is far worse than making deals with your dead ancestors. Because you said no to God’s command, he says no to your kingship.” Basically, “Saul…before God made you king, you were nothing. Get ready to be nothing again. The next king is already getting ready to take your place.”

So, the carry away for us isn’t about a God who calls us to slaughter nations. Our ancestors in faith grew past that understanding of God. Ultimately, that understanding was transformed by the New Covenant of love and care and compassion that Jesus revealed. No…the carry away for us is that what God wants more than anything is for us to listen to our calling and do what we are being called to do. Just listen! Then, be humble enough to remember that being a parent or being married or having a meaningful job or getting the chance to serve is an honor that we are given in trust. Even on the tough days, we should thank God for the chance to try to figure things out. And we should constantly be vigilant against the creeping sense of entitlement which is the curse of the universal struggle with human selfishness.

If Samuel is right, God is not waiting for us to take a half-hearted stab at rising to our calling. God wants us to go all in. And when all is said and done, what will matter most to God is not how “religious” we were or how awesome we thought we were. What will matter is that whatever we did, we acted with humility and we did what we did to the glory of God.

We rise to the callings of this life together or we make way for those who will rise. Our dear friend, Saul, is about to learn how hard it is to make way for the new king…