A Very Scary Situation

A Very Scary Situation

October 2011

The fall season is probably my favorite time of the year. The cooling down of temperatures, the changing of the leaves, the wearing of sweatshirts, the eating of homemade donuts (and, of course, good coffee)...and, also, on the negative side (for me)....Halloween.

If the the “celebration” of Halloween disappeared, I would not shed a tear. While we don't have the space to develop it here, Halloween is loosely connected to the earliest of pagan holidays, and focuses on death, fear, and (in America) gore. Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here. I am not “anti-Halloween” completely as we celebrate it in the states either. My children have always gone “trick-or-treating” with an emphasis on fun and a kind of “scary ghost story around the fire” atmosphere. However, whatever one thinks of Halloween, it does highlight a few realities that many people would rather push out of their minds: death is real, fear often permeates our lives, and the Spirit-world...well...exists.

Not surprisingly, the Scriptures contain a story where all three of the above mentioned realities come in to play. It is a scary witch story, which God uses to teach a King (and us) some valuable lessons.

King Saul was given the difficult task of being Israel's first King (the nation of Israel wanted a king “like the other nations”). Unfortunately, for the people, Saul was a lot like them. I Samuel 13 tells us that he was impatient with God's timing and felt that he needed to step in and help God out to make sure he didn't loose too many troops before an important battle. In I Samuel 15, Saul believes that when God says: “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey (NRSV), it is just a general command that needed some “tweaking” so as to be more culturally relevant. I mean, hey, any smart king of that day would keep the best of the spoils of war (including the Amalekite King as a trophy), as this helps a king build up his treasury and gives him something more to give to God at worship...so if it is doing some good, it must be OK, right? I mean, God needs our help, doesn't he?

Interestingly, when Samuel rebukes Saul for his wickedness and self-idolatry in I Samuel 15:23, he likens his sin with...wait for it...divination. Divination is used by those who are separated from God and his Kingdom yet still wish to connect with the spirit-world and with those that have died. Instead of a relationship with the Lord, these persons, through witchcraft and “magic”, take short-cuts in the hopes that they will attain great power and knowledge.

In I Samuel 28 we find King Saul in a miserable place emotionally and spiritually. He no longer has the prophet Samuel in his life, and is cut off from gleaning any wisdom or direction from the Lord. In his desperation and fear, King Saul decides that he will try to glean some insight from those who are connected to the dead and the demonic.

In going to the Witch at Endor in I Samuel 28, King Saul continues his pattern of “going his own way” as reflected in I Sam 13 and15. Saul is so desperate and full of fear that he goes to dark magic to try and communicate with Samuel for help. The witch is shocked when she actually does bring Samuel back from the dead, revealing that whatever her connections with the underworld, she has never seen something this graphic! On top of this, God actually allows Samuel to talk with Saul! Saul's attempt to contact Samuel works, but his fear and desperation do not dissipate.

There are several lessons that we can glean from the story of King Saul. One of the most glaring is that we don't know better than the Lord does; as simple as this sounds, we constantly get this wrong. We the people of God, and the greater church in general around us, still think that we have better ideas in regards to what it means to be “successful” or “important” rather than “patient” and “faithful”.

Secondly, just because something seems to work, doesn't mean that God is honored by it or that it is his ideal for our lives or our churches. This is a big one for the American church. We American's are pragmatists at heart: If it works, then it is true. We often worship the successful, large, and the rich. We love assembly line efficiency, and mass production. We are short-term thinkers, giving little thought to long-term results or consequences. As Americans we don't need to be taught these things because they are “in the air” and all around us. We breathe it, hear it, watch it, and accept it.

Before we get too critical of Saul, we should take a hard look at ourselves and our own decision making as believers and as churches. The scary part of this story has little to do with the Witch at Endor. The most frightening part of this story is how easy it is for us to place our plans ahead of the Lord's plans; to rely on our wisdom and cultural assumptions, before relying on the lived-out gospel; to hold on to our own fear instead of embracing a courageous trust in him and his ways.

My desire for St. Peter and St. Paul is not that we become a huge, exciting church that everyone wants to come to, rolling out disciples at a fever pitch. Nor do I want our church to be a safe place to come where everyone gets what they want out of life. My desire for St. Peter and St. Paul is that we love the Lord and others so much that we test everything that we do by a Gospel and Kingdom of God perspective as laid out in the scriptures and handed down to us from the early church. God 's desire is that we live out a patient, long-term faith focused on what he has called the church to be. When we go ahead of God, thinking he needs our help, we will do nothing but hinder what it is that he wants to do in our lives individually and in our church corporately.

Will you join me in praying and seeking to be a people who strive toward these Gospel ideals? The journey will be hard and long, but as we focus on and listen to our Lord, it will be an adventure that we will never regret.

Father Tom