Here are the lessons (The Book of Common Prayer, Daily Office Lectionary, Year 1, Proper 8 [Wednesday], p, 972).
Samuel is bowing out of his leadership role. He once again reminds “all Israel,” now that they’ve insisted, that they’re stuck with King Saul, for better and for worse. The part of Samuel’s speech that hooked my attention, though, is where he asks rhetorical questions, each one drawing on a fundamental issue: Have I ever wronged you? No, the people reply, you’ve never mistreated us, cheated us, lied to us or stolen from us. You are a good prophet, an honest broker, worthy of respect, even though we didn’t take your advice when we wanted a king.
Samuel was a powerful man of God whose power came from God; his authority, however, which the people respected with deference, even when they were at odds with the powerful prophet, came from his honorable reputation, his ethical behavior. He was, in other words, not a false prophet but a true one, whose power was not abused and whose authority was not diminished by bad behavior. He was a prophet for whom the law mattered as much as his godly power.
Samuel is a legendary example of “ethical monotheism,” wherein the God of the Jews gave them a law to live by, thus forever wrapping together morality and ethics – one’s vertical relationship of alignment with a higher power with one’s horizontal relationships among humanity, guided by law. In Judaism, morals and ethics are inextricably bound as a way of life before God and humanity.
Jesus of Nazareth sought to reform the Judaism of his day by restoring this radical sense of connection between one’s relationship with God and one’s relationship with one’s neighbors. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven is no more and no less than love of neighbor – even one’s enemies – as an expression of one’s love of God.
In Acts, apostles Peter and John go to Samaria to check out apostle Philip’s new church. Philip has baptized a bunch of Samaritans in the name of Jesus, including a magician named Simon, but he hasn’t laid hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit, which in the early church was a very big deal.
Peter and John complete the church’s initiation rite with the laying on of hands, whereupon the wondrous gifts of the Spirit manifest themselves, which impresses the dickens out of Simon, the Samaritan magician. Simon sees the power of God conveyed through the apostles, who have authority within the Community of Faith by virtue of having, first, received the spiritual gifts themselves; and, second, for having been among The Twelve of Jesus’ most devoted followers before his death and resurrection.
Simon makes Peter an offer: Sell me that Holy Spirit power you convey by the laying on of hands. I’d like to incorporate that into my magic show.
Simon, evidently, had become a Christian because of the power it seemed to bestow upon its adherents. He apparently was blind to the authority of the apostles, which formed around their faith and their history with Jesus but also their honorable behavior – their loyalty, among other things, to the ethical teachings of Jesus and their intolerance of misbehavior among members of the early Church. (Forget not the legend of Ananias and Saphira, a married couple struck dead after lying to Peter about holding back from the church proceeds of the sale of their property.)
Peter responds to Simon: “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.”
Now that was spoken with considerable authority. Simon meekly asks that Peter pray for him, and I want to believe that Peter did; a WWJD moment if ever there was. I’d like to believe, too, that Simon might have become a better man – and a better Christian – for having had his heart and mind changed by Peter’s stern, authoritative admonition: Don’t mistake the power of God for something magical, an illusion created by one’s clever mind by which to dumfound the ignorant, a marketable security to be bought, sold and exchanged.
Jesus’ confrontations with Pilate and Herod create the ultimate tableau of power and authority. Jesus of Nazareth fell victim to the power of Judaism’s religious establishment and the political power of the Roman Empire. No one in this picture, however, has more real power than Jesus. His is the power of God, the power of Love that calls all Creation into being and sustains it every moment of Existence.
For Christians, the power of Love conquers all, even when it brings death, because the power of Love is the power of Hope for resurrection – new life in the power of Faith. These are the greatest powers of all: Faith, Hope and Love, for they participate in the power of God to create and sustain an eternal trajectory of creation, birth, death and resurrection to new life.
Jesus also is the only authority in the room, for his is not the power of force, of violence, of coercion, all of which are mere semblances of power as they deceive those who have it into believing that they also have authority to abuse their power by forcing others into submission.
In confrontation with these worldly powers and principalities, Jesus is silent, for Love has nothing to say that will change the hearts of those deceived by their worldly power. It is only by demonstration, by acts of Love, that the world, finally, may turn toward the Truth that surpasses all understanding; viz., that the true nature of power and authority is that Love rules the universe and, finally, that Love will accomplish all things good.
Love is the only thing that heals brokenness, and what could be more broken than a world worshipping at the altars of false gods such as War, Aggression, Conflict, Conquest and the like? Christians believe that God became flesh in Jesus Christ to show the world The Way to peace and concord. It hasn’t happened; and, sad to say, it may never happen, but it is the Faith of Christians that it is inevitable: Love, finally, will have its way with “the world, the flesh and the Devil.”
I can’t help but ponder contemporary world politics in light of the Gospel of Christ, the Word of God showing us what it’s like – really – to be fully human and fully divine. All humanity is called to be children of the Living God, or so ‘tis said among Christians. The death of Jesus on the Cross was an inevitable consequence of Love challenging worldly Power on its own court, so to speak; but the Resurrection tells us that, finally, Love wins.
It seems as though the leaders of many nations nowadays have misconstrued their political power by mistaking it for authority to do as they please, when, in fact, authority wanes to nothing the more power is abused. And what we see, daily, more and more, is not the authoritative use of power but its abuse; and, the Hell of it is, we see such abuses and have seen such abuses, historically, by religious leaders as well as secular rulers, which leaves little room for Hope that, someday, finally, the Truth of all matters will prevail – again, that Love, the Power of God, is the ultimate authority for human lives, regardless of one’s religious sect or national politics. Hardness of heart will not get us there, but only hearts and minds open to the possibilities of Faith, Hope and Love, these three – the greatest of which is Love.
The pelican papers 