So I feel sorry for Saul

In the Daily Office we're reading from I Samuel in the Evening Office. Tonight we read how King Saul was disowned by God because he offered sacrifice to God before the big battle with the Philistines without waiting for Samuel to come and do it. Of course, the army was deserting and the Philistines were advancing quickly. Now I completely understand that this is a story (not as awful as the story of the sacrifice of Isaac which I preached on last Sunday) that demonstrates that it's important to trust in God no matter what the apparent circumstances, but still. Consider:

I Samuel 9: 23 And Samuel said to the cook, “Bring the portion I gave you, the one I asked you to put aside.” 24 The cook took up the thigh and what went with it and set them before Saul. Samuel said, “See, what was kept is set before you. Eat; for it is set before you at the appointed time, so that you might eat with the guests.”

Now you have to know that this phraseology indicated that the portion reserved for Saul would normally be reserved the the priest for after the sacrifice.

Here's another:

I Samuel 10: 3 Then you [Samuel is speaking to Saul just after he has anointed him king of Israel] shall go on from there further and come to the oak of Tabor; three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three kids, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. 4 They will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from them.

Again, it's not something you might know, but the bread was the bread of the "elevation offering" which again was normally reserved for the priest to receive. So Samuel was telling Saul that we would be treated in some sense as a priest.

OK one more:

I Samuel 10: 10 When they were going from therej to Gibeah,k a band of prophets met him; and the spirit of God possessed him, and he fell into a prophetic frenzy along with them.

So now Saul is prophesying, just like a priest would do.

BTW, this is not my idea; these are notes in the Harper-Collins NRSV version. I imagine the Rabbis have already put this together, but still, it kind of stands to reason that King Saul, who was treated like a priest at least three times, would feel under great distress that Samuel, God's prophet, wasn't around. So is it so unreasonable that he would undertake the sacrifice - reserved for only the priest to perform - when he had been so treated three times before?

Saul doesn't even get one chapter before he's rejected by God in favor of David. Now, I fully accept the omnipotence and the omni-knowledge of God. So how Saul fits in to the plan of salvation is beyond me. Perhaps Saul represents the earlier remnant of a dynasty before David in Israelite prehistory? I mean, it's just chapter 10 that he's rejected by God but it takes him to chapter 31 to finally die. And there is a lot of good stuff there. So as we move through July we'll get all of that, but in the meantime we get to deal with a God who apparently leads Saul on and then, when he does the seemingly natural thing, says he's wrong and that he will die and somebody else will be Kinf over Israel. I know there's more here, but that's what strikes me this evening.

Here's a scene from the G.F. Handel opera Saul:





RFSJ

A Carbon Fast for Lent: Day 8 Again!

Turns out the UK version of the Carbon Fast list only has 40 entries, so Sundays are excluded. This is is right, of course, because all fasts are dispensed on Sundays, even in Lent. So I could go with the American version of the Carbon Fast, but I like the liturgical sensibilities of the UK version better. So that means today is Day 8 again. Is your phone charger unplugged if you aren't using it?

There was an interesting skip in the Scripture cycle for Morning Prayer today. We've been reading from the Joseph cycle in Genesis, and yesterday we finished up Ch. 37, with Joseph being sold into slavery. Today we were to read Ch. 39, which recounts how Joseph was blessed by God in all he did. He was also handsome and caught the eye of his master's wife, but she framed him when he wouldn't have sex with her. A little R-rated scripture to start off the day never hurt anyone....

But what about chapter 38? This is the unfortunate story of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, and it's also R-rated. I can see how the lectionary editors would just skip it because it doesn't have too much to do with the main part of the Joseph story. But there's something I discovered while reading it today anyway. It was actually in a footnote. There were two children as a result of this liasion, Perez and his brother. What I didn't realize is that Perez is the ancestor of Boaz, Ruth, and Kind David, and therefore traditionally an ancestor of Jesus as well. And in fact Matthew's geneology of Jesus makes this very clear:

³⁴⁵⁶Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.

So the greatest King in Israel's history, the model for all kings after him, was a descendant of incest. If God can use all these sorts and conditions of humanity to work his will in the world, what can he do with you and me if we let him?

Strengthen us, O Lord, by your grace, that in your might we may overcome all spiritual enemies, and with pure hearts serve you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

RFSJ

A Nice Foreshadowing

Yesterday in the Daily Office the Gospel reading was Luke's version of the confession of St. Peter that Jesus is Lord. Today at Morning Prayer the Gospel reading is from John's Passion Narrative. It's Peter's denial that he knows Jesus.

I hadn't noticed the convergence before. Obviously it's deliberate, and I appreciate it. It's an effective way to remind us, just before Lent begins, that we too can be both saint and sinner, and sometimes in the same day or even the same breath.

RFSJ

My Daily Office Experiment for Year A

This liturgical year I am trying something new for the Daily Office. The new Lutheran worship book Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) has a daily lectionary that is explicitly tied to the Sunday readings. A Psalm and two readings are provided for each day except on Sundays, when it is assumed believers will attend Sunday worship. The weekly cycle begins on the Thursday before the Sunday in question; Thursday Friday and Saturday are designed to prepare for the upcoming Sunday, and Monday through Wednesday are designed to reflect on the past Sunday.

I thought this was kind of interesting and so I'm going to try the following, as an aid to my own sermon preparation. I am going to read the morning office from the BCP Lectionary, using two readings: the Hebrew Scripture Reading, and then two days worth of the Apostolic Writings selection or two days worth of the Gospel. This way, I get the entire cycle of the lectionary in one office and also keep up with all the readings. In the evening, I'm going to use the ELW lectionary, beginning an entire week in advance, so that on Monday I will read Thursday's designated readings, on Tuesday I will read Friday's, and so forth. My goal is to gain a whole week of reflections as I prepare for the upcoming Sunday sermon, even if I am not preaching that Sunday. There's a slight problem with the Psalm, as ELW designates a single Psalm for Thursday-Saturday and another for Monday-Wednesday. I think I'm going to use the BCP Psalms for Evening Prayer, because the seven-week cycle I use just doesn't seem to work only half-time.

Tell me what you think. So I'll let you know how it goes!

RFSJ

A Nice Convergence

Last evening, the reading from Hebrew Scriptures was the establishing of the Aaronic Blessing, "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." (Num 6:22-27 NRSV) And this morning, the psalm appointed was Psalm 80, with its refrain: "Restore us, O Lord God of hosts, * show us the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved." (BCP p. 702f)

Interestingly, the Septuagint (Greek text) for both "face" and "countenance" is the same word in the Numbers passage, and is the same word in Psalm 80 as well. I can't read the Hebrew, but the Tanakh (the definitive English translation by Jewish scholars from the Hebrew) puts the blessing this way: "The Lord bless you and protect you! The Lord deal kindly and graciously with you! The Lord bestow his favor upon you and grant you peace!" Note the exclamation marks - they are included in the Tanakh version.

RFSJ

This Week in the Daily Office

In the Daily Office lectionary this week, the (optional) OT lesson for Evening Prayer is a series of apparent theophanies taken from a variety of writings. I always like it when the Office Lectionary does something like that. Instead of in-course readings from Ezekiel (the OT sequence for Morning Prayer this week) we get a survey of readings that the Office Lectionary writers invite us to reflect on.

This week is the week of Easter VII, when we pray for the Holy Spirit that was promised to come quickly. So I've got to think that the OT lessons have something to do with the Sacred Spook, although at my first reading the overall theme isn't exactly clear, at least to me. But here they are. See for yourself and let me know what you think:

Sunday: Exodus 3:1-12
Monday: Joshua 1:1-9
Tuesday: I Sam 16:1-13a
Wed.: Isaiah 4:2-6
Thurs.: Zechariah 4:1-14
Friday: Jer. 31:27-34
Saturday (the Eve. of Pentecost): Exodus 19: 3-8a, 16-20

RFSJ