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“MY POWER IN YOU”DAVID'S ROYAL LINE1. Of all the persons in the Old Testament, it is David whom we know most about. Through the Books of Samuel and Kings, we may trace the long life of this remarkable man from childhood to death. David is a king, the second king of Israel and the exemplar of leadership throughout all Israel’s history. 2. King David, who lived about a thousand years before Christ, is so important that God planned in the ages of the ages that Jesus of Nazareth would be descended from David’s royal line. We love David because he was a shepherd boy who became a good king. SINS SO GREAT3. In his life-long struggle to attain the good, he experienced shocking instances of personal sin. Some of his sins were so great before God that he incurred harsh divine punishment. You recall how he ordered the death of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, a commander in the royal army. 4. The king did this to cover up his affair with Bathsheba. Nathan the prophet personally delivered the news of God’s punishment to the adulterous king. In later years, and for reasons not entirely clear to us, King David angered the Lord by ordering a census of all the people of Israel. JEALOUS RAGE5. For our Divine Lesson today, we take up the story of David as a young man. He is immensely talented. He is brave, valiant, and respected. He is a poet (psalmist), a musician, and a commander of men. And he is running for his life. 6. The Book of First Samuel, chapter 26, tells us that Israel’s first king, whose name is Saul, is in a jealous rage. King Saul is commanding his army for the sole purpose of hunting David down as if the young man was a brigand, a criminal. HERO AND SON7. David, however, is innocent. The cause of the King’s rage is unbridled jealousy; he perceives the good and talented David as a personal threat. Saul bitterly resents the fact of David’s exploits and accomplishments. 8. Remember how David, as a shepherd boy, toppled the giant Goliath with his sling and a stone? Moreover, King Saul cannot reconcile himself to the fact that the Israelites love David as a hero. The people love him as a son. The people see David as one who represents the best in themselves. DAVID'S PALM9. Let’s turn now to Sacred Scripture to read a portion of chapter 26 from the First Book of Samuel. We’re going to learn just how vulnerable the powerful king is. Saul, who is hunting David, will find himself in the palm of David’s hand. 10. For his part, David must make a critical decision, a decision that would shape his future, indeed the whole of his life. What will David do? Will he kill the jealous king when given the chance? Will he walk away? And if he walks away, what will be his reason for doing so? From the First Book of Samuel, we read:
"PIN HIM TO EARTH"11. Saul, the king of Israel, was sleeping in his camp on the hill of Hachilah in the wilderness of Ziph. As he snored away, he had no clue that the man he was hunting stood over him. Or that his sworn enemy’s companion was prepared to “pin him to the earth with one stroke of the spear”. [1Sam 26:8] 12. The king’s enemy was David, an immensely popular and accomplished young warrior who had aroused the king’s jealousy. David’s friend and commander of his elite fighters, Abishai, was the son of Zeru-iah, David’s sister. MORAL LANDSCAPE13. It was Abishai who thought to take Saul's spear out of the ground to slay the old king while he slept. I will not need a second chance, he whispers fiercely. David was a superb military man; his skills were second to none. The proof of this was David’s daring nightime incursion into the heart of the king's camp—past the guards, the army itself, and Saul’s personal cohort. 14. But Abishai, thinking that the answer to life was to pin Saul to the earth with the stroke of a spear, was quite wrong. What confronted David in this instance was not a military opportunity but rather a moral issue. The rocky hills of Israel, indeed the wilderness of Ziph, was nothing compared to the challenging terrain of the moral landscape. DAVID'S THOUGHTS?15. Standing over his royal adversary on the hill of Hachilah, the Lord tested David in a crucible of tension and ambiguity. Surely the Lord delivered the king into his hands. Surely, David was entitled, with just one stroke of the blade, to end this madness? Wasn’t an innocent man entitled to defend his very life? 16. In the eyes of his companions, David was justified in killing Saul. Why did he delay? According to the norms of his contemporary world, David's reluctance to take Saul’s life was ill-advised, even foolhardy. His qualms appear senseless, even cowardly. What were David's thoughts as he stood over the sleeping king? LOVE FOR GOD17. Certainly he would remember the prophet Samuel showing up at his father's farm. He recalled the prophet’s astonishing mission. God had told Samuel to anoint the shepherd boy David to become the next king of Israel. Remarkably, God did not intend that any of David’s older, stronger brothers succeed the disobedient Saul as the second of king of Israel. 18. David would recall the horn of oil that Samuel poured over his head in the ritual anointing. Most of all, he would recall how God's Spirit rushed mightily upon him at that very young age. [cf. 1Sam 16:13] David genuinely loved King Saul, yet his affection and devotion was rewarded by the king’s treachery. David loved God as well, and it was his love for God that caused him to ignore Abishai’s advice. CRITICAL MOMENT19. On many occasions, Saul himself offended God by his willful disobedience of the Lord’s commands. God tired of Saul editing his words, his commands, and his truth. God wearied of Saul’s habitual correction. Finally, the Lord had enough. He withdrew his life-giving Spirit from the king. Immediately, desolation, jealousy and malevolence poured into Saul’s barren soul. And as he pursued David into the hills and among the rocks, it was he, not David, whose conscience was tortured and in agony. 20. David was saddened and wearied by the monarch’s madness. Nevertheless, he realized the meaning of his own future. He was totally and perfectly bound to the Kingdom of Israel through the Lord’s anointing. So everything hinges on this critical moment. David towered over the sleeping and unsuspecting king. God stood over Israel. David held, in the palm of his hands, his own and Israel’s future. SAUL'S DARK HOUR21. Perhaps God's indictment of Cain—“What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.” [Gen 4:10]—serves as a warning to David not to trifle with the will of God. In the dark hour of Saul’s impotence, David must choose between self-defense and revenge. He mercifully spares Saul’s life. In Jesus’' words, “do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” [Mt 10:34], we may discover the clemency of David. 22. To whom shall the men and women of this generation pledge their honor and their lives? Will the Christian faithful serve the Lord or give themselves over to the principalities and powers of this world's present darkness? [cf. Eph 6:12] Our Old Testament scriptures emphasize Israel as the children or people of God. The New Testament names us as the Body of Christ. Out of the people of God, the Lord has a made a body—through, with and in Christ. DIVINE MERCY23. Who is his body? The Body of Christ are the faithful men and women who have given, rather, surrendered their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Body of Christ, far from being abandoned to human weakness and sin, is arrayed in the splendid spiritual vestments of the Sacrament of Baptism. All faithful Christians are adorned in the royal attire of priesthood, prophecy and kingship. 24. These charisms of priesthood, prophecy and kingship direct themselves to Divine Mercy. The Body of Christ is to preserve the sacredness of the peace that only Christ can give. The members of Christ’s body are to fervently proclaim Christ’s mission of reconciling all things to himself. [cf. Phi 3:21]. We are to build up and magnify the Kingdom of God. Who are we to invite into God’s royal household? Indeed, all those who would be friends of God and sons of light! [cf. Jn 12:36] NAME OF JESUS25. With Christ at our head, and wearing the garments of spiritual warfare [cf. Eph 6:13-17], the community of believers comprise the Church, an invincible congregation whose merciful mission is the salvation and care of souls: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men (writes the apostle, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” [1Cor 1:25] 26. As Christians, we are urged to claim the fruits of divinity. We cannot seek perfection for the purpose of boasting before one another. [cf. 1Cor 1:29-31] If we’re going to boast, let us boast in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For it was no mere human power that pinned the stronghold of Satan to the earth once and for all. Christ, and Christ alone, freed man from his spiritual imprisonment and sanctified his corrupted works by the gentle submission of his will. [cf. Phi 2:6-11] GREAT COMMANDMENT27. The fire of divine life, “fulfilled in our hearing” [Luke 4:21] burns brightly in the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” and in the second, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. [Mk 12:29-31] As all human beings must learn, the narcissistic thirst for power originates in lawlessness. This resides at the very center of destructive behavior. 28. Only the divine mercy of God can calm the human impulse to exploit and degrade his fellows. Only the grace of God can requite the disfigured soul of one who turns away from authentic love to savage his neighbor. Without doubt, Abishai’s aggressiveness and David’s benevolence are characteristic of the tension and conflict within every person’s heart. GENUINELY HUMAN?29. The voice of aggression urges us: Take the matter into your own hands. Do not let the moment of revenge pass by. Strike now! The voice of peace, however, is quite different. The voice of peace implores us to weigh the moral consequences of our actions: Do I understand the gravity of the situation? What does God will for me to do? How best can I serve him? 30. Perhaps you have faced a crucial time in your life when all depended on your judgment—what you thought, what you chose, what you did. In such compact, definitive moments, your life is clay in the hands of a potter. Your decision either secures or shatters your future. Will your integrity transcend the ambiguity of the moment? When does one decide, once and for all, to be a genuinely human human being? WHAT HAPPENED?31. To be sure, as days become weeks, and months become years, our lives tend to be ordinary, even dull and boring at times. We work and study and play hard for the sake of our lives, our families and our communities. It is our hope that, unlike David and his band of loyal men, we won’t have to run for our lives. No life is made better by running, hiding, fighting and revenge. 32. One ordinarily is less an agent for climactic life-change and more the sum of his trivial decisions. This is to say that a person’s seemingly trivial decisions accumulate to forcibly influence the outcome of his future. How did I get here? and What happened to me? are chronically-heard laments. ANTICHRISTS33. Quite properly, many persons refuse to embrace earth-shattering conflict. We don’t like war. We shun violence in all its obvious forms. Yet, it seems that we—as individuals and as a nation—don’t mind being destroyed by one little sin at a time. 34. We will consent docilely to being buried under a mountain of petty wrongs, the sum of which over the weeks, the months, and the years will overwhelm us. The fool says that human beings can acquire a natural immunity to evil. The antichrists of this very generation teach that each act of evil stands on its own merits, that if a shred of good is apparent in an act of aggression (moral or physical), the perpetrator should get the credit! WHAT YOU HATE35. Meanwhile, sin grows in the heart and in the city like a tumor. It metastasizes, devouring everything within. To tolerate the complex of evil would be like loving the tumor that kills you. Or to claim, obscenely, I am my tumor. What is this but self-delusion, a descent into madness. The sin that we befriend today is the tyrant that enslaves us tomorrow. 36. Saul consented feverishly to such self-delusion. Harmony and peace remained forever beyond his reach. Rather than turning to God, he embraced increasingly rash and reckless behavior. He abandoned the counsel of God. He forfeited the good. He surrendered to the twin idols of arrogance and rage. O Abishai, you kiss the face of evil! How close you are to becoming what you hate! YEARS PASSED37. Saul knew there was a God. Indeed, there was a time when he had known God. But the knowledge of God proved too much for Israel’s first king. Saul’s knowing God led him to think that he could control God. After all, it was God who came looking for him. 38. It was God who said to Samuel many years earlier, “Here is the man of whom I spoke to you! He it is who shall rule over my people.” [1Sam 9:17] As the years passed by, Saul by-passed God. He understood his human nature in terms of delusion. He imagined his human will to be identical in nature to God's will and equally sovereign. SPUME OF PRIDE39. This is nothing short of the luxurious rot of the compost heap. In this generation, Saul’s overbearing and excessive self-love is exceeded in one aspect only—the extent to which the cult of celebrity-ism is deeply entrenched throughout our media-driven society. 40. Celebrities—whether in sports, entertainment, politics, science, medicine or religion—are like the once talented and promising King Saul. They celebrate the birth of their self-actualization and the death of God. Celebrities of the cult of self, like Saul, reject the certainty of a reckoning with the Holy One of Israel [cf. Psa 71:22], the Just Judge. [cf. 1Pet 2:23] Hence, they cannot appraise their own actions objectively apart from the murky spume of human pride that envelopes them. DRIVEN BY COMPULSION41. David spared Saul’s life on the hill of Hachilah. He took the sleeping king’s spear and water jug and “went over to the other side, and stood afar off on the top of the mountain, with a great space between them”. [1Sam 26:13] From his place of safety, David called out across the valley and taunted Abner, Saul’s commander for his failure to protect the king adequately. Saul, on hearing David’s voice, experienced a certain remorse for his unjust and ruthless behavior toward David:
42. Saul’s words were true, but was his heart? But it’s doubtful that Israel’s king experienced a conversion of heart. He was driven more by compulsion and guilt, rather than a firm purpose of amendment. TRAGIC REVERSAL43. Instead of hounding David on imaginary pretexts, Saul should have marched against his own hypocrisy and its moral implications. In the end, he remained unrepentant. Though Israel continued to perceive Saul as God’s servant of righteousness, Saul was merely an imitation of a servant of righteousness. It was simply a role, a mask, a disguise. In a tragic reversal of fortune, evil became the king's master; he became its servant, indeed its slave. 44. Who are you chasing in the wilderness of your conflicted mind or heart? Are you standing over your enemy, your rival, your persecutor? Are you standing over the one you dislike, the one you hate, the one you despise? What weapon do you have at hand? Evil thoughts? Gossip and slander? Treachery? Humiliation? KNOW ONE THING45. While you’re thinking about these things, think about our Lord Jesus Christ who was pinned to a cross and suspended between earth and heaven. What did our Lord say as he “stood” over the whole world? He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” [Lk 23:34] What are you going to do? I may not know that, but we do know one thing. We do know what our heavenly Father is going to do:
46. Do not be misinformed. Do not permit yourself to be duped. Lucifer, that cunning serpent, beguiles mankind with light. [cf. 2Cor 11:14]. He whispers, You are a god, You are a saviour, You have power over life and death. Satan dreams of the day he can entomb you under a wagonload of sins. Long before you collapse, to be sure, he will exhaust you as a beast of burden. DIVINE MEDICINE47. He revels as you shoulder harsh loads that you have no right to carry. He wants you to surrender to the spirit of slavery, to pour yourself out like water, to melt your heart like wax before the god of this world. [cf. Psa 22:14] “O that my people would listen to me,” declares the Lord, “that Israel would walk in my ways!” [Psa 81:13] 48. Jesus Christ, the heir to prophecy and David’s throne, desires to liberate you from enslavement to pride and self-delusion. He will rescue you from the sins that propel you to your destruction. Beg him to dress your wounded soul with the medicine of his Divine Mercy:
SPIRIT'S COUNSEL49. The yoke of Christ means that you must purify your soul of its corruption to sin. Accept the gentle burden of obedience to God's eternal, unchanging and absolute truth. Strengthen the peaceful nature within you:
50. As with David, the Lord will redeem you by the power of his grace. He will deliver you from anything that threatens your human dignity. For your part, you must respect the Holy Spirit’s counsel, for the Spirit of God bears the Father's truth and his will. PHAROAHS OF THIS AGE51. Moreover, this Jesus, who categorically denounced the feculent wickedness which idolizes an eye for an eye [cf. Mt 5:38-45], does not send his Spirit to counsel belligerence and militarism! 52. As for the pharaohs of this age who dispense with the moral life as they do their garments, who shun the Word of God as a provocation, and who imagine eternity as a silk-lined dumpster for saints and sinners alike, the Lord Jesus Christ has this to say: “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” [Rom 9:17] SERVICE OF TRUTH53. Are you not accountable to Jesus Christ? Do you not have a placed reserved for him in your home and in your heart? In all these things—loving your enemy, doing good to those who hate you, blessing those who curse you, praying for those who abuse you, giving to all who beg from you, and lending without repayment—do you hear the Word of God and put it into practice? 54. David’s words to King Saul are important. We would do well to meditate on their meaning. For the truth which they contain is not a matter of mere human will, but rather of the will of God and his desire for our good. David’s words to Saul reveal that he had pledged his service to the Truth:
GLORIA OF MASS55. What are we saying here? If you wish to be blessed, do these things! If you want to be mother and brother and sister to Christ, then do the works of God. [cf. Lk 8:21] Do these things if you want Christ to know you and acknowledge you before his Father in heaven! [cf. Mt 10:32] Do not be reluctant to labor in the Lord's vineyard, for no one ever became wealthy by sawing logs or selling dreams in his sleep. 56. Above all, beloved of the Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen your spirits. Remember, sin is not an amiable companion in life; it is a voracious tyrant whose aim is to destroy the Body of Christ. The Gloria of the Mass is the superb acknowledgement of the Father's crowning glory in our Lord Jesus Christ: “For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High.” [SACRAMENTARY, “Gloria” (1985)] PERSONAL HOLINESS57.Your own personal holiness arises from your election by God. You are called out of sin into the beauty and splendor of God’s Kingdom of Truth. Accept God's call to holiness! Do everything humanly possible to carry the the light of Christ to the far corners of this darkened and violent world: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” [Jn 1:5]
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