Its Good to Be the King – Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (2 Samuel 5: 1-5, 9-10)
This morning we heard the story of David’s coronation as the king over all Israel and Judah. As I picture this moment in my mind’s eye, I find myself thinking about what the response would be today to an event as big as the coronation of David. I suppose, if I wanted to, I could simply Google the media coverage of the fairly recent coronation of King Charles III in the United Kingdom. A major event covered with all the pomp and excess we could expect of our modern world. However, all coronations are not created equal. For one thing, David’s ascent to the throne was very different from Charles’. Charles became king in his 70s, and he was born into the monarchy. He inherited the crown upon the passing of his mother Queen Elizabeth, who herself became the Queen after the passing of her father the king. A peaceful passing of power over the generations of the royal family. David, on the other hand, was not born into royalty, but was born into a family of shepherds and ascended to the throne through a series of unusual circumstances, some divinely inspired, some unfortunately violent, some lucky. Rather than becoming king in his 70s David became king of Israel at age 30 and had been king in Judah for seven years before that. Either way too young to run for president, but young enough to reign for 40 years in all. Furthermore, their job as king would be very different. The King of England is now a largely symbolic position, he does not exercise great power over the country’s government. King David, however, would be a true ruler and be given great power over his kingdom and its people. So, we see there are differences.
So, what would happen if a king like David -with his story and his background- were crowned today? Well, I suspect, there would certainly be fireworks. If it happened today, people would gather for celebrations that included overeating and games. Most of us would probably get the day off work. We would not pass up this opportunity for celebration. In fact, it might look a lot like the Fourth of July. Some people would celebrate for secular reasons. Celebrating that finally they had a king, the strong leader they had been waiting for to come and lead the people into times of prosperity and security. Some people would celebrate for more religious reasons. Giving thanks that God’s promise of a king for God’s people had finally been fulfilled. If it happened today the ceremony would be attended by celebrities of every kind. If it happened today the streets would be filled with people, with parades and, perhaps, some protests.
If it happened today, there would no doubt be wall to wall media coverage. There wouldn’t be a channel or a website or radio station or social media platform we could turn to that would not be talking about the story in some way covering the event from every angle. Everyone would have an opinion, and many would be trying to have their voices heard. On one channel we might hear the interview with some of the Elders of Israel, the one’s who came to David at Hebron (the capital city of Judah) to ask him to be king. The interviewer would probably be asking them why they turned to David, what qualities of a king that he possessed, or what their expectations were going forward. On another channel we could hear from some people from Judah, telling their interviewer all the reasons that David had been such a great and well-liked leader in their Kingdom. There would, no doubt, be stories shared by people who knew David “back in the day” when he was just one of Jesse’s eight boys, often out in the fields tending the flock, until one day he was called out of the field and anointed by the prophet Samuel as God’s chosen king. And of course, there would be no shortage of dissenting or contrarian voices, eager to tell us why David is the absolute worst choice for king, a warlord that would lead the people to violence and ruin. And that would just be on basic cable! To say nothing about the countless podcasts and YouTube videos endlessly analyzing and debating every part of the story. Especially the story of David’s battle with Goliath, mulling over eye-witness accounts, arguing over whether or not David actually beat the Philistine warrior, or if it is just another conspiracy theory!
If it happened today, if we anointed and coronated a king, we as the church would have to come together and prayerfully consider what it means to live under a king. What it means for our day-to-day life of faith. What it would mean for our relationship with God. We would probably have Bible studies, reading over the scriptures that tell us the story of David, that tell us about the promises that God made to David. Looking over the scriptures that tell us about the promises that God made to the people. We would have to consider God’s promise of a “Shepherd for my people Israel.” We would marvel at David’s journey from shepherd boy watching his father Jesse’s flock of sheep to a king, given the responsibility of being a shepherd over God the Father’s people Israel. We would study this story in the church so that we could go into the world and tell it to others. We would tell it to remind people that God keeps promises. Just as God kept a promise to David.
We would tell the story so that people would know that David was a shepherd boy, chosen by God, but also, that his rule was not based on any kind of total and unchallenged power, but on a covenant relationship, with God and with the people. His power came from God, certainly, but also from his willingness to enter into that covenant, to see himself still as the shepherd boy he was when growing up. His kingship is based on a covenant that recognizes the needs of the people and takes responsibility for responding to those needs. The promise God made to David was not that he would rule with unlimited power and no opposition, and the promise made to the people was not that once they had a king their country would be greater than any other and that their lives would become privileged and easy. The promise God made to the people was that God would be with them, and that God listened to them. They asked for a king and God gave them a king to show them God’s plans are adaptable. God’s promise to David was that God would be with him, and that he would not simply rule, he would shepherd, lead and care for, the people. If such power existed today this is the story the church would tell.
The church might also speak truth to power. If the rule of King David happened today, the church might play a role, through preaching and teaching and activism and organizing, to remind the king of this covenant, and to point out to him where the needs of the people are not being met, and what could be done by the shepherd king to help meet those needs. In the church our understanding of leadership is shaped by this understanding of covenant. Leadership never functions, at least not effectively, apart from a community of mutual recognition of needs and shared responsibilities.
David’s coronation as is a climactic moment for him and for his relationship with God. It also marks a covenant relationship between him and the people, thus making it a climactic moment for the relationship between God and the people. To have faith in God is to accept a measure of care for our neighbor. To have faith in God and have great power and privilege is to have the responsibility to care for our neighbor.
If this happened today, we as Christians would have to wrestle with what this anointed king means for us in light of our knowledge of Christ and our relationship with him. We may never be elected to public office or be anointed by God like David. What we do share with David, however, is our knowing that God is with us, as God was with David, through thick and thin. We know this because we know Jesus. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have come to know that God chooses to be with us, as God was with David and the people of Israel, and God’s presence with them was seen in the fulfillment of the covenant with David. Knowing that God is with us, that we have this blessing, is it then our responsibility, part of our ongoing covenant, to make sure that the presence of God in the world is seen through us? Think about it. Do we represent this presence of God in a way that is loving and steadfast, as God was for David? Do we share the presence of God in a way that is aware of mutual needs and covenant, or a way that seeks to control?
By the way, I bring up Jesus now, not to say that our knowledge of Christ, and what Christ came to do and to be, should make the story of David irrelevant. I’m not saying we don’t need to be familiar with the story of King David and the Jewish kingdom of Israel because we have the gospel. I bring it up because as Christians, the story of Christ, the life of Christ, is a big part of how we have come to know that God is with us and God cares for us, because God’s only son came to live among us. It is a reminder for us that God is with us and faithful in the relationship with us, in the way God was with David and faithful to the promise made to him. Our knowledge and experience of the Gospel is important, but the story of David is still relevant to us. We still need to hear the story of the boy who grew up a shepherd and became a king, because God loved him and was faithful to him and was always with him. But David is also a very flawed character. On his rise to the top he engaged in violence and deception, he becomes king and makes mistakes, but God remains faithful to him, and his rule is marked by the covenant between David and God and the people. It is still a story we need to hear.
This past week we celebrated the formation of a country, nation, government. We celebrated the ideal of a democratic system that is operated for the people by the people. People united with the aim of self-governance and pursuit of happiness. And although the colonists fought to be free from the rule of a monarchy, and established a different type of government to the one established in Israel under King David, those men who signed the Declaration of Independence that day were creating a covenant, of sorts, because unless you live in an autocratic or authoritarian society, there is always -again, ideally- an agreement between the governors and the governed. There is a social contract that we all enter into. The covenant between God and King David’s Israel gives us a higher vision of what that can be. Such a covenant includes things like faith in a higher power, for us gathered this morning I believe that would be God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, but by higher power I mainly mean something greater than earthly concerns, like political power, capital, or materialism. Belief in a higher power. This covenant includes mutual understanding and respect for the needs of all people, especially those without power and privilege. This covenant recognizes the importance of shepherding and caring for one another and making the journey together. As members of a free, self-governing, democratic society we are given freedom, and what is freedom, except an opportunity to continually strive to live out our highest values. As Christians that means recognizing the call to continually recommit ourselves to this covenant with God and with each other.
King David’s story continues after this, he has many more victories, but he also has many moments of failure to live up to his calling. These failures come when he becomes too focused on his own desires and his own ego at the expense of the well-being of others. So, he must also continually recommit himself to living faithfully into his covenant with God. He does not celebrate a final victory in his life, it is a continual rise and fall. Likewise, we cannot celebrate -as individuals, or as a nation- a final victory in this life. There will continue to be moments of failure. We can take time, though, to celebrate our highest values and our better angels, and we can celebrate that God is faithful, and that we walk this path together. So today, let us celebrate the life God calls us to live together.
Amen.