Today, we look at a Day 3 text from this year’s summer curriculum, “From Generation to Generation.”
Prayer: Redemptive God, you look with favor on those whom you have chosen. When we would prefer to take redemption into our own hands, hold out our tattered pieces and remind us that yours is the way of compassion and mercy. This we pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Reading: 1 Samuel 24:9-22 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: Harry Potter faces down Voldemort to defeat the evil that killed his parents. Superman fights on behalf of the people of the lost Krypton to take on the traitorous General Zod. Katniss Everdeen leads a revolution against President Snow and the Capitol that has caused so much misery among the Districts. Sic semper tyrannis, right? The good guy always wins. The hero always defeats those who have caused personal and communal anguish. They fight on behalf of all those wrongs, channeling them into the climactic moment of confrontation. They are righteous in their ways and dole out the justice that is owed to the evil forces of their world. It’s no shock, then, that we should expect David to finally at last get his moment in the light when he finally catches up with Saul. After Saul’s fall from grace, after having his “chosen” status move on to David, we would expect that David should get his righteous moment to exact defeat upon Saul and his armies. Saul has, after all, been relentlessly chasing David for a few chapters now, seemingly intent on destroying the one who has found new found favor in God’s eyes. Now, as David catches up with a vulnerable Saul caught in a cave, we might think David will finally get his decisive victory and Saul his just desserts! But no. Instead, we find a David who, rather than kill Saul for all the torment he has caused, instead simply tears a piece of his cloak and spares his life. In his words, David makes clear the cause he chooses: “May the Lord judge between me and you! May the Lord avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you” (v. 12). In other words, “I’m going to leave this one to God.” The tattered piece of cloak he carries is enough to show Saul how close he came from exacting the plot of justified revenge that everyone expected, yet the relic is also a reminder of the faith and trust David places in the God who brought him this far. On the one hand, the scene of this text might feel anticlimactic. On the other, it might be the reminder we need: we don’t have to be the hero. The burden of redemption doesn’t rest in our hands. If the conflict between Saul and David shows us anything, it’s that it does no good to simply repay with evil. The ways of God are grounded in compassion and mercy, not cold revenge. We can surrender our heroic arc in order for God’s trajectory to take root. And in that, we might just find the better story. -- Justin Lingenfelter
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