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Reverend Keltie Van Binsbergen's Sermon from 23 September 2018:
Today's reading is typical of the stories of David, packed full of emotions and action. We have the passionate friendship that develops between David and Jonathan, David's riotous success over the Philistines and the people's joy at that success.
We have Saul's dark depression and deadly jealousy, and David's fear as he tries to escape that deadly jealousy.
In some ways it can seem over the top, like a Netflix drama, yet in other ways we can all relate to the emotions of the story, can't we? We've all had moments of passionate love and friendship, of success and joy. But think most of us can especially relate to Saul, caught in the darkness of despair and jealousy.
Saul may be king, but as Shakespeare said, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Saul became king because the people of Israel were tired of being governed by judges chosen by God for their faith and skill. They wanted to have a king like everyone else.
God wasn't keen on this idea, but realized that the people couldn't be forced to continue to accept judges. God chose Saul based on qualifications people were looking for – he was tall and good looking.
So Saul was chosen to be king by a God who didn't want a king,anointed by Samuel, a judge who didn't want to anoint him, and another story tells us that Saul himself didn't want to be king, when Sam came to anoint him he hid among baggage, hoping to escape detection .
It's not surprising that Saul was terrified of becoming king. In addition to him feeling unqualified and unsupported, Israel was a very young nation, begun by group of rag tag slaves who had escaped from Egypt 200 years earlier.
They had no real economic structures or military prowess.Their system of governance was not well developed. They were barely one step above wandering nomads.
They were faced with the Philistines, a well developed, well established nation, with great military and economic power, far more people, far better organized. And Saul was supposed to lead to Israel to victory against the Philistines. No wonder he felt overwhelmed and panicked.
And no wonder he became jealous of David. First David defeats Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, then he becomes soul friends with Jonathan, Saul's son, and finally when Saul sends him out into battle, he has success far beyond anything Saul ever managed.
If we read further in story, we see that not one but two of Saul's daughters fall in love with David.
So David has everything Saul wants out of life – military success, the love of his children, the love and admiration of the people of Israel. It's not surprising that Saul was tormented by an evil spirit, that as verse 12 tells us, he felt God had departed from him.
When we were discussing this story at Bible study, people immediately came to a similar conclusion as many Biblical commentators, it sounds like Saul is suffering from mental illness of some kind, most likely severe depression.
There are accounts of this earlier in 1 Samuel. In fact, that's where the first mention of David occurs. Saul was being tormented by ab evil spirit, so his servants suggested he bring in someone to play music to soothe him.
One has heard of young David, a shepherd, who plays the lyre, so David is summoned to play for Saul, and indeed, his playing is the only thing that soothes Saul.
Now try and imagine yourself in Saul's place at the time of today's story. You feel like you're losing control of your life, you can't do anything right, young David is taking over everything, your family's love, your people's love, God's favor. You feel like you're falling into a deep, dark pit of despair and the only thing that has pulled you out in past is what?
David and his music. Your nemesis, the source of all pain in your life is also the only one who can lift your black cloud. No wonder Saul cracks and throws his spear at David.
Saul is not alone in his depression. According to recent research by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, one adult in five experiences some kind of mental health disorder or illness in a given year.
Many people experience depression or its flip side, anxiety.And even if you haven't gone through those, I think we can all relate to Saul's feelings of being overwhelmed, of feeling inadequate, angry, despairing.
When we feel that way, when we feel lost in darkness, it's easy to blame God and to blame ourselves. Indeed, this story refers to God sending the evil spirit upon S, but as one of my resources said, this is not to be seen as vindictive, since all things beyond human control came from God in Israel's conception of God's all-embracing will.
In other words, as someone said at Bible study, that was only way people of that time could explain depression. In their minds everything, good and bad, came from God. If it was bad, obviously you had done something to deserve it.
Today we understand that a loving God could never “send” depression or difficult situations upon us, it's just something that happens. It's important to remember that in our dark times, this is not from God, this is not a punishment.
What sometimes happens among people of faith when we struggle with darkness, is that we think our faith should be strong enough to fight our way through the darkness.
When it doesn't work, we think something is wrong with us, with our faith. If my faith was strong enough, I wouldn't feel so awful.
But as spiritual writer Richard Rohr says,“Transformation has little to do with intelligence, willpower, or perfection. It has everything to do with honesty, humility, willingness, and surrender.”
That was Saul's downfall. The problem wasn't that he had made mistakes or that was going through time of great challenge and change. The problem was that instead of approaching his time of darkness with honesty and humility,he blamed everyone else.
He blamed David and he blamed God. God had departed from him, David had taken over his life. While it's normal to blame God and blame others when we're going through a dark time, at some point we have to recognize that blaming won't change anything.
We have to reach out for help, turning to God, to others, to whatever resources are available to us. And doing that takes honesty and humility, willingness and surrender.
You may be thinking, it's easy for Keltie to say all this, she's never experienced depression or anxiety, but I have. I've been through times that felt very dark to me, when I had to go on medication, see a counselor, talk to a spiritual director, pray a lot.
That's why that quote from Richard Rohr is so powerful to me, Transformation, healing, has nothing to do w intelligence, willpower or perfection. Because at first I tried to rely on all of those things, and it didn't get me anywhere except feeling worse.
It was only when I turned to God in honesty and humility, when I said, I'm desperate and can't do this, that I truly began to find my way through darkness, because wasn't trying to do it all on my own anymore.
There's a pop song that was popular a few years ago that speaks to our journey through darkness very powerfully. It begins, “feeling my way through the darkness . . .” which is so apt, we can't fight our way through our dark times or work our way or find our way on our own. We can only feel our way, reaching out to those who are willing to help us.
But then the chorus says, wake me up when it's all over,when I'm wiser and I'm older. Which makes me laugh, because isn't that so human, we want to skip over the hard work and wake up magically older and wiser.
Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. We have to feel our way through darkness, feeling every step of the way, as painful as it may be. It's the only way to emerge into the light of hope and life again, to grow through the experience, to truly be older and wiser. May God help us all on our journey, especially through our times of darkness.May we support one another on our journey, helping one another to find light and hope again.