We Want A King

It’s an incident I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

It wasn’t long after I’d come to faith at the age of about 18, and one of my friends, Norman, had been asked along to a big gathering of Christians on Boxing Day in the King’s Hall in Belfast. And other than that, we didn’t know a whole lot about it.

Norman’s friend Bobby stopped in to pick us up on the morning of the event and straightaway we clocked that something was wrong. Bobby was in his Sunday best, but Norman and I were just in jeans and sweatshirts, and although he tried to put a brave face on it, it was pretty obvious that we were about to transgress some dress code we didn’t know anything about.

Sure enough, when we got to the King’s Hall, we were the only two out of the 800 men there who weren’t wearing suits. It turned out that this was a brethren convention, and although this particular strand of the Brethren weren’t quite as closed as some, they obviously felt it was important to dress up for worship.

Now in fairness to them, there wasn’t much in the way of sideways glances or outright disapproval; in fact they were so nice we began to wonder if they thought we were unsaved people who’d just wandered in off the street out of curiosity. But for all their niceness, neither Norm nor I felt able to open our mouths when it came time for small group work and discussion. The sartorial gulf between us was just too great to be bridged!

We stood out like sore thumbs that day, and that’s never a comfortable place to be in.

There’s something in all of us that just likes to fit in and to be the same as everyone else. And that instinct is so deep rooted within us, we often find ourselves trying to fit in without stopping to think ‘why’?

When I was thinking about that I remembered a clip from one of my favourite films – Dead Poet’s Society. And in this part, English Teacher John Keating is trying to impress on his students the power of conformity.

(Showed clip - boys told to walk around courtyard but pretty soon ended up marching, all the others were clapping in time. Keating highlighted how quickly they conformed and encouraged them to keep their individuality)

 Very early on in life we learn that things tend to go more smoothly for us if we just blend in. If you blend in, and become part of the crowd, you don’t draw attention to yourself, especially not unwanted attention.

Mercifully we’re not quite at the stage with our kids where which brand of trainers they wear has become a life-or-death issue, but I’m guessing it won’t be too long. Perhaps more than any generation before them, this cohort of young people is under immense pressure to approve of what the herd says is good and disapprove of what the herd says is bad, whether we’re talking about clothes or music or behaviour.

And in a culture that’s a spiritually emaciated as ours, it’s having these material things that defines you. You are what you have. and in no small part, I’m, pretty sure it’s that philosophy, taken to it’s logical extreme, that led to the mass looting we saw in London and other cities last summer. If the herd’s telling me I need this to be a part of things, and I can’t afford it, I’m damn well going to take it.

And those of us who are parents feel the pressure of this too. Is our child deprived if he or she doesn’t have a telly in their own room, and all their friends do? Are we crippling them socially if they’re not on Facebook at age 10, when they’re actually not supposed to be on it ‘til they’re 13? Do they really need that sophisticated phone at that age, or will the herd reject them if they don’t have it?

And of course, we’re not immune to those pressures as adults either!

We’ve been thinking long and hard about replacing our old laptop and after much to-ing and fro-ing and some token resistance we finally found ourselves on the steep slippery slope towards buying an Apple Mac. This has been a long and tortuous road for us because we didn’t just want to be slaves to the culture, but after some research, and a sustained campaign by Ross and his friends which included their changing the startup sound on my PC to “Please Buy A Mac, Please Buy A Mac!”, we finally caved in.

We went to see the friendly people in blue T-shirts at the Apple Store and sure enough, they were lovely. And when we got the thing home it was like a piece of sculpture. It was so sleek and beautiful and ergonomic I genuinely couldn’t find the ‘on’ button. I had to look up the wee manual to find out where it was. Beautiful design.

It’s too early to say if our lives are immeasurably better for it, but we’ll keep you posted!

But what struck us throughout this process was the sheer power and enticement of the brand. It felt like we were being offered a lifestyle, not just a good computer.

Our culture has such a seductive story to tell; and it’s all about getting in on what’s good, being a part of the latest thing; joining the club.

Israel, all those years ago, wanted to join the club. “We want a king” they told Samuel.

And in some senses, there’s nothing wrong with that. Israel had escaped from slavery in Egypt and they’d now settled into the land that God had promised them – the land of Canaan. And up until this point in their history they’d been ruled by women and men called judges – people who’d risen to that role in society through a combination of natural gifting and divine call. Joshua, Samson, Deborah, Samuel – those are some of the names you might know.

And there’s no reason to suppose a King would have been any worse.

But what gives Samuel pause for thought, apart from the fact that his own sons weren’t coming out of this too well, was a telltale phrase that appears twice in the passage we heard earlier:
 
v5 “Appoint a king to rule over us so that we will have a king, as other countries have”.

v19: “The people paid no attention to Samuel but said “No! We want a king so that we will be like other nations”.

Do you hear what’s slipping in there? They’re looking around and realising that they’re out of step with the culture. It’s the national equivalent of the teenager realising that they’re wearing a socially unacceptable brand of trainers. They’ve all got kings and we haven’t and it’s so unfair and you have to do something about it, Samuel!

As is the way in these situations, when the culture seduces us, judgment goes out the window. They forgot that they’d come this far without a king; they forgot that the nations they were envying were nations they’d fought and overcome - without a king. Despite spending years in captivity under the Pharaohs of Egypt, they forgot the kind of things some kings are wont to do to preserve their power, even though God – via Samuel – gives them a sharp reminder.

They’ll take your sons and daughters; they’ll take your land and crops; they may even take you and force you into slavery.

But most importantly, Israel forgot that they already had a King. Their God was their King – the only King they had ever needed.

God had chosen Israel for a special calling – not to mimic the other nations around them, but to be a light to them. To be a nation whose identity was defined not by their land or their possessions or their king, but by their trust in God.

They were never meant to be the same. They were called to be different.

And for the people of God, nothing has changed from Samuel’s day ‘til Jesus’ day, til now. Nothing.

The seductions of the culture are always there; the call to resist those seductions and live differently is always there….

You are the salt of the earth, Jesus says. But if the salt loses its saltiness, what good is it? You are the light of the world, but if the light’s hidden under a bushel, what use is it?

In other words, if, as a Christian, you blend in with the culture to the point where you’re no longer living differently or thinking differently, what good is it?

Once again, I remember a poster I saw in the mid 1980’s in the days of the Cold War and horrendous persecution for Christians in communist countries. It said: “if you were put on trial for the crime of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”.

If someone were to do an in-depth study of your habits and your relationships and the way you spend your money and your time and your effort would they conclude that your faith has made a real difference to the way you choose to live?

Today’s story is a reminder that it’s so easy to get swept along by the culture.

“Give us a King, Samuel. We need a King. Everybody else has one!”.

But my prayer for you and me this morning isn’t that we escape our culture – it’s that we learn to live in it and enjoy the good things that it has to offer without being enslaved by them. Without falling into the trap of believing that the narrative our culture wants us to live by is the only one worth living by.

I want to see a generation of young people growing up who really don’t care too much if they’re wearing the right clothes or using the right phone because their sense of identity comes from their grounding in God and not from Hollister or from the Apple Store. Young people mature enough not to stress about playing the game, because they’ve wised-up to the game.

I want to see a generation of men and women enjoying God’s good world and the fruits of their labour but knowing in the depths of their souls that the thing that defines them isn’t their car or their home or their work or their bank balance, but the fact that they are a beloved child of God, and are living as such.

What I long to see is a church that can be in the world, but not of the world: so secure in who we are in Christ that we don’t need any other king, or any other thing, to know contentment.

Sounds impossible, I know, but it can be done.

Listen to these words from the Apostle Paul: I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything IN MY OWN STRENGTH? NO - through him who gives me strength.

We can’t do this alone. Left to our own devices we’ll end up falling into step with everyone else, or standing on the sidelines clapping like in our video clip. But if we put down deep roots into Christ, and learn to live out of his story, not the culture’s story, we’ll find the strength to make our own way in the world and to live differently. Not to meekly blend in, but to be salt and light in the places where God has placed us.

Amen