A Sermon preached at the July meeting of the Unification Commission of the PCUSA Based on 1 Samuel 28:1-19.
There’s a reason 1 Samuel 28 doesn’t get read from pulpits too often. It’s weird. It’s unsettling. It’s full of ghosts and fear and decisions made in the middle of the night. I chose from the Daily Lectionary for some Wednesday in the middle of November.
It resonated with me for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that this text not unlike my favorite Shakespeare play: Macbeth. In fact (for a lot of reasons) there’s a particular moment in that Scottish play which has been bugging me – that moment where Macbeth is forced to take stock of what he’s become and what’s happening around him.:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day…”
As everything he and his wife have woven together unravels, Macbeth laments. Everything he cares about has slipped through his fingers. Everything he built is falling apart. And he’s desperate to bring to an end the relentless tick-tick-tick of the clock that nobody can seem to stop.
This is exactly where we find Saul.
Samuel is dead. The Philistines are on the move. God is silent. And Saul? Well, Saul is desperate.
He’s not just a leader reflecting on the past as he comes to the end of his reign. In this moment, Saul is as vulnerable as he can be. He’s staring into the void and does not like what he sees. When he should be celebrating a job well done, Saul finds himself at the end of a fraying rope. He’s done his best for a very long time. But now, in this penultimate moment of crisis, he can’t imagine the future and he clearly won’t let go of the past. He doesn’t know what to do about his current circumstances and he stubbornly refuses to glean anything from what he’s learned.
What’s worse is that his refusal to change, to adapt, to release isn’t just hurting him. It’s putting his people in danger. The Philistines are about to crush Israel. And it seems like Saul would almost rather let it all fall apart than hand it over to someone else who might be more capable.
And the thing is – Saul wasn’t a terrible king. He was the first of his kind. There was no template when Saul became king. No rulebook. No precedent. He was literally building the kingdom while he was “kinging” it.
We have to recognize that Saul did a lot of things right. He listened to the prophets. He built a strong team. He won some impossible and impressive battles. And Jonathan, his son, seemed like the logical next piece of the succession puzzle. Saul did all of this while mostly staying faithful to what he understood God was asking of him. He took his job seriously and he believed what God said. Saul had experience. He had a plan. And he had an heir. This is the way things are done.
And it seemed to work. Until it didn’t.
What Saul didn’t factor in was the ever-evolving will of God in an ever-changing world. He didn’t recognize the reality that the things that were once faithful, once righteous, once effective — didn’t seem to be what God needed next.
That’s hard. Especially if you’re wired like Saul. For those Myers-Briggs fans among us, I imagine Saul to be an SJ. He was a sensory processor. What he could see, hear, touch, taste, smell, experience — that’s what he understood. That’s what he trusted. It’s also possible that Saul was an early Presbyterian (very, very, very early), because he wanted things done decently and in order. And he believed that’s what God wanted too.
So when things went sideways, it makes a lot of sense that he’d try to go back – to return to that moment when he had God’s favor. Back to when he felt like he was doing it right. Back to when he knew what to do because God told him, clearly, directly.
But Samuel is dead. And the person who seems to be next in line is joining forces with the King Achish and the Philistines to bring it all down. Saul is not only completely cut off from his source of inspiration and guidance, but he’s facing an enemy from within his own household.
David. The opposite of a rule follower.
David moves like the rules don’t apply to him. He’s bold to the point of reckless – a warrior, a poet, a dancer, AND (as we know) a deeply flawed human. And clearly – the beloved of God. Even his name (which means “beloved”) is a slap in the face to Saul. This unpredictable, chaotic man is chosen by God over and against Saul and Saul’s family.
Imagine what that must have felt like.
Still – Saul had choices. Once he saw God’s intentions, he could have shifted to thinking about succession planning. He could’ve been nurturing the new thing, making room for a new kind of leadership, discerning what Israel needs now.
So what did Saul’s decide? “Hey! Let’s just reanimate the past!” Breaking his own laws against wizards, mediums, and other forms of divination, he seeks a medium to help him summon Samuel from the grave. “Please let me get one more word. One more taste of certainty.”
Unfortunately, the ghost of Samuel, cranky even in death, had something to say about that: “What the hell, Saul!! Why are you calling me out of my rest just so I can tell you what you already know! You’re done. Israel as you know it is finished. God’s focusing on the next thing – bringing up the one who will take Israel to the next level.”
If Saul didn’t get it before, surely he understands now.
Not so much.
It would be easy to blame Saul for his disobedience. But I think it’s deeper. To be sure, Saul is grasping backward. But it’s not just because he doesn’t know what’s ahead. It’s because the way forward is terrifying.
And can we blame him?
We’ve all been there — whether it’s in a church, a system, a denomination it’s scary to see something we helped build, lead, nurture become something different. I mean, we’ve written the policy manuals. We’ve worked through the revisions to the Form of Government. We’ve attended the committee meetings. Sometimes it feels like we ARE the committee meetings. And we’ve done it extraordinarily well!
Let’s be clear. I don’t think the lesson here is that the church we love is supposed to identify with Saul’s downfall. I don’t think the church is in some tragic death-spiral. We’re not in the last act of Macbeth. In fact, I believe the opposite. I think we’re standing at the edge of something profoundly hopeful and, at the same time, largely unrecognizable to many of us.
But if we stop for a moment, we can learn from Saul. What he didn’t understand was that ongoing faithfulness isn’t about preserving the past—it’s about adapting and following the living God who is always and ever on the move.
As much as I love creating structures and strategies, (and you know I do) our salvation won’t come from that. This is why I love (and struggle with) the words of the prophet Isaiah who spoke this truth into the hearts of the exiles:
“Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord is my strength and my song;
He has become my salvation.”
As we move through the ever-shifting present, our prophetic song cannot be: “Surely the right commission will save us,” or “When we get the Book of Order just right, it will all work out.” Salvation (unification, growing our churches, fixing our mid councils) doesn’t happen because somehow we magically figured it all out. Or because we have divined the right structure. Or because we figured out the succession plan by electing the right commission or hiring the right staff or bringing the right overtures.
Isaiah said: I will trust.” And it’s in that trust we will find our strength.
The truth is, time is moving. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow does creep in its petty pace from day to day – the inexorable moments of change are constantly passing. We’ve seen it in our congregations and mid councils. We’ve seen it on the floor of General Assembly. We see it here in 100 Witherspoon. The church is changing. Has changed. The world is changing. Has changed.
And like Saul, we have choices – we can try to stop time by reaching backward to summon up answers that served a time long ago. Or we can deepen our trust in the One who has never stopped moving forward. The work of this Unication Commission—and of this Interim Unified Agency staff, (and honestly) of the whole PCUSA—has never been to conjure a future that looks like the past. It’s to step faithfully into God’s future which we can’t quite see, all the while trusting that God is still ahead of us – even when we’re stuck, or confused, or unprepared (or when we don’t much like the future we see). God stays with us, guiding us with grace, calling us toward justice, and providing everything we need for THIS time.
Improvisations 