Brave Saints

B All Saints 2015

November 1, 2015

1 Kings 12:1-17

Readers: Narrator, One, Two, Congregation

Narrator: In the days of King Rehoboam:

Congregation: All kings eventually go to sleep with their ancestors.

Narrator: As it had been with Saul, the first king over Israel, so it was with David, the shepherd-king.

One: David’s son Solomon came to reign. For the building of the temple, he levied taxes and forced their labor. For building his own house, he levied taxes and forced their labor.

Two: Four hundred and eighty years after the Israelites had been led out of slavery in Egypt, their laborers and craftsmen were conscripted for monumental construction projects.

Narrator: As the years passed, Solomon fell away from the ways of the Lord, and there was trouble in the land; rebellion and division.

Congregation: But all kings eventually go to sleep with their ancestors.

Narrator: As it had been with Saul, it was with David. As it had been with David, so it was with Solomon.

One: Word went out that Solomon was dead, and those who had rebelled against his rule made their way home. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, went to Shechem, where the nation had come to make him king.

Two: Led by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had ten of the twelve tribes of Israel in the palm of his hand, all the assembly came and said to Rehoboam, the not-yet-king,

Congregation: During your father’s time, he weighed us down with heavy workloads and we suffered because of him. We have come here to ask you to lighten the load your father laid upon us. If you do so, we will be your willing servants.

One: He said to them, “I need time to think this over. Go away for three days, then come again to me.” So the people went away.

Two: Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the older men who had attended his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?”

One: They answered him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.”

Narrator: And the pleas of the people rang heavy in his ears.

Congregation: We have come here to ask you to lighten the load your father laid upon us. If you do so, we will be your willing servants.

Two: Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the younger men who had grown up with him, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?”

One: They answered him, “If you will exercise your authority and punish them with whips and even scorpions, then they must be your servants forever.”

Narrator: And so Rehoboam met with the assembly on the third day.

Two: And King Rehoboam punished the people, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke.”

Narrator: So the king did not listen to the people.

Congregation: But all kings eventually go to sleep with their ancestors.

One: Those assembled feared for their lives.

Two: They fled with their tents, while Rehoboam ruled with a heavy hand all who remained in the towns.

Narrator: And so the kingdom was divided.

Congregation: But all kings eventually go to sleep with their ancestors.

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Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let me tell you a story of God and God’s people… starting from when they entered the promised land.  You will remember they had been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years after God had freed them from Egypt. After Moses died they entered the promised land, and for the generations who lived then, every move they made was with God’s promises at the center of their lives.  And God himself moved with them.  They made a tabernacle, a tent, where God’s word was kept in the ark of the covenant, that treasure box we talked about in the children’s sermon last week.  And in this tent, God promised to sit, like a king on a throne, and priests and judges would take the place of Moses, communicating on God’s behalf directly to the people.

But the people didn’t like this much.  Who knows if it was simply wanting to be like their neighbors or more nefarious desires to be free of God’s way of life… but the people demanded a king.  God as their king was not enough for them.  They wanted a human, earthly, kingdom.  And so God, being the generous, loving God who does not force people to love him back… gave them a king. 

They thought only a human king they could see could be their protector from outside enemies.  They forgot that God had done that for generations.  They thought they needed a king to be brave.  They forgot that God had given them fantastically brave military leaders in the judges and before that, the bravery to escape Egypt!  So even though they had lived for generations growing and thriving as a people - loving God and loving neighbor … it wasn’t enough. 

They imagined a human king who would treat them justly, who would be the brave and kind hero you might see in an idealistic Hollywood movie: Superman – just the right humility of Clark Kent, nonchalant bravery, superhuman powers, an inclination to save their Metropolis, and a good dose of handsomeness.  …David was that superhero king!  David was a brave warrior for them, against human enemies and against other gods.  David too had his kryptonite, he was only a man after all.  But the secret of David’s superhuman might, was not a result of his own power… the only superpower at work/ was God’s.

It was God that made David brave.  David put the Word of God at the center of the people’s lives; that treasure box, called the ark, where God’s word was kept.  David retrieved the ark that contained the commandments of God and brought it back from the outskirts of Israel’s land. David brought the Word of God back, literally, to the center of their lives – to Jerusalem, the neutral capital city like Washington DC – where the people re-membered their worship and their lives in God.  Just like Abraham and Sarah, and like the people freed from Egypt, God renewed the covenant with them.  Even when his own people/ betrayed his rule over their lives /by insisting on a king…

But then things went sour.

Solomon, David’s son, was quite a successful king to start off with.  He is the one, you may have heard, who asked God above all for wisdom. And Solomon built the temple.  He was off to a good start in God’s eyes.  Yet, as Solomon’s kingship went on, things did not go as God would have hoped.  Solomon intermarried with many different nations, building alliances that may have kept Israel from war, but which threatened their safety in God. Solomon built not just a temple to the LORD, /but to every /one/ of the gods of his wives.  The One God, the Lord alone, the God who loved them and whom they loved solely, was no longer at the center of the life of Israel.

And… Solomon fell prey to the lavish kingly lifestyle… he became what all earthly powers threaten to become – an exploiter.  To the people who had once been slaves in Eqypt, the people whom God had freed from such a harsh life, to those same people, Solomon (their king!) made them slaves again.  He made them slaves for his own building projects: for the temple itself and for his own home. His grand castle for his many wives and their children.  Solomon, and the people, forgot God and forgot God’s ways of freedom and love.  And so this dream of a kingdom where the brave king would keep them safe was no longer the reality when Solomon died.

And so, as the people get ready to crown a new king, Rahaboam, they ask this life-changing question.  They want to know how is it that this king will treat them?  Will he be a king of David, and a king of God’s Word, or will he be a king like Solomon became, that treats them harshly for his own royal benefit.  And we heard Rahaboam’s answer.  And the people wept over David and it became both bitter and a comforting promise that All kings eventually go to sleep with their ancestors.

Rahaboam ruled as he promised; and God, the loving God who wanted none of this, keeps his promise to David to allow his line to continue in the kingship.  But, just like any nation ruled by fear, Israel splits.  The kingdom divides and Rahaboam rules only a small part, but a part that includes Jerusalem.  Jeraboam, rules the rest of the 12 tribes of Israel. 

God’s beloved nation becomes damaged by its kings.  God’s beloved people are ruled by the tyranny God never wanted for them.  It’s the old, old, story, of God letting us have our way, even when our way is not the best that God has to offer. But God, persistently, sleeplessly, finds a way to save us from ourselves.

Generations later, after the kingdom is conquered and dissolves.  After God’s people have been scattered by tyrants and allowed to return by kinder oppressors… God puts a new king on the throne. A throne with no official political power, but with the power of remembering – remembering us, remembering the promises, remembering love for God and neighbor.

God comes to sit on that cross-shaped throne himself, and to reign from there eternally.  Christ shows up as the brave king.  The king that is brave enough to live for others, the king that is brave enough to die… for the ones he loves.  God reigns to give us a new kingdom where we are all beloved and brave.

This kingdom we are now is a completely unique kingdom!  We who are grafted in to the nation of Israel, we are brought into God’s kingdom, not by a citizenship test, but a declaration of faith, of trust in the one God who has made us brave in the midst of a fearful world.  

Brave to do hard things like living in community with people who are flawed, and like giving myself away.  Brave things like reaching out to those who hurt us and brave things like asking for forgiveness.  That is the kind of bravery this new ruler gives us. 

This kind of bravery is all it takes to be God’s saints.  So we remember our ancestors today, those who were braver than these pitiful, tyrant kings – those brave saints of God – the ones who showed us what the bravery of faith looks like.  Who trusted in God, above any human authority.  Who may or may not have had superhuman powers, but who loved God and us with superhuman might.  The ones who are completely safe now, resting in God’s arms until we are reunited on the last day. 

Today we will remember all those saints with these strips of cloth.  And when we dedicate our woven cross that is in the narthex at the end of worship, we will have woven in all of their names.  We will hold, for a time, their brave witness of love to us.  Their witness of God’s kingdom here on earth and forever in heaven.  During the sacred space time, come up and write the name of a saint in your life, living or dead.  Come up and light a candle for all those you remember today.  Then go to the cross in the narthex and weave it in so that by the end of worship, when we dedicate that cross as a work of God among us, it will also show our remembering the brave saints of God. 

All kings eventually go to sleep with their ancestors.  But God does not.  God gives us the divine and perfect kingdom.  The kingdom where the yoke of love is light for all, where all have enough and all are beloved.  Praise be to God, we get to live in that kingdom now!  Trusting in God, which gives us a bravery beyond ourselves, to live in love for all our neighbors, near and far. Amen.