June 28, 2009
What the Governor Really Needed - 1 Samuel 20:35-42
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadI spent the early part of this week through Thursday on vacation. Just for the record, I was not on the Appalachian Trail. I was at Edisto Beach with my family. We go there from time to time, and it seems like every time we do, we come home to something messy. The last time we went was in early August, 2007. We had had mostly a normal summer that year until we got back from Edisto. Charlotte looked like Death Valley that day, and it felt like it, too. It was 104 degrees. And sure enough, it got hotter this year, too. It might have been more like 94 in Charlotte when we got home on Thursday, but the front page of the Charlotte Observer was as hot as I’ve ever seen it. The Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, had just returned from a secret little escapade in Argentina doing goodness knows what, and the paper reported all of it: the lies, the deceit, the lust, and love letters that would give Old Billy Shakespeare a run for his money. And, to top it all off, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died on Thursday. Just what had the world done in those four, short days we spent at Edisto?
I do not know Mark Sanford, and I did not know Michael Jackson. I know very little about either one of them. I have never met either one of them, and though the media have reported extensively on both, I am not a subject matter expert on either. I am not here to attack or to defend them, or to psycho-analyze why they did what they did. I think it is very safe to say, though, that neither one of them had any real friends. It is possible, albeit very improbable, that I am wrong. People in high positions especially can find themselves devoid of friendship. They have lots and lots of acquaintances and admirers, but very few – if any – friends. Their actions practically prove that. At any rate, friendship is very important. We see just how important friendship is in the second Chapter of Genesis. It is not good, we hear, that Adam was alone. We are not created to be left alone. We need friends.
The story that I just read out of 1 Samuel is one of friendship. It’s a lot of other things, too. As you might remember, God had rejected Saul in chapter 15, and had chosen David in 16. The rest of 1st Samuel is about that transition, about Saul’s departure from power and David’s arrival to power. It’s about how God’s plan comes through. It’s about how God delivers on what God promises. From Saul’s perspective, it’s about hate, and anger, and fear, and paranoia. From David’s perspective, it’s about loyalty, and faith, and hope, and promise. From Jonathan’s perspective, it’s about sacrifice and friendship, at any cost. And here, at the end of Chapter 20, is one of the most poignant and touching stories on friendship in the entire Bible.
I remember reading a column by Leonard Pitts a few years ago where he wrote something to the effect of this: when you love someone, you give that person veto power over your happiness. Think about that. Or maybe for this conversation, we could say that when you’re really friends with someone, then you freely give that person veto power over your own happiness. It’s a very fragile thing, this friendship business. It’s a hard thing, and a very costly thing. It’s so costly that many of us, maybe even most of us, never pay it. I have also heard this, from my sister of all people, that a parent is only as happy as her saddest child. There’s a lot of grey hair in the congregation today, much of which is from parenthood. That’s another way of saying what I just said, you know, about giving somebody veto power over your own happiness.
David and Jonathan essentially did that. They entered into their friendship freely. Since David had married Jonathan’s sister, they were brothers-in-law. You can’t help who your in-laws are, though. You’re stuck with them whether you like it or not. David and Jonathan also worked together in Saul’s administration. You also can’t help who your work acquaintances are. But you can help who your friends are. David & Jonathan went beyond mere acquaintances. They went well beyond what they had to do for another. They loved one another for no other reason (that I can determine) than the shear point of loving one another. Love is its own end, you know. God calls us above all else to love one another, just as God has loved us. And God has loved us for the shear sake of loving us. God has gained nothing by that. And if we choose to love one another, we might not gain that much either.
In fact, we may lose much more than we gain. At least Jonathan did (and Jesus for that matter). Jonathan should have been king, you know. In his madness, Saul even said that. “For as long as this son of Jesse lives upon the earth,” Saul exclaimed to Jonathan in a fit of rage, “neither you nor your kingdom will be established.” Friendship cost Jonathan his dreams and comfort and ultimately, in chapter 31, his life. We have this silly notion today that being friends is equivalent to sitting at a bar drinking beer together, or holding hands around a campfire singing “Kum By Ya.” That’s not friendship at all. Friendship is costly. Jonathan had it made in the shade. But, “Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul,” we read in both in Chapters 18 & 20. Jonathan loved David, and so instead of seeking his own gain, he remembered his friendship, and it cost him dearly. From Jonathan’s perspective, this story does not have a happy ending at all. Maybe even worse than death, Jonathan’s friendship with David meant that he too had to reject his own father and side with David. Sometimes friendships take us to places where we’d rather not go. Or, as Leonard Pitts said, giving anyone –I don’t care who it is – veto power over your own happiness is a recipe for heartache. Or, as Jesus himself said in John 15, “Greater love hath no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends.” Or, as Jesus himself prayed the night before he was executed in Luke 22, “Father, let this cup pass from me.” There’s nothing easy or romantic about that.
So why do it? If Jonathan’s love for David cost him his kingship, and if God’s love for the whole world cost him his life, if God’s love for the whole world landed him on a cross, then why love at all? Why would you knowingly choose to enter into any kind of relationship that requires that kind of sacrifice? I had a friend once who had moved his family a long way from home and whose dog had just died. And he told me once in exasperation, “Luke,” he said, “don’t ever devote yourself to a calling, or get married, or have children, or have a dog.” In all of those cases, you love. And in all of those cases, that love costs you dearly.
If one thing rings true in all of Scripture, it’s that God is in that kind of love. And more than that, God loves us with that kind of love. Somebody once referred to the entire Bible as a love story between God and us. We’re always rejecting God, but God pursues us even to his own detriment, even to his own death. And in the life, and death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has perfectly loved us. We are free, then, to perfectly love others. In fact, that’s what God created us to do to begin with. We don’t do it very well. We can, but we often don’t because it’s just too dad-gum hard. Sure, we lose ourselves. Sure, we end up making some brutally hard decisions. Sure, we end up hanging on a cross sometimes. Sure, we end up like Jonathan here. But we also, through that kind of love, end up as victors, as more than conquerors through Him who loved us. We end up, if nothing else, being a true friend to a lot of people, and having true friends in a lot of people. And we need that. We need that like we need air. We canno live in the truest sense without it. More than money or power or comfort or appeal or success, we need friends, chief among them being God. Without that, we might can gain the whole world, but we lose something very valuable along the way. Just ask Governor Sanford.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
