Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
I love many things about my kids, but one thing in particular that makes me proud is their love of books. One book that I've read multiple times in the Christopher Churchmouse series and is called Load of Trouble. In this gripping yarn, our lovable little mouse Christopher steals his friend's wagon of bread crumbs. He justifies it to himself by replacing it with a wagon full of sawdust, telling himself that everyone needs more sawdust for more bedding and the like. The tale comes around to Christopher's friend visiting to offer him a taste of the special bread crumbs (now sawdust) and having to confess his deception. Surprisingly, it is this children's story that helps me approach today's first reading.
Today's reading is anything but easy and is full of details that can detour us from getting at some of the deeper layers of it. Immediately upon reading it, we are likely struggling with the details of the scene. God seems upset that Saul did not obey in carrying out the ban. This can leave us wondering about God's moral quality in this passage. Here are a few considerations for us and then I'd like to offer the thought that spoke to me.
First, when we read a difficult passage like this we need to ask "What purpose does this passage serve?" Second, we need to be willing to ask, "What is the spiritual lesson of this passage?" Finally, we might consider "What details might be made more dramatic to make the spiritual point more accurately?"
It seems to me that the purpose of the passage is to explain Saul's loss of favor as the king. The spiritual lesson, and there could be a harmonizing symphony of lessons from this passage, that I took from the passage had to do with deception. The passage seems to be a warning about the cunningly deceptive way we can rationalize disobedience to ourselves. This lesson is furthered by Samuel's closing words and the Psalm which both exalt obedience without self-rationalized disobedience. But what about all of the extra stuff with the ban?
Many of these details help drive home the spiritual lesson. When you see Saul try to lie to himself and the Lord it is clear it is a bad idea, but it doesn't communicate how dangerous our capacity for self-deception can be. To truly warn us of our powers of self-deception we find the details that the disobedience was direct, that the deception was done right after a mighty show of force as God gave them victory, and that Samuel is revealing that Lord knew about all of it from the beginning. The ban and the extermination of the Amalekites were not the point of the story, getting caught up on them would be akin to getting caught up on talking mice in Christopher Churchmouse. This was not a military manual about what to do after a battle. The history and theology were brought together to make clear to us that even Saul, chosen to be king and served by the prophet Samuel, could so thoroughly rationalize disobedience to God to himself that he would lie to God about whether he obeyed or not. If he could do such a thing then we should not let our guard down either.
How do you identify when you are deceiving yourself with the rationalizations offered for giving in to temptation? How do you expose them for what they really are?
- Spencer Hargadon