8.01.2004
The king Dances Naked before His King
from Fred Peatross' Abductive Columns
(see Sidbar Link to read more)
After seeing Jesse's seven other sons, the prophet asked, "Are there more I have not seen?" Did it ever occur to Samuel to present David? Was he just a "shepherd-person?" To his brothers he was less—a nonentity, an outsider.
But turn the page and discover the choice of David as the anointed. Election into God's purpose is never by popular vote.
Everything David knew about God he experienced, embraced, and took into himself. God wasn't a doctrine David talked about but a person who led and cared for him.
David lived and died in Philistine culture and Canaanite morality; the Iron Age of violence and sex. How do we handle the paradox of this quintessentially human life lived in the middle of absolute dehumanizing conditions of which David himself was a willing participant? I can't imagine a more uncongenial time or more unlikely conditions for living a convincingly articulated life to the glory of God. None of us become believers in a social or cultural or political vacuum.
Yet David believed. He lived and worshipped like he believed—passionately, frighteningly, and radically. Interestingly, the same passion that fueled David's devotion became the magnetic force that pulled Bathsheba into the orbit of his will.
David's story immerses us in a reality that embraces the entire range of humanness, stretching from the deep interior of our souls to the farthest reaches of our imaginations. It's a story I never tire of reading. It reminds me what the world is, and what it means to be human in it.
from Fred Peatross' Abductive Columns
(see Sidbar Link to read more)
After seeing Jesse's seven other sons, the prophet asked, "Are there more I have not seen?" Did it ever occur to Samuel to present David? Was he just a "shepherd-person?" To his brothers he was less—a nonentity, an outsider.
But turn the page and discover the choice of David as the anointed. Election into God's purpose is never by popular vote.
Everything David knew about God he experienced, embraced, and took into himself. God wasn't a doctrine David talked about but a person who led and cared for him.
David lived and died in Philistine culture and Canaanite morality; the Iron Age of violence and sex. How do we handle the paradox of this quintessentially human life lived in the middle of absolute dehumanizing conditions of which David himself was a willing participant? I can't imagine a more uncongenial time or more unlikely conditions for living a convincingly articulated life to the glory of God. None of us become believers in a social or cultural or political vacuum.
Yet David believed. He lived and worshipped like he believed—passionately, frighteningly, and radically. Interestingly, the same passion that fueled David's devotion became the magnetic force that pulled Bathsheba into the orbit of his will.
David's story immerses us in a reality that embraces the entire range of humanness, stretching from the deep interior of our souls to the farthest reaches of our imaginations. It's a story I never tire of reading. It reminds me what the world is, and what it means to be human in it.
