[ Today's Readings ]
and your sons do not follow your example,
appoint a king over us, as other nations have, to judge us.
What are the people of Israel seeking in this request? To them, God is too distant to trust with the governance of the nation. Nations benefit from being concretely well ordered. Sure, they have a prophet now who can bring them the will of a God who seems distant. But what about in the next generation after Samuel dies? The surrounding nations already seem enviable for their kings. They seem to be great societies with great armies, public works, and all sorts of pomp and circumstance. Because they have kings they become more able to be prideful about their own success. Even if a nation is spiritual when they first take it a king it is hard to avoid the focus shifting to the human and to this this worldly.
What of our lives? Do we substitute the perceived absence of God with different sorts of kings? Do we rely on the powers of this world when God doesn't seem reliable? Free will allows us to do so.
Grant the people’s every request.
It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king.
But although God may seem distant his promise is the only thing which is truly dependable. The powers of this world may seem promising. But ultimately they leave us disappointed. And this is true of even the greatest genuinely good powers of the world such as science and technology. If we trust in these in the place of God they ultimately fail us.
So what do we do when God seems distant? Let's do whatever it takes to draw near to him. We can be sure that if he feels distant it is not him who moved but us. And this means that his presence is always available.
Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd,
they opened up the roof above him.
The Son of Man has the authority we truly seek. He is the one who must reign in our lives.
But that you may know
that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth”
–he said to the paralytic,
“I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.”
When Jesus is on the throne of our hearts we "know the joyful shout". We walk in the light of his face. Even kings are not a problem if they belong to the LORD.
For you are the splendor of their strength,
and by your favor our horn is exalted.
For to the LORD belongs our shield,
and to the Holy One of Israel, our King.
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