Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“But you, my lord the king—the eyes of all Israel are on you to tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. Otherwise it will come to pass, when my lord the king sleeps with his ancestors, that my son Solomon and I will be counted offenders.”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, October 26, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I have absolutely zero interest in Game of Thrones (which surprises most of my friends, actually) but imagine it would have had a similar plot to the struggles and shenanigans Israel experienced from the moment they insisted God give them a king. The jockeying for power, the assumptions of privilege and succession, the back-stabbing—literally and figuratively, and the open warfare between all parties involved.
Here, David is on his deathbed and one of his sons (who is actually next in the line of succession, so has some justification) has already gone out and proclaimed himself king, following all the religious and societal customs to make that happen. Bathsheba, meanwhile, is completely freaked out—David had promised her that her son, Solomon, would be king and the prophet Nathan backed that up. If David died before making this official before witnesses, Solomon and Bathsheba would quickly become enemies of the state, would-be-usurpers whose claim to the throne would most likely have had them both immediately killed.
I knew a pastor who said that when kids told him the Bible was boring, he would counter that it was absolutely chock full of sex and violence. That would get their attention! (In fact I’d bet the Bible has more sex and violence than Game of Thrones, speaking from total ignorance, of course). I’m not saying that’s a good thing. I guess I’m just saying it’s a human thing. Throughout human history, we human beings have ascribed to our gods attitudes and behaviors that mirror our own need to amass power and make war to keep it. Thus, the Bible—co-authored by God, but written down by men specifically—is merely a reflection of the tumultuous reality of life as it was known at the time. With that particular context in mind, we are then left with the struggle to find the gospel among the disturbing happenings.
In this case, maybe it’s just the knowledge that God loved Solomon and that, in the end, God’s love for Solomon was borne out—Solomon became king as David had promised and, while he, too, was fatally flawed, he was a pretty darn good king for most of his reign.
What do I find interesting or helpful about stories like this in the Bible?
