MALAWI PROTESTERS STAND FIRM IN FACE OF VIOLENCE

President Bingu complicit in violence

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news

T1 Samuel 25:23-44

23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and alighted from the donkey, and fell before David on her face, bowing to the ground. 24She fell at his feet and said, ‘Upon me alone, my lord, be the guilt; please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25My lord, do not take seriously this ill-natured fellow Nabal (“fool”); for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him; but I, your servant, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.

26 ‘Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, since the Lord has restrained you from blood-guilt and from taking vengeance with your own hand, now let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be like Nabal. 27And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28Please forgive the trespass of your servant; for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord; and evil shall not be found in you as long as you live. 29If anyone should rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living under the care of the Lord your God; but the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30When the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you prince over Israel, 31my lord shall have no cause of grief, or pangs of conscience, for having shed blood without cause or for having saved himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.’

32 David said to Abigail, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today! 33Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from blood-guilt and from avenging myself by my own hand! 34For as surely as the Lord the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there would not have been left to Nabal as much as one male.’ 35Then David received from her hand what she had brought him; he said to her, ‘Go up to your house in peace; see, I have heeded your voice, and I have granted your petition.’

36 Abigail came to Nabal; he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she told him nothing at all until the morning light. 37In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him; he became like a stone. 38About ten days later the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.

39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, ‘Blessed be the Lord who has judged the case of Nabal’s insult to me, and has kept back his servant from evil; the Lord has returned the evildoing of Nabal upon his own head.’ Then David sent and wooed Abigail, to make her his wife. 40When David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, ‘David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.’ 41She rose and bowed down, with her face to the ground, and said, ‘Your servant is a slave to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.’ 42Abigail got up hurriedly and rode away on a donkey; her five maids attended her. She went after the messengers of David and became his wife.

women in black against war

This is the second half of the story begun yesterday. It’s surely one of the great stories of ancient literature. It’s serious enough because of the possible deaths of many innocent people, but comic also in its depiction of the man called Thicko and his clever wife. Her plan to deflect David from killing her husband and his men is very successful: the gifts preceding her arrival to soften his heart; the shameless flattery; the references to David’s royal future; the pieties about God; she knows her business. The special comedy lies in the fact that she’s not so much, as it first appears, protecting her husband, as taking her chance to find a better man. (And concerning men, it’s disappointing that the vivid KJV translation in v34 “any that pisseth against the wall” has become a mere “male” in the modern version. Is there any justification for this ridiculous prudery?)

And yet…the author wants the reader to remember, for he reminds us a number of times, that lives were at risk, that David’s macho brutality nearly led him into slaughter, that these evils were prevented and God’s will done. Does Nabal express God’s will? Well, no, but his opposition to David is perfectly understandable. Does David? Well, no, but his willingness to be deflected from violence is admirable. Does Abigail? Well, maybe, but her wish for non-violence is also self-serving. Still God gets the result He wants. A devout humour might result from scrutinising our own lives for occasions where God seems to have secured His objective through our own mixed motives and the designs of others.

Mark 4:35-41

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

Sojourner Truth-preacher and activist

This is a metaphoric narrative: on the way to the “other side” Jesus and his disciples experience a great storm. Or at least the disciples experience it, because Jesus is asleep-an image of his death. In their fear they call upon him and he “wakes up” to calm the storm. The storm is an image of the evil that threatens the Messiah and his community as they journey towards God’s kingdom. Jesus’ sleep mimics his crucifixion and his waking up mimics his resurrection. This is depicted as happening during the ministry of Jesus because it expresses the memory of the church as to Jesus’ deeds in the world, and its contemporary trust in him, even in the midst of persecution. The tin ear of this translator is shown when he gives us “dead” calm for the result of Jesus’ living power. It should be “great calm”.

This story has been of help to church communities afraid of taking a step against powerful opposition; and to me, when my heart has quailed at some minor sacrifice. Jesus’ question has been pertinent, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”

Sojourner Truth, an Afro-American woman preacher and former slave whom the Episcopal Church remembers today, once demolished a male argument that women were too delicate for politics by saying, “Ain’t I a woman. Is I too feeble?” She had come through a storm with Jesus and found a great calm.