Posted by
mlajoie2 on Saturday, August 16, 2008 11:35:15 PM
DAVID UP, SAUL DOWN ('S'all Downhill From Here!)
The first two kings of Israel were King Saul and King David. They are often contrasted. David is beloved; Saul is a tragic figure. David is great and famous; Saul is often forgotten though he started out so well. Yet, I have noticed something peculiar about this. Saul and David are amazingly similar people! The question becomes, why did they turn out so very differently? How do we discern the difference between truly great leaders on one hand and talented but flawed ones on the other? In the answer, I find a connection to the present situation. I want to dive into the admittedly murky world of character and personality and find some patterns of coherence.
The fact is that Saul and David were amazingly similar in several ways. Let us map out some of those similarities:
TOPIC SAUL DAVID
Personality Melancholic Melancholic (Ps 51)
Temperament Artistic Artistic
Music Loved Music Played harp; Psalms
Prophet Stayed with them Spoke prophetically
Background Poor/rural; cattle Poor/rural; sheep
We could further argue that David’s sins could be seen as far worse than Saul’s:
SAUL'S SINS DAVID'S SINS
Impatiently offered sacrifice Committed adultery
Though not a priest (I Sm 13:9-14) Abuse power (2Sm 11)
He broke ‘the Ban’ kept best things Engaged in a cover-up
For self and lied (I Sm 14:9)
Consulted Witch of Endor, Conspiracy/murder
Forbidden by Moses (I Sm 28)
If David’s sins seem worse, why then did he succeed where Saul failed? Where does the difference lie? It is in their respective reactions & spiritual attitudes:
SAUL DAVID
Zeal for maintenance of his ‘self’ “Man after God’s Heart”;
Jealousy, envy of David extreme Positive reactions
He was narcissistic, didn’t care Generous/forgiving;
enough about God to be reverent Didn’t kill Saul; reverent
Lying showed he didn’t care; When confronted he was
He no longer believed in God; Truly repentant/sorry
Fell into despair (consulted witch) Accepted consequences
The bottom line with Saul is he, deep down, ceased being devoted to God. His own self-importance was always the reference; the result was that he was ‘wishy-washy’ or ‘slippery’. When confronted with the evidence of offering sacrifice himself, he never admitted guilt; he tried to plead his case, seemingly clueless about the obvious impiety he was modeling for his people. He had to ‘look good’ no matter the cost. When he broke the Ban, he did what we call in politics ‘spinning’. He intended to do the right thing all along; he just was going to do it a little later and he certainly wasn’t intending to keep for himself what belonged to God. In other words, he lied. He seemed to have that awful problem: he could never admit he was wrong. So, when he started to approach personal disaster, instead of changing his ways or turning to God in His mercy, he committed what amounted to an act of despair: he went to consult the Witch of Endor, an act expressly forbidden by the Law of Moses. In the end he committed the ultimate act of despair: suicide.
The difference in attitude with David is evident in many situations and events. His frequent sparing of an enemy’s life demonstrates why I Samuel calls David “a man after God’s own heart”. However, the one event in particular I want to consider is how David reacted to Nathan’s Parable of the Lamb. He had slid down a terrible path that started with selfish lust (a very familiar starting place for trouble for so many!). At several points he could have turned back, but he eventually went down the sordid path of voyeurism, adultery, cover-up, murder and conspiracy. He thought he had successfully covered it up. But the prophet Nathan confronted him about Bathsheba:
1And the Lord sent Nathan to David: and when he was come to him, he said to him: There were two men in one city, the one rich, and the other poor.
2The rich man had exceeding many sheep and oxen.
3But the poor man had nothing at all but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up, and which had grown up in his house together with his children, eating of his bread, and drinking of his cup, and sleeping in his bosom: and it was unto him as a daughter.
4And when a certain stranger was come to the rich man, he spared to take of his own sheep and oxen, to make a feast for that stranger, who was come to him, but took the poor man's ewe, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
5And David's anger being exceedingly kindled against that man, he said to Nathan: As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this is a child of death.
6He shall restore the ewe fourfold, because he did this thing, and had no pity.
7And Nathan said to David: THOU ART THE MAN! - II Samuel 12:1-7a (D-R)
David was confronted directly with what he had done. Now, in a ‘do or die’ moment, he had a decision as to how he would react. Such moments are the measures of character and virtue. Now, how could have David reacted? There are several possibilities:
- He could have done what Saul did and ‘spin’ or justify himself: “mistakes were made”, ‘the buck never got here’.
- He could have denied it outright and gotten away with it as king (like Clinton, he could have said, ‘I did not…have…sexual…relations with that woman…Ms. Bathsheba”.) Many would want to believe him.
- He could have used the simple argument by force and had Nathan killed to shut him up (there are too many examples of this to list!).
- He could have pretended to be sorry and not really done anything to make it real. He could have put on a big show.
But what did he do? He admitted he was wrong! “I have sinned against the Lord,” he said quite simply. Read Psalm 51 slowly, which David wrote at the time, and see greatness of soul incarnate. By many actions, he took ownership and tried to make up for what he did. Further, he reached out to Bathsheba. Imagine her position. David could have done what most all men do in like situations and abandon the ‘other woman’ like a hot potato. What he did was to reach out to her in comfort. Their child had died after all of this; what did David do? He married her and provided her with a ‘love child’ in the best sense of the term, Solomon, who would go on to build the Temple. We all err; we all have sinned. David showed true humility. He showed authenticity.
A further aid in this exercise comes from the New Testament. Saul is comparable to Judas in the Gospel. He wasn’t the only one to betray the Lord. He even had some recognition that what he had done was wrong. But in the end, it was really all about him; it was about his view of what Jesus should represent, his appraisal of the possibilities of mercy. He, like Saul, committed suicide; he gave up. David, on the other hand, is comparable to Peter who sinned & repented. What Peter did is really no better than what Judas did, but he was able to look beyond himself and see it wasn’t all about him. “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Tend my sheep! Feed my sheep! Feed my lambs!” Pour your life out for those given into your care. He did and he changed the world for the better.
Now I will give my opinions on the candidates. Which is more like Saul? Which is more like David? Such an enterprise can seem like a Rohrshach Test. You can’t quote chapter and verse and link to a campaign website to ‘prove’ anything, really. These are moral observations to which, perhaps, you, as a reader, will not relate to, or which you will deny completely and vociferously. So be it. But this is the sort of thing which explains why we have interviews for jobs, not just resumes and references. Parts of interviewing are fact-finding and informational; but there’s something more that’s not quite so definable. Just talking to someone can show you something about what makes them tick. With that being said, here are my impressions.
John McCain often talks about one lesson he learned over the years as a general concept. It is expressed many ways: e.g. become devoted to a cause greater than yourself; you are not the most important; your country, your culture, your family are. We should note this really isn’t something he talks about all the time in terms of his own life. He doesn’t often mention his adoption of children from Mother Teresa or his sons in the military and Iraq. These are attitudes you learn by doing. I think he’s learned hard lessons from what he did. There seems to be ‘authenticity’.
Now has McCain been sinful and selfish? You bet he has, and he’ll be the first one to tell you. And there’s nothing wrong with mentioning his faults and failings; he’s running for President; we need to put it all out there. Did he break under torture? Mention it. Was he a prodigal underachiever in his school days? Mention it. HE DOES, TOO! A lot of political enemies this election have attacked him for the divorce with his first wife and remarrying. What they don’t mention is how those kids love and revere him as much as his other kids. The difference here is he has fully admitted his guilt and has tried to make up for what he has done. Although he did nothing legally wrong in the Keating Five Scandal, he reacted by admitting his guilt & becoming a crusader for reform. This is the basic reason I think that I started to take a look at this man. Go ahead and attack him, McSame, McLame, he cheated on his wife, mention all the real faults, go ahead and try to twist everything to make him ‘look’ bad. Go ahead. It’s not fair. But it won’t change the deep down fiber built up in this man. And he can take it. In short, John McCain reminds me of King David. He shows ‘humility’.
Now what has been the personal performance of Obama? One thing that has stood out to me is that he can not seem to admit he was WRONG. There are many instances of this; one example is the Katie Couric interview when she desperately tried to pin down a very evasive Obama. Do you remember the exasperation he showed? He seems ‘slippery’. He seems ‘touchy’ or self-important.
There is a definite tendency to want to spin things, creating the appearance of something, not merely flip/flopping, but being on multiple sides of an issue! Even allies have noted this and been sorely disappointed. An example is the stunning flop on PRINCIPLE in the FISA vote. He seems ‘wishy-washy’. He often seems to be ‘spinning’.
I don’t want to bother listing all of my impressions, but I do want to mention the ONE particular thing, that decided it all for me. He voted against a bill, a bill that would have banned killing the victims of abortion that are born alive; three times he voted against it in the Illinois legislature. He then said he would have voted for the version in the Senate because it had certain language. (We have since learned he voted against one version in committee in Illinois that did have the same language; he lied.) [See the article by Freddoso in National Review on August 14, 2008 and see my post on this at my blogspot, http://mlajoie2.blogspot.com/ or at Flopping Aces. Connections are there to lead you to these and other facts.] Like Saul and his stepping in for the priest to sacrifice, Obama seems to have no concept how such impiety sets an awful example. To play around with this issue like that gives me the impression of someone who will rule like Saul.
Young Saul actually started out as a very popular choice for king, but he was doomed to tragedy with dreadful consequences for his kingdom. To me, Obama is like Saul. In my heart and in my gut, if we elect Barack Obama, ‘s’all downhill from there.