Year B
1 Samuel 8:4-11,16-20
Psalm 138
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Mark 3:20-35

Every time I update my computer software…  there’s an End User Agreement I must agree to before the software will download…  or install…  or work…  not only for programs like PS Elements…  or my Bible software…  or our beloved Zoom…  but even for updates to my computer and smartphone’s operating systems…  most of the time I’m simply agreeing to not alter the software…  or prevent it from working the way it was intended to work…  and I think that’s a reasonable expectation by people who are simply doing what’s needed to protect their intellectual property…

But I’ve never actually read one of these agreements…  have you…  I mean some of them are fifteen pages long…  so I take them on faith…  I trust that there’s nothing nefarious to which I’m agreeing but that I’ll regret later on…  no…  most of the time we don’t read the fine print…  we’re busy…  we can’t be bothered…  and considering how these agreements are written…  we’d often need a lawyer or two to understand them…  even tho what we’re agreeing to may end up being disappointing…  

Patrick Wilson…  pastor of Williamsburg Presbyterian Church wrote…  if there is disappointment in not getting what we want…  there is quite another and perhaps even sharper disappointment in receiving what we ask for…  and this is just the kind of disappointment the Elders of Israel experienced…  Samuel was too old to lead…  and his sons were disqualified from filling his sandals as judges because of their corruption…  but still…  the Elders looked at surrounding nations and were determined to have a king so that they could be…  like…  them…  so they could have a king who would not only govern…  but go out ahead of them…  and fight their battles for them…  and while we see that in some historical fiction…  I can’t think of many kings or politicians who would really do that themselves…  they usually remain safe behind the lines… so that retreat is possible…  

So God asked Samuel to read the fine print for them…  and told them that…  a king will take your sons and appoint them to be his horsemen…  and run before his chariots…  and make implements of war…  he will appoint some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest…  he will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers…  he will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers…  he will take your male and female slaves…  and the best of your cattle and donkeys…  and put them to his work…  and he will take one-tenth of your flocks…  and you shall be his slaves…

No one really wants that kind of king…  he will take…  and he will give to his…  quite some sense of ownership there…  no one really wants that kind of king…  who makes everything about himself…  and who presumes to control not only things…  but those from whom he takes…  and those to whom he gives…  and the passage says…  that in the day when you finally cry out…  because of all the horrific things your king has done…  God will not answer you…

God will not answer…  it does not say that God will not hear you…  God is incapable of not hearing…  God always hears…  God always knows…  in the Collect for Purity we sometimes pray…  we acknowledge that to Almighty God…  all hearts are open…  all desires known…  and from God no secrets are hid…  but God won’t answer because God’s answer can’t undo the choices the Elders have made…  we live in a universe where choices have consequences…  and when we make choices that go against God’s will…  when we make choices that prevent God’s good from coming to us and to every one of our neighbors…  when we make choices that may even cut God off…  God laments that we must reap what we have sown…

Pastor Wilson adds…  after the monarchy slipped into history…  God summoned Ezekiel to prophesy against the shepherd kings of Israel…  who reads them the riot act…  and excoriates them up one side…  and down the other…  for feeding themselves from and harvesting flocks belonging to others…  for doing just what Samuel said they’d do…  but Ezekiel also announced that God would accept the responsibilities of the failed monarchy…  maybe God thought too much was asked of us…  but God would still search for us sheep…

In today’s Gospel…  the scribes accuse Jesus of being possessed…  but not like in any of those demon movies…  Pastor Nibs Stroupe…  of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Georgia…  writes that Satan and Beelzebub represent the forces…  and the configurations of power…  that are actively engaged against the compassionate and reconciling love of God…  and which capture us…  and cause us to hurt ourselves…  to hurt others…  and to hurt God…  ] and to name a few…  there is the power of race…  which tells us to believe that one group is superior to another simply because of skin color or cultural heritage…  there is the power of patriarchy which says that men should dominate women…  there is the power of materialism which roars at us that money gives us life…  and the power of militarism which believes that weapons and war can bring us peace…  but which cause us to kill one another…  often in the name of God…  

And Jesus uses the metaphor of tying up the strong man in order to plunder his property…  and in using this metaphor…  he lifts up the need to use the Gospel to expose our captivity to those same powers in our lives…  those configurations that work against our relationships with each other…  and with God… 

This past Thursday evening…  our diocese hosted author J. Chester Johnson…  whose book Damaged Heritage recounted The Elaine Massacre in Elaine, AK…  which began on September 30, 1919…  the perpetual debt black sharecroppers experienced prompted them to meet at a church in nearby Hoops Spur to discuss unionizing…  but some white men heard about the meeting…  and arrived at the church…  and shots were fired…  and over the next three days…  more than 100 black men…  women…  and children were killed…  as were five white men…  Mr. Johnson’s grandfather was a member of the KKK who participated…  and as he investigated…  he connected with and made friends with Shelia Walker…  who was almost fifty by the time she heard this story from Elaine’s buried history…  Shelia’s grandmother was fifteen when it happened and she could never bring herself to tell what she had experienced…

Many of us have recently heard about The Tulsa Race Massacre which took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921…  after the account of what happened in an elevator between a black man and a white woman…  got out of control…  35 city blocks of the Greenwood District were destroyed…  eyewitnesses described low-flying private airplanes whose occupants fired rifles and dropped firebombs on buildings, homes, and fleeing families…  more than 800 people were treated for injuries…  and historians now believe that as many as 300 people may have died… 

And this past weekend…  with the help of ground penetrating radar…  preliminary findings came to light…  that the remains of 215 children who had been students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School were found…  thousands of children died in residential schools…  and their bodies rarely returned home…  many were buried in neglected graves…  and to this day…  there is no full picture of the circumstances of their deaths…  or where they are buried…

Bp. Satterlee reminds us that Catholic Social teaching calls us to be wise and faithful citizens…  wise…  if we are engaged…  participate…  and are informed…  and faithful…  if we allow our faith to guide our decisions about life in society…  but we need to remember that the Christian faith is never partisan…  Jesus was never partisan…  but he was certainly political… and if we are baptized…  our highest allegiance belongs to Christ… and to him alone… because we cannot hope for God’s will to be done by any one elected official… we cannot outsource our discipleship to another human being… we can only pray for God’s will to be done in our own unique lives…

In our Eucharist’s proper preface for Pentecost…  we acknowledge that in fulfillment of Jesus’ true promise…  the Holy Spirit came down from heaven…  lighting upon the disciples…  to teach them and to lead them into all truth…  those disciples are us…  and we’re still learning and being led…  to be sure… our faith is active in our politics… but if our faith is not active in our daily life… our politics will never be faithful… and we will be a kingdom and a house divided against itself… God hears… and we must be faithful to God and not to the world…  but we must read the fine print…  all fifteen pages of it…  so that God will answer us…