000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

170 Proper 12 [17]/Year B
cf. Deut. 23:9–14; Josh. 3:5; 1 Sam. 21:5). David got Uriah drunk, but still
Uriah was faithful to the vow of the warrior (2 Sam. 11:13).
In a cruel touch, David wrote a letter that Uriah himself carried to Joab
instructing the field commander to place Uriah at “the forefront of the
hardest fighting and then to draw back” so that Uriah would be killed
(2 Sam. 11:14–15). In this, David violates the spirit of Deuteronomy 5:17.
To his discredit, Joab cooperates with this plan, and events unfold in just the
way David hoped, but with a twist. Joab sends the soldiers too near the city
wall so that “some of the [additional] servants of David from among the people
fell.” Joab composes the report of his failure of leadership in such a way
as to highlight Uriah’s death and hence to win David’s favor (11:16–25).
Today’s incident demonstrates the veracity of the statement of the
prophet Samuel to the people that they should not seek a monarch to
replace government by judges and prophets (1 Sam. 8:1–22). David here
is the paradigmatic example of the monarch who takes from the people
(see Proper 5/Year B).
Insofar as the behavior of a leader functionally legitimates behavior in
community, by choosing monarchy the people themselves brought certain
attitudes and behaviors into the center of their common life. As we see in
1 Samuel 11:16–25, when the leader deceives and kills, deception and death
multiply. Such perspectives would cause the postexilic community to ask,
What kind of leadership do we want as we rebuild our world? Leaders in
the congregation (and in the broader world) could well ask, Am I a leader
in the pattern of David in this text? What kinds of attitudes and behaviors
in community do I authorize by my own attitudes and behaviors?
The writers of the New Testament do not refer to this text.
2 Kings 4:42–44* (Paired)
Today’s reading is the last three verses from a chapter that tells stories about
Elisha, prophet of the Lord, bringing life and well-being to people in a situation
in which the wealthy and the royal have turned to idolatry and apostasy
and practiced injustice against the poor. The stories deal with everyday matters—the
elimination of a widow’s debt and saving of her children from being
sold into slavery (vv. 1–7); the raising of a faithful woman’s son from the dead
(vv. 8–37); removing the poison (or rancid taste) from a pot of stew (vv. 38–41);
and the feeding of a hundred people with twenty loaves of barley (vv. 42–44).
These stories are remarkably like the “miracle” stories of Jesus in the
Gospels and vice versa. In them, little or nothing is said about religious or