J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“Help People Anyway”
From the Series "The Paradoxical Commandments"
Scripture: 1 Samuel 24:6-13
November 4, 2007
Of all the different groups that make up the labor force in America today, the one group my heart goes out to more than any other is the service industry, particularly waiters and waitresses. Though I’ve never been one, I’ve interacted with the public enough over my life to know how hard it can be to offer service to people who act indecisive or demanding, or worst of all, ungrateful. I know we’re four days past Halloween, but I’m sure that those of you who have worked in the service industry have your horror stories about the patrons from “you-know-where,” who seem bent on making your life as miserable as it can be. What I find ironic (and I would think that servers can bear this out) is how the nastiest patrons tend to be the most affluent. While they are the ones who have the most to give, they also tend to be the ones who create the most difficulty for those who are seeking to serve them.
That’s the dynamic at work in this story I read for you this morning from the book of 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel is an account of changes that took place in Israel as the people clamored for a king. Samuel, the prophet of God, had begged the people not to press God for a king. He did so on the grounds that they only needed God to be their king. But the people persisted, with adolescent logic. “Everybody else has a king; why not us?”
God relented and gave them Saul to be their king. God’s intention was for Saul not so much to be served by his subjects as to serve them. God wanted Saul to “wait” upon the people by saving them from the hands of their enemies (1 Samuel 10:1). But Saul did not listen to God. He chose instead to follow his own instincts and desires. Therefore, it was left to another to serve the people as a “man after God’s own heart.” That person was none other than David.
David’s potential wasn’t lost on King Saul. And as you can imagine, Saul looked on David as the greatest threat to his throne. But to David’s credit, he never really did anything to substantiate Saul’s suspicions. His heart was to serve Saul as much as the people. But Saul never saw it that way, and so he pursued David in an effort to remove him from the list of men who might pose a peril to his reign.
The story I read for you takes place in the midst of that pursuit. The scene is En-gedi, a barren region not far from the Dead Sea, where spring-fed waters create an impressive waterfall from the surrounding cliffs. I’ve been to En-gedi, and I have seen the hundreds of caves that are located in the cliffs. Those caves served as the perfect hideout for David and his army of 3,000.
Word had reached Saul that David was somewhere in the vicinity, and so Saul went there to corner his enemy. What I did not read for you was the section of the story where Saul goes into one of the caves to use the bathroom, a cave where David and his men are hiding. David’s men are beside themselves. “This is the day the LORD spoke of when he said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish’” (1 Samuel 24:4). And consider what David does – he creeps up unnoticed and he cuts off a corner of Saul’s robe.
While you and I might find David’s action brave and daring, rest assured that it left his followers unimpressed. In Hebrew culture, vengeance was not only accepted, it was applauded. If you had a chance to do in an enemy, then the expectation was that you do it, swiftly and viciously. And when David’s men looked at him with a “what gives?” look, David explained his action in terms of his reverence for God. “The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed…; for he is the anointed of the LORD” (1 Samuel 24:6). In spite of Saul’s persistent threat, David remained loyal, not so much because of “who” Saul was but because of “whose” he was.
This story of David and Saul is a perfect illustration of another of the paradoxical commandments. People who need help may attack you if you help them; help people anyway.
But how do we do that? Might one possibility be that when people reject our help, it’s not so much that they are angry with us as they are angry with life? Might it be that the reason for their lashing out at us is more their ignorance of their own need, or their denial of their own need, or perhaps their simple anguish over their own need? But one thing is sure – we must not allow the ignorance of others, or the denial of others, or even the anguish of others to change who we are, or more importantly, who God has called us to be. God has called us to be helpers and to serve even those who may not have our best interests at heart.
Isn’t that what Jesus taught when on that night before his crucifixion he wrapped a towel around himself and washed the feet of his disciples, even Judas, his betrayer? And lest his disciples might miss his message, Jesus spelled it out. “I tell you the truth; no servant is greater than his master…. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:17). It’s only when we see our service to others as somehow being service to God that we find joy in our service and the power to stay with it even when the people we are serving ungrateful and even resentful.
If you’ve been following the news lately, you know the stir that the most recent book on Mother Teresa has caused. Come Be My Light is a compendium of some of her writings in which she professes serious doubts about God’s presence in her life. As a result of these writings some have labeled Mother Teresa something of a fraud, while others, myself included, see her expressions as the type that come from someone who grapples with questions of poverty and justice in a divinely created world, but who seeks to help even as she struggles.
Several years before her death, she was interviewed about her work among the poor, and the question was asked of her, “How can you help people with such horrid illnesses? And her answer to that question I have never forgot: “I just pretend that they are Jesus.”
“I just pretend that they are Jesus.” That works with all sorts of people, not only those who suffer from physical illness but also those who suffer from emotional illness. It will even work for those people who, while you’re trying to help them, are trying to hurt you. But it will only work if you see those people as if they were Jesus, if you see them as David saw Saul – as “the LORD’s anointed.”
We live in a world where it is said that “only the strong survive.” And that certainly is the case when the contest is always strength against strength, muscle against muscle.
But what if we lived in a world where people said otherwise? What if we lived in a world where people treated one another as individuals created in the image of God? What if we lived in a world where people asked not, “What do I get out of it?” but asked instead, “How can I serve God in it?” What if we lived in a world where people returned hatred with help and saw other people not so much as enemies as just people in need?
It would be a world where God is glorified and Jesus is lifted up.
And you have the power to make that world a reality, at least your little part of it, if in spite of how people might attack you if you help them, in the spirit of the crucified and risen Jesus, you help them anyway.