1 Samuel 13:7b- 14;
Focused reading: 1 Samuel 15:10-17, 22-24
5/25/25 Memorial Day EPC Ben Sloan Sermon: "Saul,
Who Remembered...Kind Of"
We are beginning a preaching series on the kings of Israel/Judah.
On this Memorial Day Weekend we will be remembering Saul the warrior King who
only kind of remembered God.
What do you remember and how
do you remember it? In the end, God’s
memory is the ultimate one that counts.
We say, “God only knows.” Brian
Williams was the anchor for NBC News. He
said twice in 2015 that he was in a helicopter that was hit by a RPG (Rocket
Propelled Grenade) and was forced down in Iraq in 2003. Truth was his helicopter did come under fire,
but it was the helicopter in front of him that was hit by a RPG and forced
down. He was forced out of his anchor
position at NBC. Similarly, Hilary
Clinton said in 2008 she had come under sniper fire in Bosnia but CBS and the
journalists with her said otherwise and she retracted her story. In 1983 Ronald
Reagan told Israeli Prime Minister Yishak Shamir that his film unit took
pictures of the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp. Later we found out his unit never left the
United States. Sometimes, whether we are republican- democrat- rich-poor;
whoever we are we are human enough to all make mistakes. Mitt Romney told a Michigan crowd when he was
running for president, that he fondly remembered the golden jubilee celebration
of the 50th anniversary of the automobile. But later he admitted he was born nine months
after the event- and that his memory was “foggy.” All this is to publicly show
how our memories fail us, and also frankly how our egos can distort the facts a
bit. Daniel Schachter of Harvard speaks
of how there is a large amount of literature that points out that we can have
confidence in a distorted memory, and how our egos can conflate events or
change them a bit in our mind.
I really like those Progressive Commercials where one person throws a red
challenge flag on another for how they remembered things- and then they replay
the event on the camera and one of the two remembers it wrong.
All this is to say Saul was really
good at remembering things the way he wanted them to be remembered- in a way
that portrayed him in the best light. Saul
is perhaps the most memory bungled king in the Bible. His pride and his lack of trust in God caused
him to do some impatient and ego-driven things.
The difference in Saul’s remembering was he was given special
instructions by God Himself through the prophet and he just kind-a remembered
them. In other words he kinda obeyed
God. It is a bit like half obedience
which is not obedience at all. When he
got caught, Saul was sorry he got caught- but there is little evidence of real
repentance. He was great about making up
excuses.
I don’t know about you, but when I get caught doing something- I can find an
excuse. It is a real weakness, and I
can learn from this story how wrong excuse making can be. Usually my wife catches me. The conversation goes something like this-
“Did you do those things that needed to get done that we talked about before
the company comes?” “Uh- well- I didn’t
vacuum, but I did sweep the entranceway.”
That is very Saul-like. I was
going to take out the trash too, but the phone rang and I got distracted. I’d do it now,but we ran out of time. Usually my wife calls out my excuses- she’s a
retired school teacher and can see a lame excuse a mile away. Saul was called out by Samuel the prophet. You bet that was really intimidating. When Saul started making these excuses and
then he said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll make a sacrifice to make up for
it.” Samuel said, “To obey is better
than sacrifice.” Let’s talk about that
for a minute.
The people of God were called to
listen to God- who revealed Himself to them through the law and the
prophets. But God knew they would mess
up. So God developed a sacrificial
system as an atonement- to make things one or right with God. But which is better, obeying God or trying to
make up for disobedience by sacrifice? Is
it better when a friendship stays strong, or when it breaks up and then manages
to get back together? It’s better if it
stays strong. There is a price of
distrust and a crack in the solid frame of a relationship when a break-up
happens. So not listening, not paying
attention, not caring, valuing convenience over obedience, finding excuses for
misbehavior is very Saul-like and these are things we all do.
In our passage Saul was told to
wait seven days on Samuel. But Saul was
growing impatient because his soldiers were outnumbered and scared and were
deserting at a rapid pace. So he took
things into his own hands and even though he was not a priest, he made the
sacrifice to God. Still on the seventh
day, Samuel showed up- just as Saul was finishing the sacrifice. You can almost hear Saul saying,”Uh oh!” “Uh oh- I am caught!” Saul made the excuse- ”The men were
scattering, you didn’t come (trying to blame Samuel), and I was just trying to
make God happy by having a sacrifice.”
The problem with Saul is not his actions as much as his heart- his pride
thinking he can make the rules up as he goes, instead of listening to what God
says.
Saul also disobeyed about the war with the Amalekites. He kept the livestock and the king partly out
of fear of the people who wanted the plunder.
He also later consulted the Witch of Endor, probably an Amalekite religious
person. Which was against his rules. Samuel
even rose up from the dead to rebuke him one more time then.
We could contrast Saul with David
with the caveat to acknowledge we are not the judge. David seems to do worse things- he was at
least a second degree murderer, and he clearly broke God’s law with
Bathsheba. Similarly to Saul, a prophet
(this time Nathan) confronted him. The
difference with Saul is David did not make any excuses- but recognized his sin
immediately. Supposedly, he wrote Psalm
51 in response to his rebuke- “Have mercy on me, O God according to your
unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my
transgressions. Wash away all my
iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For
I know my transgression and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done
what is evil in your sight...” I think
the difference between Saul and David is similar to the Pharisee and Tax
collector in worship. The Pharisee was
proud and talked about how great he was and listed the things he had done right
like he deserved God’s favor. The Tax
Collector beat his chest and said, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Memorial Day began towards the end of
the Civil War. Some say Lincoln began it when he decorated graves after his
Gettysburg address. Thirty-six different
towns both north and south claim they started it first. Our memories are
suspect. We cannot drop the red challenge
flag to let the video replay tell us what is true. God only knows. Memorial Day comes at the beginning of
summer. The public swimming pools opened
this weekend, and they say fashion changes to summer clothes on Memorial
Day. There are tons of Memorial Day
sales to celebrate, and grocery stores will have hot dogs and burgers on sale. However,
over a million soldiers died in service for their country that we
remember. It doesn’t matter if they were
from the north, south, California, or South Carolina. They are to be remembered no matter what
their political or religious persuasion.
They are dead. In some ways we
value liberty today- the freedom to live the life God gave us. We are not dead, they are- leaving behind
grieving families, and future hopes.
One of my favorite Memorial Day movies is “Unbroken” about a World War 2 hero:
Louis Zamperini. Louis qualified for the
1936 Olympics. He was extremely
disciplined. His plane was shot down and
he survived on a raft in the ocean for 47 days.
He watched many of his war buddies die- 40% of the POW’s in Japan died
in captivity. He was picked on
mercilessly by his Japanese captors, and amazingly resisted. The movie ends with the war ending and
setting them free. Somebody’s memory was distorting things by this ending. See,
the rest of the story is that when Zampirini came back to the states he became
an alcoholic trying to deal with the sadness of the loss of his buddies. He was
still acclaimed as a hero but he needed strength beyond himself. One night he
thought he was choking his tormentors, but was choking his wife. But things
changed for the better when he came to the Christian faith through a Billy
Graham meeting and found peace with his past and the loss of his friends. He gave up alcohol. Eventually he went back to Japan, found those
who imprisoned him and amazingly forgave them.
Healing and forgiveness comes when we give up our excuses and egos to
confess and repent. The focus of our
lives should not be on our problems or difficulties. We will all have them. But it is possible to lift up your eyes and
remember God who is the ultimate giver of life and freedom. When you remember God, He heals your
memories. He doesn’t change them, but
redeems them, forgives them and enables you to move on.
Let us also as believers not forget
to remember. We do not exist in a
vacuum. As Brad reminds us, We are
standing on the shoulders of those who went before us, and drink from wells we
did not dig. While some have half
believed and half obeyed-like Saul; there are those who fully humbled
themselves before God and lived heroic meaningful and faithful lives. The Bible calls us to live grateful
lives. We should be grateful for those
who have given themselves fully, and also be grateful ultimately to God who
gives us life, and sets us free from our sins- when we call out and come to
Him.
