Friday • 7/21/2023
Friday of the Seventh Week After Pentecost (Proper 10)
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; 1 Samuel 21:1–15; Acts 13:13–25; Mark 3:7–19a
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)
Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 10 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.
Once, the Christian singer-songwriter Gloria Gaither asked a room filled with young songwriters two questions. First, she asked how many in the room had written a song based on a psalm in the past year. Almost every person in the room raised a hand. Second, she asked how many had read through the life of David during the past year. No hands. She proceeded to show how many of those psalms depend on the context of David’s life for their meaning. She offered her opinion that to pluck them out of that context was to cherry-pick them. Now, Gloria Gaither is a most gracious lady, so her demeanor was inviting and encouraging rather than off-putting and dispiriting. But she made her point.
Three psalms emerge from the events of today’s reading in David’s life.
Psalm 52 and Ahimelech’s death. Fleeing Saul, David seeks refuge at Nob with the high priest Ahimelech (great-grandson of Eli and father of Abiathar). David notices that one of Saul’s mercenaries, Doeg the Edomite, is already in the camp. Perhaps wanting to protect Ahimelech from appearing to have chosen David over Saul, David dissembles about why he’s come. He claims to be on a mission for the king. Doeg isn’t buying it.
David is clever enough to convince Ahimelech to allow him and his men to take the showbread that is ordinarily reserved for the priests and to take the sword of Goliath which David had entrusted to him. But David is not astute enough to realize that Doeg needs to be dealt with. Immediately after David leaves for Gath, Doeg goes and reports to Saul. In turn, Saul commissions Doeg to return and slaughter Ahimelech and all the priests of Nob. The lone escapee is Abiathar, Ahimelech’s son.
David feels responsible for the murder of Ahimelech: “David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I am responsible for the lives of all your father’s house” (1 Samuel 22:22).
To remind himself that God will in the end deal with wicked evildoers like Doeg, David composes Psalm 52, “A Maskil of David, when Doeg the Edomite came to Saul and said to him, ‘David has come to the house of Ahimelech.’” All of us, I’m sure, live with some level of frustration at the prevalence of evil and foolishness in the world. Many of us, no doubt, wonder if we’ve done enough to resist that evil and foolishness. David’s song can help: “Why do you boast, O mighty one, of mischief done against the godly? … But God will break you down forever; … The righteous will see, and fear, and will laugh at the evildoer” (Psalm 52:1a,3a,6). The God who is justice and rightness must make justice and rightness prevail in his world. That is one truth the entire Bible doggedly clings to. And so can we.
And so, our lives can be characterized not by dismay, despair, doom, and gloom, but by thankfulness, trust, and praise: “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever, because of what you have done. In the presence of the faithful I will proclaim your name, for it is good” (Psalm 52:8–9).
Psalm 56 and Psalm 34: David among the Philistines.* David’s flight takes him all the way to the gates of Philistine Gath, where he pretends to be insane, even to the extent of drooling spittle down his beard to prove he is harmless (1 Samuel 21:10–15). He composes Psalm 56 to ask God’s mercy. Covering his shame, he knows, is the God who has “taken account of my wanderings; [and] put my tears in [his] bottle” (Psalm 56:8 NASB). He loves the coherence of God’s Word all the more: “In God, whose word I praise, In the Lord, whose word I praise . . . I have put my trust” (compare Psalm 56:1, 4, 10–11). Within the exercise of crafting words to articulate his situation and express his feelings, David arrives at a deeper sense of the trustworthiness of God himself. He can pretend to be confused — even mad — because he knows God’s Word is true; and what is happening outside himself does not threaten what is true within himself.
Psalm 34 also comes from this period in David’s life when he is seeking asylum by feigning lunacy. His fool’s charade puts him in a unique position to understand that it is the “poor” whom the Lord hears, the “brokenhearted” to whom the Lord is near, and the “crushed in spirit” whom the Lord saves (Psalm 34:17–18).
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
*The following two paragraphs are adapted from Reggie M. Kidd, “David: Israel’s Sweet Singer and Architect of Praise,” in With One Voice: Discovering Christ’s Song in Our Worship (BakerBooks, 2005), p. 55.