Election Day?

Election Day

When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, "You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have."

But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. And the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."

Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."

When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. The LORD answered, "Listen to them and give them a king."

Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, "Everyone go back to his town."


...and vote.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Of course, everyone should vote, but please, knock off the intimation that America is some kind of theocracy. Lame.
fdj said…
anonymous(1)...I find the passage applicable no matter what the outcome. Though perhaps more so or less so to degrees. The theme here is: you get what you ask for.

anonymous (2)....you completely....COMPLETELY misread the intent of my post. Try rereading it and try....try REALLY hard to see what meanings you might derive from it that are different than the simplistic one you ascribed to me.

Were you a regular reader or if you knew me AT ALL or had really stopped from assuming a knee-jerk interpretation, you would never have commented thusly.
fdj said…
Forgive me...let me spell it out.

The Church is the New Israel.


Here we see God warning Israel not to put too much trust in a worldly king...more than that: you are going to regret this.

:)
Anonymous said…
Ahhh, yes!! The Church (and ONLY the Church, and only the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church) is the New Israel. Thank you for saying so, even though you shouldn't have to.

Although "anonymous" should probably take a remedial reading class, I would at least point out that O.T. Israel, unlike America, was, after all, designed to actually be a theocracy. The Puritan mythology that saw the "New" World as the seedbed for a "New" Israel is among the worst delusions of post-Renaissance thought, right up there with the Third Reich's Aryan folklore in terms of pure fantasy (although not, of course, in actually genocidal effect---I hope.)

GP
fdj said…
The Puritan mythology that saw the "New" World as the seedbed for a "New" Israel...

Yes! A total disconnect with the traditional notion of the Church. I am additionally dismayed with the arising "religious left" who seek seemingly to have the state usher in some semblance of the Kingdom.
Anonymous said…
Frankly, and I say this in tears, I don't know if the "religious left" is any better or worse than the "religious right". They both believe in some kind of union between Eucharistic mysticism and nationalistic pragmatism. In fact, the American civil religion doesn't really approach Eucharistic mysticism in a credible way; it's mostly moralistic pro-Israel crapola for economic reasons. The longest-standing (and most successful, in worldly terms) experiment in this regard was the Byzantine Empire. Anyone want to assert that such a thing is likely to happen again, even if it really worked anyway?

GP

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