Accountable leadership and moral direction

The New Interpreter’s Bible and Bruce C. Birch’s Commentary on the First and Second Books of Samuel offer important insight relevant for America today, congruent with God’s concern at the beginning of First Samuel, interpreted as being the raising up of faithful and decisive leadership for Israel “to meet the moral crisis created by the corruption of Eli’s sons” (I Sam.2:11-36). Connecting to the final words of the Book of Judges in chapter 21:25b, which are “All the people did what was right in their own eyes,” this study seeks to beam biblical light on whatever announcements today’s media, progressive or conservative, name as “breaking news.” Let us pray that God’s concern to raise up faithful and decisive leadership for America today, as for Israel then, ignites our devoted attention and prayer. Divinely chosen and appointed leadership must present America’s requests before God, I submit, for the “establishment of His Word.” God’s Providence, only, can effect a “reversal of circumstances,” such as is needed, now. That is our one, true hope for resolution of the substantial crises we face today.

There must be another like Hannah in a story petitioning that “the Lord establish His Word (I Sam.1:23); like Hannah, who “presented herself before the Lord” (1:9), that is, turned in trust to God, one like her, or like her son Samuel, is needed now. Professor Birch comments: “Her request is straightforward. She asks for a male child. But if she were to receive this gift of God’s grace, she vows to give back to God the gift she receives.” Willingness, with decisive and trusting intent to give back to God the gift received, must characterize the faith of one who petitions a gift before, and from, the Lord God. Hannah modeled that trust and decisive willingness. Does possibility for us lie, also, in such willingness and trust on our part? I think so.

Having named her child Samuel, meaning “the asking that I asked,” the literal words with which Eli, the high priest, had blessed her request for intercession, “Hannah says, ‘I have lent him to the Lord,’ and further, ‘as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.’”

Singing the Lord’s praise, Hannah, a barren woman of faith, had experienced the power wrought by God’s “reversal of circumstances” in the birth of her much-longed-for son. Professor Birch states, “The song of Hannah should be understood as a witness to the central role of God’s Providence….Hannah’s song celebrates and gives witness to this power of divine Providence to create possibilities for the future that seem impossible through human and historical resources alone….Behind the human drama and the historical circumstances of these stories in the books of Samuel lies the certainty of God’s providential working.”

That can be America’s story. But another Samuel is needed through whom God’s Word is established anew to us, and accepted by us. The story of Samuel’s prophetic role in Israel’s history is also the story of the return and establishment, nay, the re-establishment, of God’s Word to Israel. Our present history tells the tragic story of our loss of ” our moral and covenantal bearings,” and with that loss, has come the dis-establishment of God’s Word in our communal and national life. Americans do what is right in their own eyes. That is both America’s sin and judgment.

The Book of Judges chronicles the circumstances of Israel at the end of the Canaanite conquests. Old Testament scholar, Dennis T. Olson, describes the chaos and social disintegration dividing the twelve tribes of Israel, and with that the “gradual decline of Israel’s faithfulness to the covenant with God” (Judges 2:6-3:6). Olson writes, “Judges introduces the record of Israel’s slow and bumpy decline into apostasy and disintegration, a decline that even the judges sent by the Lord could not finally prevent or impede.” Americans must see our own faces in the mirror of these biblical images of decline, as we recognize and acknowledge, that “In the end…the book of Judges also reminds Israel [and America] that its own worst enemy could be itself; the threat to God’s people is as much internal as external” (Judges 17-21).

An “absence of leadership and accountability,” is the situation signifying a history of chaos and disorder, of lawlessness and violence, and the apostasy of turning away from God. Again, Judges 17:6b states: “…all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” This judgment must not be read as indicating that the people sought to do what was right as they understood God’s commandments to demand. On the contrary: It reveals that the people decided for themselves what was right and followed their own deliberations. This exact phrase is repeated again as the final statement and judgment in Judges (Judges 21:25).

When America’s final history is told and written, will it recount and repeat the same terse judgment? We hope not. Will we turn to God and trust in God’s providential wisdom and direction, as we seek accountable leadership and moral direction for ourselves and our republic? Let us petition earnestly, as a people, that God’s Will may be done “on earth, as it is in heaven.”

“To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27)

Thanks be to God.