Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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*Slide 1*
My theme this morning is imagination.
I’ve been thinking this week about the imagination of children.
I found these quotations on the internet.
A group of children was asked to write down what they would like to say to God.
Here are some of the replies.
*Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each so much if they had their own rooms.
It works with my brother.
- Larry*
*I want to be just like my Daddy when I get big but not with so much hair all over.
- Sam*
*If you watch in church on Sunday I will show you my new shoes.
- Mickey D.*
*We read Thomas Edison made light.
But in Sunday school they said you did it.
So I bet he stoled your idea.
- Sincerely, Donna*
*I do not think anybody could be a better God.
Well, I just want you to know but I am not just saying that because you are God.
- Charles*
*I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Tuesday.
That was cool.
- Eugene*
*In Sunday school they told us what you do.
Who does it when you are on vacation?
- Jane*
*Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?
- Norma*
*Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't you just keep the ones you got now? - Jane*
*Why is Sunday school on Sunday?
I thought it was supposed to be our day of rest.
- Tom L.*
Children don’t seem to be limited in their imagination of possibility.
* Why shouldn’t Sunday school be on a Monday?
* Why do people die so that God has to go to the bother of making new ones?
Perhaps it’s sad that we seem to lose our imaginations when we grow up.
We lose our belief in the impossible.
I’m going to start at the end of this chapter and work backwards.
Israel has asked for a king.
Having a king, God points out to them through Samuel, is not all it’s cracked up to be.
* A king will oppress you,
* and will tax you heavily.
* He will institute national service,
* and he will conscript your young men and women to forced labour.
But of course this description of kingship is not unique to the people of Israel in 1000BC.
It is the pattern of every king, president, ruler and dictator who has ever governed, before or since.
Power corrupts, said Lord Acton, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
*Even the most benign ruler tends towards this norm*.
Power is heady stuff, and few can resist its lures for long.
*Slide 2*
So we are not surprised to learn that within a few decades of this prophetic warning, the people of Israel were governed by a king who has fulfilled all of those warnings.
* He has a huge harem,
* a system of tax districts,
* an elaborate bureaucracy,
* a standing army and conscripted labour.
In fact, 2~/3 of the agricultural wealth ended up in the hands of the urban elite – half of which went to the top 1-2% of society – of whom clearly the king was the greatest recipient.
*Israel was well and truly under the imperial thumb.*
Now what I’d like to do is to re-read that passage again, and think about God’s own king as we do so.
Because if this is the norm, the inescapable mould for kingship, how does Jesus, King David’s descendent and God’s promised king, match up?
I’m reading from The Message.
*Slides 3-10*
* This is the way the kind of king you're talking about operates.
* He'll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons.
* He'll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury.
* He'll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks.
* He'll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends.
* He'll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy.
* Your prize workers and best animals he'll take for his own use.
* He'll lay a tax on your flocks and you'll end up no better than slaves.
Jesus subverts every notion of power and kingship.
He is the king who brings peace.
He is the ruler who chooses service.
He is the warrior who conquers by surrender.
* *
* *
* *
* *
*Slide 11*
We see this in the prophets.
The prophecies about Jesus foretell that he will be a king of peace.
Here’s one from Zechariah.
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots and the war-horses, and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
*Slide 12*
Or consider the words of this hymn of the early church.
Jesus, Who, being in very nature God, \\ did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!
God is not limited by the norms of our society.
He is not restricted to our cyclical patterns of history.*
He is able to imagine a daring alternate possibility that every king in history has been unable to grasp*.
God – the designer and creator of the universe, has not done with his creativity.
He is still at work today, imagining how things might be different.
*And he dares us to join with him in this task of re-imagining what the world might be like.*
Compare this with Israel at the beginning of the chapter.
They are facing a very real problem.
Samuel, just like Eli before him, has not managed to bring his sons up to be like him.
Not only that, but despite knowing their defects, Samuel has appointed them as judges over Israel.
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*Slide 13*
In verse 3 we read that they accepted bribes and backhanders, and perverted the course of justice.
Cases were no longer tried on the basis of fairness, of impartiality towards rich and poor, on the basis of justice and honesty.
Cases were now decided according to who could offer the largest kickback.
And, not unreasonably, the people of Israel want something done about it.
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