C Cycle – 7^th Sunday in Ordinary Time 25

1 Samuel 25:7-9, 12-13. 22-23

The story of David, the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem has always intrigued me because God called him a “man after His own heart.”  We can learn much from this teen to help us understand how to become a people after God’s own heart. Today’s first reading gives us a clear picture of one aspect of God’s heart and what we must do to overcome the “enemy” which seeks to destroy us. David’s relationship with Saul begins when God removes His Spirit from Saul.  At that moment, God tells the prophet Samuel to go to the house of Jesse of Bethlehem and anoint “a man after His own heart king of Israel (1 Sam.16). 

It is important for us to understand King Saul initially welcomed David after he slew the giant Goliath.  Saul anoints him as his armor bearer and later became the commander of Saul’s army.  David also sat in the palace playing his harp and singing for Saul to alleviate Saul’s tormented heart.  King Saul became jealous of David because of his popularity with the people and his understanding of David’s anointing by God. Saul’s jealousy drives him to repeated attempts to kill David.  Eventually David flees and with hundreds of his followers hide for years in the wilderness.

Saul’s envy has cost David a wife, his home, all contact with his father and brothers and endless days and nights hiding from Saul.  Yet, instead of responding with attacks on Saul, David supports him as king of Israel.  He does not seek revenge but does attempt to find common ground to reconcile and end his life as a fugitive.  Saul on the other hand is relentless in his pursuit. 

David has every reason in the world to retaliate.  To end this relentless attack by attacking Saul but he does not.  Today ‘story is just one of many where David forgoes the temptation to attack Saul.  To fulfil the Old Testament law of an eye for an eye.  Pan for Pain.  Torment for torment. Anyone of us would retaliate and defend ourselves rather than allow them to continue to cause us pain.  Why does David seek to reconcile with Saul instead of attacking him?  The answer is obvious.  It is because he is a man after God’s own heart.  This episode in a long history of attacks on David is a story of forgiveness. David shows us how God responds to our human weaknesses. 

He constantly seeks to find a way to reconcile with us.  Don’t you find it interesting in this story how David takes Saul’s spear and his jug of water.  He disarms him and speaks to him.  Where in the scriptures do we see those actions.  The woman caught in adultery stands naked before Christ and He disarms her by speaking to her and not condemning her.  How about the prodigal son when he returns to his father’s home? He disarms him by clothing him, restoring him and speaking to him.  Don’t we see these same things happening to the woman at the well? 

But this story is more than a story of David, it is a story of God and us.  God has created us and equipped us to become the very image of Jesus Christ.  David is teaching us a lesson about forgiveness despite the pain and hardships others have caused us.  We are to forgive and yet we find ourselves unable to forgive.  At least that is what we tell ourselves.  It is true their actions or inactions have caused us great pain, great hardships and often isolation from others.

How can anyone forgive abuse, unfaithfulness, deceit, character assassination, fraud causing you to lose your life savings or a host of other sins against us?  We want revenge. We want them to pay for their sins and to beg for forgiveness.  We want but we miss the one thing we need to do to heal – forgive.  David never seeks to get even with Saul.  He is showing us what God does for us.  Waits until we forgive those who have caused us to wander in the wilderness hoping for the day we can return.

We can offer them to other cheek, and we can offer them our cloak. We can begin by understanding forgiveness is withheld because we are thinking as humans not as God.  To be people after God’s own heart we must understand believing we cannot forgive is not that we cannot it is that we do not want to.  We want them to suffer, and we want them to acknowledge how much pain they have caused us. We want them to understand we have had relationship issues all our life because of what they did. 

We want but we fail to understand what God wants and that is for us to become what He created us to become – Christ bearers.  We must forgive as Jesus forgave as He hung on the cross. We must remember the lessons in scripture and the words of Jesus telling us “…we must forgive from our hearts, or we will not be forgiven” (Mt.18:35).