Saul hated David. He rightly perceived the upstart from Bethlehem, a member of the tribe of Judah (Saul was a Benjaminite), as a rival for Israel's kingship. Indeed, after Saul's disobedience, the prophet Samuel had anointed David as Israel's new (and second) king. But, then, according to the history contained in the books of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings (1-2 Chronicles constitutes a parallel and overlapping history by a different source), the fact that Israel had to have a king at all constituted a failure (a view with which I am inclined to agree).
Just as Samuel anointed Saul, he also anointed David, the youngest, smallest, and least impressive of Jesse's sons. The reason Saul viewed David as a rival is because he was a rival. Samuel hunted David, seeking to kill him and thus eliminate the threat to his own power.
And so it happened, as today's first reading sets it forth, David had a golden opportunity to easily kill Saul, along with his henchmen, thus seizing for himself the title King of Israel. Indeed, Abishai was eager to run his spear through Saul as he slept peacefully. Saul would never know what happened. At least in terms of warfare, it was kind of a merciful death, one administered suddenly and relatively painlessly.
In fact, Abishai sees the situation he and David find themselves in as the work of God, perhaps something just a bit short of a full-on miracle. But David, exercising deeper discernment, while also seeing their circumstance as divinely arranged, merely takes Saul's spear and his, what we would call today, personal water bottle, and quietly leaves the encampment without waking anybody up. Saul would know someone had entered his camp by the absence of his spear and water jug. He would no doubt be puzzled as to why he nor any of his cohort were killed.
I suppose one could see in David's actions in this episode the truth of the well-known saying: "Fear of death is worse than death itself." Hence, what David did would be akin to something like a psychological warfare tactic. This is easy to imagine when one considers that David, especially when young and on the run from Saul, was as wiley a character as you'll ever encounter in ancient literature. So, such a tactic cannot be ruled out.
As we know, David had his faults that led to some grievous sins. But in this instance, David had the chance to kill his mortal enemy and, in human terms, would've been justified in so doing. In this and other ways, David is seen as a foreshadowing of Christ, to some extent. David's refusal to kill his enemy, whom he never hated, but who he was hated by, is why this reading is paired with our Gospel from the sixth chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel.
In our Gospel, Jesus teaches what it means to become what Saint Paul calls, in our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, calls πνευματικόν (transliterated: pneumatikon). Theologically, the pneumatikon is the person through whom God's Spirit is made present.
To miss the point of today's Gospel is to miss the Gospel. To avoid, reduce to your own measure, or seek to evade Jesus' teaching in this passage is to build your house on sand.
You can "Yes, but..." 'til kingdom come. you can foolishly believe that Jesus only comforts, reinforces your preconceptions, pats you on the head. But, as Pope Francis insists, one of the biggest spiritual mistakes you can make is to be closed to the many ways God surprises us. Here's a secret: not all the surprises are pleasant ones, particularly those that make it painfully obvious that I need to repent. To repent means not only to be sorry for my sins but to commit to change, commit to following Jesus by adhering to his teachings, particularly the hardest ones.
With Jesus, it is never simply "Do this." Why you do what you do matters. How you do what you do matters. For a Christian, there is no acceptable motive but love. As my pastor noted, loving your neighbor is different from being in love with her/him.
To love another, then, is to will the good of him/her. To speak and act in such a way as to facilitate that person's good. This does not necessarily or always require a huge amount of affectivity. It does require discernment and genuine goodwill toward the other; in Greek agape. In this case, toward the person who has wronged me in some way.
We must not ignore the non-violence inherent in Jesus' teaching. We must also recognize that non-violence is not passivity. We must not ignore the Lord's constant teaching about not being too attached to things, which, while not able to satisfy us, our attachemnt to things can surely destroy us.
We also do well to familiarize ourselves with Aquinas' teaching on disordered attachments. We hint at this in the Act of Contrition: "in choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you, whom I should love above all things." What is sin if not loving "things" more than you love God or your neighbor?
Yes, you can judge others. But, according to Jesus, that's the judgment with which you will be judged. Simple as that, no buts. If you return evil for evil, love only those who love you, do good only to those who do good to you, pray for those who pray for you, then you are not a follower of Jesus. Simple as that, no buts.
Jesus never just taught, meaning he never only used words to convey the mode of existence we call faith. He lived what he taught. Where did this lead him? To the cross! For Christians, the cross is a triumph, not defeat. It is only through the cross that there is resurrection.
"Be merciful," Jesus teaches his disciples, "just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36). Because, as we sang in today's Responsorial, "The Lord is kind and merciful," so should we be. The word translated as "kind" from Psalm 103 is the Hebrew hesed.
Hesed, which is a polyvalent word if ever there was one, is, according to the scriptures, God's defining characteristic. A compelling definition of hesed is meriting nothing and yet receiving "infinitely more than I deserve" (Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Lovingkindness, 69).
There is so much unsavory Christianity, which is so much tasteless salt. Jesus in today's Gospel seeks to provoke us, not reassure us. You either accept the provocation (pro =for + vocation =your calling) or you don't. Today we are confronted with a passage containing what is probably the Lord's most difficult teachings. But it also constitutes the heart of the Gospel, the basics of what it means to be a Christian. As the prayer for Morning and Evening Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours has it:
Father, keep before us the wisdom and loveEarly on his first letter to the Christians of ancient Corinth, Paul encourages them and, by extension, us, with these words from Isaiah:
you have revealed in your Son.
Help us to be like him in word and deed...
What eye has not seen,This, my dear friends, is our hope.
and ear has not heard,
and what has not entered the human heart,
what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9)
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