Without Guile

AM Psalm 5, 6 • PM Psalm 10, 11
1 Samuel 15:24-35 • Acts 9:32-43 • Luke 23:56b-24:11

For me, the theme of today’s readings is a warning against a calculating nature, something that none of us can completely avoid. Jesus’ analogy in Matthew 18, not part of today’s readings, is perhaps the most direct warning against developing a sense of cunning and cleverness: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Aren’t we often drawn to guileless people, those who have an innocent, humble nature? Those who don’t let their egos block out the truth? Don’t we especially admire famous people who don’t act like they’re famous?

In today’s reading from 1 Samuel, King Saul has succumbed to guile, and on the threshold of losing his kingdom to David, admits to the prophet Samuel, “I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.” He was beholden to his own political status and plotted to keep it, yet he lost it.

And Peter. Don’t we love his sometimes reckless but innocent enthusiasm and willingness to serve Jesus? He just guilelessly plunges in, sometimes to his own chagrin, yet Jesus builds his church on Peter. Our reading today from Acts opens with this telltale verse: “Now as Peter went here and there among all the believers….” We read on to find this sometimes bumbling disciple healing the paralytic Aeneas and raising Tabitha from the dead.

Our reading from Luke is the resurrection story and Peter’s nature is again on display. After Mary, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the other women discover that the tomb is empty, they rush back to the disciples with the news. To ten of them, these words appear “an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” But Peter, of course, “got up and ran to the tomb” like an exuberant child. Such is the nature of the greatest disciple.

May we not be so cynical and calculating that we miss the wonders of the kingdom that is before us.

Written by Grimsley Graham

...whose eyes are continually being opened.