2008.07.27 What is Transformation: From Envy to Compassion

Scripture: 1 Samuel 18 & 20 (selected verses)

Last Sunday, we began our sermon series on transformation. In 1 Samuel 16: 7, God teaches us that, while we may look at the outward appearance of a person, God looks at the heart. We know that the spiritual disciplines—prayer, study, service, etc—can help us develop our hearts, but we don’t always remember why we are developing them. So this sermon series is meant to remind us about the big picture—why it is that we strive, with God’s help, to live a life of faithfulness. Why it is that we encourage one another to engage in the spiritual disciplines. Why it is that we share, listen and pray in our family groups and even have Sunday lunch fellowship.

We do these things to help us transform—from the old to the new. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, it is written: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, you are a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! As men and women who claim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are new creations, made clean by the sacrifice on the cross. And in living as these new creations, we continue to be transformed every day. Last week, we looked at how a transformed life moves from fear to faith. This week, we are looking at how a transformed life grows from envy to compassion.

After David’s defeat of the Philistine Goliath, David became a very popular person in Israel.

6 When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. 7 As they danced, they sang: "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands."
1 Samuel 18: 6-7

This song would have been great to hear.. if you were David. But the song was sung as King Saul—the king—was returning. As a result,

8 Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. "They have credited David with tens of thousands," he thought, "but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?" 9 And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.
1 Samuel 18: 8-9

Saul is envious of David, and because he has the power to do so—he is the king—Saul, from that day forward, keeps a close eye on David. It brings to mind the popular quote from The Godfather: “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. “

Yet what has David done up to this point to make himself an enemy to Saul? David has killed Goliath, the Philistine champion—the champion that none of the Israelite soldiers wanted to fight (Saul included) because they were afraid. David has done Saul a service—if David had not shown up and volunteered to fight, the Israelites might still be on the battlefield, extending the 40-day stalemate over who would fight Goliath.

Yet what Saul sees is that David has won the hearts and the respect of the people of Israel—the very same people for whom Saul is the king. Saul may have the title, but David is winning the popular vote hands-down.

And it turns out that David’s defeat of Goliath is only the beginning. In chapter 18, verse 30, we are told:

30 The Philistine commanders continued to go out to battle, and as often as they did, David met with more success than the rest of Saul's officers, and his name became well known.
1 Samuel 18:30

Some of you may know that my life has been a very stable one. All of my schools, from Kindergarten through college, are located within a 6-mile radius of one another. I attended the same church for 21 years before moving out to California. As a result, until I was an adult, I never experienced what it is like to move to a completely new community.

When I was in my late teens or early 20’s, my church called a new senior pastor. That pastor had a daughter—I’ll call her Claire—who was a year behind me in school. A long time after that pastor and his family came—I think it was like a year—a different pastor on our staff asked me to meet with him and Claire for a private discussion. I had no idea what the meeting was about, but I came.

It turned out that Claire had some serious issues with me. She was angry and deeply hurt. I was totally surprised by this revelation. I had no idea. What was explained to me was that it was my role, more than any other person in our church, to have reached out to Claire, to have befriended her, when she moved to Atlanta and to our church. This was not only b/c I was a long-time committed member at the church, not only b/c I was older and therefore should have taken the responsibility but especially b/c my dad is a pastor—and therefore, the logic went, because I was a fellow PK, that I should know more than anyone else how hard it is for a new PK to come and fit in.

The thing is, I didn’t know how hard it was b/c I’d never experienced that before. And in my interactions Claire, I was never mean to her; I just didn’t pay much attention to her. She was not really on my radar screen. She a grade behind me and went to a different school. I had no idea that her envy of me existed, and I was stunned at the extent to which it had developed.

This is envy—it is one-sided and it has everything to do with the person who is doing the envying and very little—if anything—to do with the person or object of that envy. In our scripture today, Saul begins to self-destruct. He allows his envy of David to consume him and overtake him. This leads to Saul attempting to kill David by his own hands—he throws a spear at David while David is playing music for Saul in the palace. He sends his men to capture David and kill him. And David’s response to this is, What did I do?

1 Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to [King Saul’s son] Jonathan and asked, "What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?"
1 Samuel 20:1

Have you every found yourself experiencing envy? In other words, feeling pain or anger when you see someone who has something that you don’t. You can feel dissatisfied or discontent about not having something, but envy goes further and takes that lack of contentment and blames it on a particular person who does have that something.

It could be material—a house or lots of “toys”—flat screen TV, Wii, iPhone, whatever the newest pricey gadget may be. Or our envy could be relational—a marriage, children, a good relationship with the in-laws. Envy can be based entirely on perception and not reality—a person in a perfect marriage, a co-worker that seems get all of the breaks.

One dictionary parses out the meaning of envy this way: Envy denotes a longing to possess something awarded to or achieved by another: to feel envy when a friend inherits a fortune.

The ways in which envy plays itself out is varied. In the news we can find accounts of people doing what Saul did: attacking the object of their envy—like the figure skater Tonya Harding who was involved with the attack on her competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, at the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating championships. But in normal life, envy plays out in more subtle ways. Gossip would probably be the most frequent—when we fixate on a person’s weaknesses or speculate aloud about a person’s faults or even simply repeat negative things others have told us. We can also express envy through unfair treatment that we justify in our own minds or the basic cop-out of “I just don’t get along with him/her.”

Envy is a longing to have something that another has received or achieved. King Saul envies David for defeating Israel’s enemies in battle and winning the hearts of the people of Israel. That is something that the king should do, and Saul knows it.

The complete contrast to Saul’s envy is found in his own son, Jonathan. Following David’s defeat of Goliath, we learn that

1b Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself... 3 And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 4 Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.
1 Samuel 18:1b, 3-4

Jonathan is the king’s son. He is the heir apparent—the one who is next in line for the throne. Even if his father Saul was not the one receiving the accolades of the people and winning the victories on the field—if anyone, if it was to be anyone other than King Saul, it should have been King Saul’s son, Jonathan. But Jonathan, rather than being envious of David, is his friend. And it is not a superficial acquaintance or a relationship of convenience. Jonathan and David are genuinely friends. They became one in spirit and made a covenant together. We are not told the content of that covenant, but we see that Jonathan gives David his robe, tunic, sword, bow and belt. These are generous gifts to be sure, but they hold more weight than that. The robe in particular, symbolizes the kingdom. Jonathan’s action is not material generosity; it is an acknowledgement that David is the one who will next be king.

These verses also mention twice that Jonathan loved David as himself. That love was not only the personal and emotional commitment of friendship, but recent studies have emphasized that the Hebrew word for love that is used here also carries the social and political weight of loyalty. Jonathan and David’s covenant, therefore, is very likely to be a formal recognition of their loyalty to one another, including David’s eventual ascent to the throne.

How remarkably different the situation was between Saul and Jonathan toward David. One chose envy that became murderous. The other chose compassion. But question is, why? Why did Jonathan hold such a different view of David, especially when, at least externally, it looks like Jonathan had all the same reasons as Saul to envy David?

We can find an answer by continuing in Chapter 20. As the friendship between David and Jonathan continued, Jonathan also remained loyal to his father. Despite what David said, Jonathan could not believe that Saul would really want to kill his best friend. A plan, therefore, was made to determine if David’s life was truly in danger from Saul. As they discussed the details of their plan, Jonathan said the following to David:

12 Then Jonathan said to David: "By the LORD, the God of Israel, I will surely sound out my father by this time the day after tomorrow! If he is favorably disposed toward you, will I not send you word and let you know? 13 But if my father is inclined to harm you, may the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I do not let you know and send you away safely. May the LORD be with you as he has been with my father. 14 But show me unfailing kindness like that of the LORD as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, 15 and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family--not even when the LORD has cut off every one of David's enemies from the face of the earth."
1 Samuel 20: 12-15

In these three verses, we gain an understanding of why Jonathan could exercise compassion rather than envy. Jonathan saw the truth: it was God, not him, not his father Saul, who should determine the next king of Israel. Jonathan saw God as the one who was determined the affairs of the throne.

• In verses 12 & 13, Jonathan promises to fulfill the plan and he holds himself accountable, not to David his best friend, but to God.
• In last part of verse 13 as well as in verse 15, Jonathan acknowledges that it is God who made his father the king, and God will also be the one who makes David the next king, the one who will cut off all of David’s enemies.
• Lastly, in verse 14, Jonathan asks David for unfailing kindness, or in Hebrew, HESED. He asks for hesed “like that of the Lord.” Hesed is unfailing kindness, it is commitment/loyalty that comes from a deep, abiding love. Jonathan, who is acknowledging that God has chosen, not the king’s son, but David to take the throne, that this God is HESED. Unfailing kindness. Unfailing love.
  

This is a speech that Saul would have never been able to utter—at least, not honestly. Here we see Jonathan holding himself accountable to God, acknowledging that God is the one who is in control of these events and that God is HESED, unfailing love..

With that kind of understanding, with that kind of worldview, Jonathan was able to be best friends with a man who going to “take” everything that that the world said Jonathan had coming to him. And lest our suspicious minds think that Jonathan was simply being pragmatic, let me also note that Jonathan also stayed loyal to his father, to the very end. Jonathan never raised a hand against David, and he helped him escape Saul’s wrath. However, Jonathan also did not desert his father, and in the end died by his side in a battle against the Philistines.

If Jonathan was helping David simply b/c he thought that the “writing was on the wall” and that it was inevitable that David would become king.. then Jonathan would simply have been an opportunist. And in that case, he should have ditched the old man and signed up with the new administration.

But Jonathan was helping David b/c they were friends. Good friends. Friends who understood and demonstrated HESED toward one another. Unfailing love. Jonathan was able to do this—he was able to turn aside envy—because he understood, he believed, he acknowledged that God was in control.

Is God in control or am I? King Saul was the king by title, but what he did not have was the admiration and respect of the people. He did not have the continued successes on the battlefield. Those were given to David, and Saul was envious. He wanted those things and was willing to kill David to get them.

Jonathan, was, by title, the next in line for the throne. He also saw that David had the things that any good king—or king-to-be should have. Yet Jonathan lived his life knowing and believing that it was God who was in control. As result, his heart did not ask—how can I get what that person has taken? How can I keep what I am due? Instead, his heart was one of compassion, a heart that could both give and receive HESED, unfailing love, friendship, loyalty, generosity.

When God is in control, our words and our actions become generous, they become kind. For there is nothing that someone else can achieve or receive that we can’t be happy for them; that we can’t celebrate with them. This is not simply a question of perception management or the power of positive thinking. It is believing so sincerely that belief translates into action.

Jesus Christ, on the night of his arrest, prayed in the Garden that God may take away the cup of suffering from him. If envy had taken hold, Jesus would have dwelt on how good the other disciples had it—taking a nap while he was pleading for his life, running away when the going got rough. But it was not envy that grew in Jesus’ heart. It was compassion. It was compassion, love, HESED—unfailing love—that came from knowing, believing, living the truth that God was in control. Jesus Christ died on the cross b/c God’s HESED—that steadfast, unfailing love—is real.

As we seek to live transformed lives, we would do well in asking ourselves whether or not we truly, deeply believe that God’s unfailing love is real. Do we believe in our guts that God is in control, that God’s love is for our good? If so (or perhaps when this is so) we will find ourselves moving away from envy toward growing hearts of compassion.