Jonathan – the leader who knew who to follow
I Samuel 17 and 18
Last week foot and mouth disease was discovered in cattle on a farm in Surrey. That same evening the Prime Minister and the Minister from the environment returned to London from their holidays, the COBRA committee met in the middle of the night and by morning effective measures were in place to prevent the spread of the disease. By the time I heard the news at eight in the morning everything had been done to contain the infection.
People feel most secure when they know that their leaders are competent, move quickly, and able to cope with challenges.
A leader is someone who, in a crisis, knows what to do next. You can see how important this is, can’t you? It is important for national governments, but it is equally important for families. Families thrive and feel safe when the parents know what to do when the unexpected happens.
Today we are going to see how Israel’s first king and the heir to his throne dealt with a crisis. Here is the story:
Read I Samuel 17:1-11
This is a familiar scent from the ancient world as anyone who has read the Iliad (or seen the movie version Troy) can tell you. Just as Achilles challenged the Trojans to send out a champion to fight him in single combat, to Goliath strides out in front of the Israelite army and offers to fight their strongest man.
The big men who failed and the boy who succeeded
At this moment the leadership of Israel failed. King Saul, was no coward, he had demonstrated his courage in battle on several occasios but he knew that he would loose this fight. Goliath has said, “If your man is able to kill me we will be your slaves, if I kill him you will be our slaves”. Like a gambler staking all his possessions on one roll of the dice, Goliath was asking the Israelite king to stake the freedom of his people on one fight. The stakes were too high for Saul; he knew he would loose. He wouldn’t fight and he didn’t know what to do next.
Jonathan was heir to Saul’s throne. A beefy young man who knew how to look after himself in a fight, Jonathan was the natural choice to go and face Goliath. Not long before he had routed a Philistine garrison almost single-handed (see I Samuel 14:1-15). If anyone can face-down the Philistine champion it was Jonathan. But Jonathan could not face Goliath either, he knew that he would loose and the stakes were too high. He wouldn’t fight and, like his father, he didn’t know what to do next.
What Israel needed at this point was a single-combat hero of immense courage, a fighter who would never give up, a man of resourcefulness, resolve and total determination. Israel needed the kind of man who, when he was knocked down, always got up again and come back for more. Israel needed… Bruce Willis!
You probably know the rest of the story. They didn’t get Bruce, they got David; a thirteen year old boy who was good with a slingshot and who had the faith as well as the courage to face Goliath. The Philistine was killed, David was victorious and Israel was rescued (read the story in I Samuel 18).
Israel had demanded that God supply them with a king like all the other nations have (this phrase is in I Samuel 8:5). God had acceded to their request and they were impressed with the man he had given them, their approval had something to do with Saul’s size (which the clever writer of I Samuel is careful to point out – he stood head and shoulders above everyone else – I Samuel 10:23). In Saul and his son Jonathan they had their Bruce Willis – two of them actually – they were ready for anything. But when the Philistine army turned up with Goliath Saul and Jonathan looked rather small, they knew they would loose and they didn’t know what to do next.
Relying on the wrong things
Faced with shrinking congregations and declining influence, the Christian churches in the west are anxious to reverse the rot and increase their impact on the world. But how do we do this? One way is to imitate secular organisations in their search for influence, go large with TV programming, celebrities, management techniques and commercial pizzazz. These are not bad things in themselves, and they may even be helpful in advancing the kingdom, but they can become bad things if we rely on them. Worse, if we rely on the worlds methods to promote Christ we will be dismayed when we discover that the world is better at doing this than we are… their TV programmes have a bigger budget, their celebrities are more beautiful, their managers quite ruthless and they have more pizzazz. If we trust in the size of our king or the size of our bank balance, the world will always be able to fund something bigger!
God always knows what to do next; when his people are desperate, and their leaders don’t know what to do a moment usually comes when he steps in and acts. He almost always seems to do this by sending people who are full of faith and of courage and are passionate for God and his reputation; unlikely-looking individuals who have just the right gifts to make the difference; people like David.
Meanwhile, here’s the plan of action:
“… since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.”
II Corinthians 4:1-3
And here’s the secret; learn to enjoy being outnumbered and just wade in with a few stones and the faith to believe that God will give us success! He will give us success [1] .
Love and resentment
Having dispatched Goliath, David returned to face the reactions of those he had rescued from death and slavery, but the response he got was mixed. Saul must have been embarrassed, he was grateful enough at first but he soon became resentful as he heard some of the songs the women of Israel were singing about their new hero “Saul has killed his thousands but David has killed tens of thousands” (I Samuel 18:6-9). It was obvious that David was a very strong candidate for the monarchy after Saul’s death – but Saul wanted Jonathan to be king.
Jonathan may have been embarrassed but he didn’t show it, he became close friends with the one who had faced death for him. In fact, the writer of I Samuel describes Jonathan handing over to David his robe, tunic, sword, bow and belt; all the symbols of his power and wealth. It is as though Jonathan realised that David would be the next king and he welcomed it! (See I Samuel 18:1-5)
Now when you read the story of David in the Old Testament and you are often struck by how deeply flawed he was. A passionate man who loved God deeply he was susceptible to sexual temptation; quickly seduced by the mere sight of the beautiful Bathsheba, he coldly organised her husband’s death so that he could have her. Yet there are some moments in David’s life when you can’t help but think of Jesus and none more so than the weeks that followed the death of Goliath.
Who else faced death on behalf of others and emerged victorious to the acclaim of some and the resentment of others? [2] Who else went on to build his influence and reputation on the basis of people’s love for him rather than reputation? Remind you of anyone? [3]
David had faced death for Saul and his son; Jonathan loved him for it, Saul resented him. People react to Jesus in the same way. Here’s an example from The Guardian [4] , columnist Poly Toynbee takes time to rant against an innocent children’s book written by a Christian:
“Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?... Philip Pullman - he of the marvelously secular trilogy His Dark Materials - has called Narnia "one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read.”
“Did I ask him to?” Once the true horror of the invincible Goliath had become a faint memory I can imagine Saul asking the same question about David. An awful lot of people resent the notion that Jesus paid the life that they owe God – they will never forgive him for such presumption.
Others just love him for it, just as Jonathan loved David and let him have all the symbols of power and royalty that Saul treasured so much. Jonathan was a leader, no doubt about that, but he was quite happy to acknowledge that David was greater and a better king than he would ever be. Imagine Jonathan in the scene described in I Samuel 18:1-4 and you are seeing what Christian conversion looks like – there is a bond of love, a covenant of friendship and a laying down of weapons.
A bond of love - if you want a definition of a Christian is this; a Christian is someone who has fallen in love with Jesus. Yes, there is more to it than this, but there can never be less to it… we love him because he faced death for us.
A covenant of friendship - this love is not a matter of casual friendship – the familiar kind where you drift apart as time passes – it is a covenant friendship, the kind that lasts forever. Every time we celebrate communion we take the wine which Jesus introduced with the words, “This is the new covenant in my blood, do this in remembrance of me”. The heart of our connection with God is a contract sealed with Jesus blood.
Lay down our weapons - we give him the right to rule over our lives and lay down every barrier we ever erected to prevent his entry into our hearts [5] . We love him, we surrender to him and we joyfully embrace his lordship over our lives – that is what real Christian faith looks like.
Saul wanted to retain control, and hated the thought that David may be greater than he. So it is exactly with so many of my friends who will, under no circumstances, relinquish control of their lives, not even to their Creator. But Jonathan was different, a leader who recognised someone greater and was happy to allow himself to be led.
So Jonathan, if you will, is God’s 10th century BC back-of-an-envelope sketch of what a Christian would look like!
[1] If you are the kind of Christian that winces at this use of the word success – look carefully at I Samuel 18 and count the number of times it is used.
[2] Follow this thought through in I Samuel 18:1-16 and see what I mean.
[3] Some of my friends come out in spots when I talk like this – I am not advocating a fancy typology so much as suggesting that some key ideas get previewed in the Old Testament in a way that helpfully illustrates the New Testament. As though God was drawing a sketch on the back of an envelope of something he had in mind for later. Take it or leave it!
[4] Monday 5th December 2005
[5] There are echoes of this idea in II Corinthians 10:4-5