The readings are here.

I am fascinated by systems; human systems to be specific. Businesses, families, churches of course, cults… I never miss a documentary or a podcast about a cult. It’s endlessly interesting to me to observe how people move within their social systems. Without going into my own political opinions, I can say that I’m watching with interest as people on both sides of our political divide are working hard either to defend their choices, or to reconsider them.

It’s a hard thing to try to change people’s minds, especially people who are deeply entrenched in their social system, and the apostles in our first reading today are trying to do just that. They’re telling Jewish people and “God-fearing gentiles” the history of how God has moved in the story of their religious system. Their point is that God has been writing the story since before the beginning of time, and is still writing that story, including by sending Jesus to be their Messiah. To some mixed results.

But there’s this one line in the New Testament reading today that really caught my eye; “Then they asked for a king.”

They asked for a king! In the middle of their history, after God had led Israel to the Land that had been promised them, and “put up with them” for four years, had provided Judges to govern them through the generations, then… they asked for a king.

And, I don’t know exactly why the members of this system, this religious and social system, would ask their God to give them a king. Possibly they were being threatened by some other powers and thought that a king would be able to defend them militarily better than the spiritual leaders that God had provided them. It’s possible that they viewed a king as a more decisive leader, someone who could set things straight and rule, rather than guide. Maybe they were seeing the other social systems around them being led by kings, and were starting to believe that they should be led by a king, too.

And God, on God’s part, gave them what they asked for. “The people demanded a king and God allowed them to have the type of king they thought they wanted.”1

How did this work out? Again- mixed results. Saul, the king that they demanded and got, was in the long run fearful, jealous, and disrespectful of God, and landed the people of Israel in defeat. Their religious system survived, but went through times of darkness and struggle that shouldn’t have been necessary, and may not have happened if they had relied on God’s plan for their future.

This, my friends, is what human kings are like2 — this is what we get when we ask for a king. While we may hope for a powerful leader for our system, human kings in power can’t help but bring their human failings along for the ride. That fear, jealousy and disrespect of any power besides their own— those are the hallmarks of human kingship, still to this day.

Fast-forwarding to Jesus’ time, in our Gospel reading we see the King that God intended for the people of Israel and for us, we God-fearing gentiles. This is a king who acts like a guide and a model and a healer. This is a king who leads with service. This is a king who gets down on the dirty floor to wash the feet of his followers. This is a king who would lay down his life for his people.

This is the kind of king we have in Jesus. This king whose law we will hear proclaimed this Sunday; “love one another! As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”

This may not be the kind of king that Israel thought they wanted, and he may not be the kind of king we may secretly be wishing for now, one who will swoop in and fix everything, who will intervene to put everything right for us. But this is the king that God has always intended for us, the king we need. And our job as subjects of this king who is a servant… is to serve. This is how the world will know to which king we give our fealty- as we’ll hear in this Sunday’s Gospel, “they will know that we are His disciples, if we have love for one another.”