Steve Lindsley
1 Samuel 24: 1-13, 16-22
Her name is Celie, and she is the main character and narrator in the movie The Color Purple, based on the Pulitzer-prize winning book by Alice Walker. It is a harsh look at life for African American women in the early 20th century. Set in rural Georgia in the 1930’s, Celie’s early years are marked by abuse at the hands of two men in her life – her stepfather, with whom she has two children who are taken from her; and the man she was given to in marriage at fourteen years of age.
Known only as “Mister,” this man treats Celie as something between a maid and a household pet – endless and ruthless days of cleaning his house, shaving his face, and caring for his three children who are not much younger than she. Other women come in and out of his life, and Celie is shoved aside every time. Mister seems to take a warped sense of glee in telling her how “ugly” she is, and he drives out of her life the only person she ever loved, her sister, Nettie.
It is a joyless existence. And yet through it all, Celie somehow manages to never raise her voice, never lash out in anger, never seize on multiple opportunities she had to take his life in order to save her own. For better or for worse, Celie is always there for Mister and his kids, even as they are never there for her. Even as evil is returned to her over and over and over again.
When I was a kid, my pastor finished every worship service with the same benediction. The exact same words. In 29 years, I never heard another benediction from him; and I remember often thinking to myself how boring that was, wondering why he couldn’t mix it up every now and then.
But as time went on, I got used to it. More than that, actually – I anticipated it; I looked forward to it. It was one of the few constants in worship – hymns change, sermon is different, liturgy switches up. Just as life itself changes – good days, bad days, different days. But through all of that ran this one benediction that remained unchanged. I got to the point where I’d mouth the words as he said them, which meant it wasn’t just my ears hearing them. My whole body experienced it.
Years later, when I was ordained at that church, a family gave me a framed copy of the benediction as a gift – and it hangs in my office to this day. And every now and then you’ll hear me say it:
Go out into the world in peace,
Have courage
Hold on to that which is good.
Return no one evil for evil,
Strengthen the fainthearted, support the weak,
Help the suffering, honor all people,
Love and serve the Lord,
Rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit
I remember one time asking my 3rd-grade Sunday school teacher what this whole “return no one evil for evil” thing was about. I was a little confused about how someone could be “returned,” but if there was a way, I wanted to inquire with the powers-that-be about my little brother.
Instead, my Sunday school teacher opened her Bible and began reading a story that sounded a little like Celie’s. It also involved two men of power; two men with very different ideas about that power. There was Saul, the one no one liked, the simple farmer who stumbled into being Israel’s first king and had been stumbling ever since. And there was David, the golden boy who could do no wrong, the king-to-be whose defeat of Goliath as a young lad set the stage for greatness.
Saul had been hunting David down to take his life, we were told, because he felt threatened by him, intimidated by his charm and growing popularity. Which forced David into a life on the run, hiding in foreign lands as his nemesis relentlessly pursued him. Except in one instance, when the tables were turned, and Saul became the vulnerable one.
He had unknowingly placed himself within David’s reach, sleeping, with no royal guards around. David’s sword was drawn and ready. His companions urged David to seize the moment and take the king’s life, putting an end to his adversary and laying claim to the throne he’d already been anointed for. Your enemy is before you for the taking, they whispered in his ear. Surely this is what God wants!
But David would have none of it. Instead, he simply cut off a piece of Saul’s royal cloak while he was sleeping. And later, when David was at a safe distance, the young man called out to the king and held the torn fabric in his hands. I could have killed you, he said, but I didn’t. You have nothing to fear from me. Let’s end this madness!
Now Saul was humbled and ashamed – for a while. Soon enough, though, he was back at it, trying to hunt David down. That’s because when the fear of losing something important gets a hold on you, when it sinks its claws deep into your soul, it is not easily given up. It is not something that can simply “end” on its own. And so, Saul’s pursuit of David would continue, even as David himself chose to “return no one evil for evil,” as my Sunday school teacher explained.
Now things ended up working out pretty well for David, all things considered. But we would be remiss, I think, if we did not reflect on David’s choice here. Is it really wise, in a situation like that, to “turn the other cheek,” as Jesus would later say? Are there instances where fighting back is justified?
I wonder. I guess it depends on how you look at it – how you view the story of David and Saul, how you understand Celie and others like her. How you look at the notion of justice and “making wrongs right,” and whether the end always justifies the means. Especially when things seem so volatile these days.
All of which, I imagine, was swirling around in David’s head at that seminal moment, making him dizzy: sword in hand, his enemy mere feet away, fast asleep, totally for the taking. All his friends, whispering in his ear, practically begging him to do it. And instead he uses that sword for fabric alteration!
I wonder. I wonder what it was exactly that led David to de-escalate; to choose to do the exact opposite of what everyone else expected and wanted. I wonder if, at some level, David had thoughts similar to noted theologian Henri Nouwen when he said this:
What makes the temptation of power so irresistible?
\Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the harder task of love.
It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.[1]
Could that really be it? Could the difference really come down to something as simple (and complicated) as love? It makes you wonder. If David had acted on his impulses, done what everyone was telling him to do, he would’ve gotten his life back. He would’ve become the new king. He would’ve been free!
Except he really wouldn’t have been free, would he? Because David would’ve been imprisoned by the vicious cycle of violence and revenge and paranoia that had long before consumed Saul. And when the tables would later be turned on him, when David would be the one trying to hold onto his power, he would’ve been the one in pursuit. Which is why it is so important, at that pivotal moment, that David chooses love.
And love changes the game, doesn’t it? Love makes for an entirely different kind of power. It’s about recognizing that there’s something beyond our experience in this world; something far greater than the structures and systems we’ve set up to make things work for us. Love grounded not in human will and self-reliance but in our heartfelt beliefs and convictions and the very manifestation of God’s presence in the world.
That is power of a whole different level. And it is a power rarely celebrated in our day and time, because it’s not flashy or brilliant. Instead, this power is found in the simple things: the loving daughter who wipes food from her ailing mother’s mouth at the rest home, the average Joe who lays another cinder block on a Habitat for Humanity house, the teacher who daily negotiates the tumultuous waters of her first-grade class. That kind of power is not found at the top of the news cycle; it rarely pops up on your social media feed. But it is the kind of power through which God does God’s greatest work.
And so maybe the story here for you and me is the story of recognizing those pivotal moments when they come, seeing clearly the intersection of the temptation to return evil and the calling to love. It can happen in the big and the small; the life-changing and the mundane. Those moments when you and I are called like David, despite the whisperings in our ear, to echo those powerful words: Let’s end this madness.
What might it look like, people of God, to start saying that?
This fall our church is launching a social media campaign, using the hashtag #LoveAllWays. That’s “all” with two “L’s” – Love all ways. Love anyone and everyone, yes, but also, love in every kind of way that shines a light on the life that God calls us to lead as followers of Jesus Christ.
This #LoveAllWays hashtag will accompany some images and text that are intended to speak not only within our church family but outside it as well – to people in our neighborhoods and community, people who might zip by this church on Providence Road and barely notice it, people who are searching for something more in their lives and aren’t sure if the church is that place for them. People who are craving belonging and meaning in their lives. People who have a sense, as my colleague Rev. Becca Messman says, “that faith, church, the story of Jesus and the life of the Spirit is more than how it’s described in the news.”
You may have seen the first of these social media posts this past week, and you’ll see around eight more in your Facebook or Instagram feed between now and Thanksgiving. Our hope, with all that is going on in our country and our world, is that this campaign will highlight how our church is not just be a “safe place” for people looking for meaning in their lives, but a beacon shining light into the darkness and showing the whole world the kind of people, we want to be together. Because that kind of love, friends, is contagious.
It was for Celie. Near the end of the movie, as she finally decides to leave Mister for good. You’ll be back! he screams at her, as she climbs in the car that will drive her away. You’ll be back! as he senses his power over her dissipating like a morning mist. And in perhaps one of the more powerful scenes of the story, as he lunges to strike her one last time, Celie raises her hand, three digits extended, as if to cast a spell on him. The power is hers now. And in a voice that embodies, for the first time, something like pity, Celie says to Mister, everything you’ve ever done to me, you’ve already done to yourself.
Years later, Celie returns to that rural Georgia town to take over her father’s business. And as the movie soundtrack plays in the background the gospel tune, “God’s trying to tell you something,” we watch as Mister removes his savings from its hiding place and uses it to pay the immigration fees; so, Celie can be reunited with her beloved sister Nettie, who fled to Africa decades before.
How about that? The transformative power of returning no one evil for evil. Of #LoveAllWays. It not only leads to the redemption of the one. It redeems the other, too.
And for that, in the name of Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, thanks be to God – and may all of God’s people say, AMEN!
* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
[1] Henri Nouwen in Mornings with Henri J.M. Nouwen, quoted in Christianity Today, February 8, 1999, 72.