Saturday, August 23, 2014
2 Samuel 23:1-7
“For he has made with me an everlasting covenant...”
These words of an aging King David are beautiful. As he nears the end of his life, he is confident that God’s mission through his family will continue because God has “made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.” He paints a wonderful portrait of his dynasty: “One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.”
On the one hand, David’s speech is inspiring because it points to God’s faithfulness, God’s blessings and God’s desire for justice. Yet reading this sort of religiously inspired confidence makes me nervous. David's confidence extends to a description of those outside of God’s favor: “But the godless are all like thorns that are thrown away.” Motivated by his divine assurance, a faith-filled person too easily carves up the world into insiders and outsiders, laying the foundation for violence against those outside your own clan.
In a recent radio interview, Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Ohev Sholom, the National Synagogue in Washington, D.C., spoke about his ministry in the light of ongoing violence in the Middle East. As a faith leader, he feels he has two roles. First, he says, he stands with solidarity with his brothers and sisters in Israel because it is natural to feel closest to our own family.
Second, he feels called as a religious leader “to speak in a voice of universality - to speak about common values that we share together, to against efforts to dehumanize people. And when there's violence, the worst side of people's rhetoric comes out. We have to try and remind our friends and our congregations that now is the time to speak in a voice of God and remember that the fundamental teaching of religion is that we're all created in the image of God.”
According to Rabbi Herzfeld, “speaking in the voice of God” is speaking a “language this is responsible. It’s also a language that’s welcoming and inviting rather than a language of hate.”
This is the challenge for us today as a faith community. How can we share King David’s confidence that God’s love is everlasting and speak that love to the world in a welcoming and inviting way?
To hear the full interview with Rabbi Herzfeld or to read a transcript, follow this link:
- David Shumaker
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