Sharing in God’s Life

1 Samuel 25:14-19, 23-25, 32-34, 42-43

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational Church

1 September 2024

               As I said, Wilda Gafney hopscotches through this story, only highlighting some of the details.  So, let me fill in the blanks a little.

            At this point in the larger story of David’s rise to power, he has fled from the court of King Saul after Saul threatened his life, because David had become too popular and powerful.  David then operates as the leader of a band of warriors, living in the wilderness, and occasionally hiring out to one town or another for protection or to fight on their behalf. 

            When the Bible first introduces us to Nabal, we are told that he is surly and mean and that Abigail his wife is beautiful and clever.  One feast day David sends some of his men to Nabal seeking hospitality, but they are insulted and turned away.  In ancient cultures not granting hospitality was an ethical violation.  Eugene Peterson, in his commentary, points out that sheepshearing time was traditionally a period of festivity and generosity. 

            David finds out about the insult and, enraged, decides to attack Nabal. 

            But Abigail hears from one of the servant boys what has happened and she takes action.  She doesn’t tell Nabal what she’s going to do. She takes gifts to David and falls down in front of him, imploring him to save her husband and household.  In her speech she declares that God’s favor is upon David and he is going to rise to power.  And that if he destroys Nabal, he will damage his own reputation and bring blood-guilt upon himself.

            David, apparently struck by the beauty and power of this woman, grants her wish and sets aside his rage.

            Abigail returns home to find Nabal drunk at his feast.  She waits until the next day, when he’s probably suffering from quite the hangover, to tell him what she’s done.  Which, of course, is an insult to his honor.  Nabal appears to immediately have a stroke and lingers a few days before he dies.  And then Abigail seeks after David, who makes her his wife.

            Of this story, the Bible scholar David Jobling writes, “The more I read it the more I dislike it.”  He finds it a distasteful story in which nobody behaves well.  Even Abigail he dislikes.

Wilda Gafney says that David is a “thug” and Nabal a mean-spirited man and “abusive husband.”  Unlike Jobling, she takes a different perspective on Abigail.  She thinks Abigail is a survivor who has learned how to deal with and survive these toxic men.  Doing the best she can in this scary situation to save the day, spare the community violence, and create a future for herself.

            We’ve talked a lot this summer already as we’ve read these stories about toxic masculinity and the clever ways the women of these stories try to survive and thrive and shape the world.  So we want explore those topics today.  Instead, I want to follow what Wilda Gafney thinks is a core theme of the story—generosity and hospitality.  She writes, “While some biblical passages equate wealth with blessing uncritically, these lessons look more deeply at what one does with one’s wealth as a measure of character.”

            Of course this is Labor Day weekend, a good time to reflect upon such issues.

            In her book Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism the Yale Divinity School theologian Kathryn Tanner writes that our current finance-dominated capitalism “is incompatible with fundamental Christian commitments.”  She adds, “there is surprisingly little reason to think Christianity has direct interest in developing a work ethic at all.”

            Christianity teaches us to trust in the grace of God.  And, as Tanner writes, “the fulsome character of grace” means that “one has all one needs now to meet the present challenge.”  Which works against the scarcity mindset, competition, and conspicuous consumption prevalent in our current economic system.

            The world’s value is also not created through human labor.  The things of this world have intrinsic, non-purposive value as part of God’s creative activity.  God created the things of this world to be reflections of God’s glory.  Kathryn Tanner writes, “God simply wants to share God’s life, so that the fullness of that life is reflected” in us and the world.

            Value then is not established by the market, the invisible hand, or even human labor.  Our focus on use and consumption of earthy goods has robbed us of the spiritual practice of attending carefully to what God has given us.  Attention teaches us to appreciate and honor the ways the things of the world share in the glory of God.

            Rather than use and consumption, we are instead invited by God to enjoy God’s gifts.  And to participate with God as co-creators.  The abundance of the earth is for sharing, so that all might flourish.

            That such deeply traditional Christian ideas sound so radical in contrast with current global economics, is because our imaginations have been malformed.  We struggle to imagine how we might live any other way than what we are used to, except with maybe small improvements.  The biblical scholar Ellen Davis calls this malformation of the imagination “idolatry.”  We worship idols and aren’t even aware we are doing it.

            Our enjoyment of God’s gifts does involve work.  The meaning and purpose of our labor is different though from what the market teaches.  We are connected to God through our creativity and making.  This is part of the divine image in us.  Our labor should share in God’s glory.

The artist Makoto Fujimura has reflected deeply and theologically upon human creativity and making and they ways they connect us with God.  Fujimura writes that the goals of our making are to mend what is broken in ourselves and in the world and to cultivate beauty and mercy.  In our making, we should be collaborating with one another, with compassion, empathy, and care.  Our labor is glorious when it moves with the Spirit in these ways.

Earlier we read an excerpt from Kevin Hector’s Christianity as a Way of Life in which he writes about the practices we need to engage in if we are to learn how to love as Christ wants us too.  Points relevant to our collaborative labor as God’s people.  Our spiritual practices train us to see beyond ourselves and our own interests, and instead to see the worth and value of others, to attend to their particularity and see them as images of God.  We learn to offer them our beneficence, generosity, and hospitality.  And to set aside vengeance and forgive one another, seeking reconciliation when we are wronged.  When we do these things, by faith and grace over time, they grow our ability to love and transform us.  And our work shares in God’s work.

Hopefully highlighting these Christian ideas sparks your imagination, curiosity, and reflection.  Because these concepts merit deeper and fuller consideration.  If we are to share more fully in the life of God, how will that change the things we do?  Including our work and how we spend and manage our money.

I’m still learning and growing in these areas myself.  It’s difficult to break out of the ways we’ve done things in the past and make all things new.  Difficult to reform the imagination.

The story in First Samuel provides a glimpse of some of the harms that can be done when we don’t live according to the simple maxim that God wants to share God’s life with all of us.  The failure to be hospitable, generous, and welcome, almost leads to violence.  Grace is required to set vengeance aside and do something different.  Thankfully, Abigail imagined another way.

So, let’s do better. 

We can work at cultivating some basic virtues.  To live more simply and sustainably.  To practice generosity and hospitality.  As kids remind us, “sharing is caring.”  To spend and invest with an eye toward justice and doing the most good.

We can also renew our spiritual practices, particularly the spiritual practice of attending to other people and things in their particularity.  To see the ways they share in God’s life and glory.  And how the world is given for our enjoyment, not use.

Finally, our financial decisions and our workplaces should center grace and mercy.  Our labor, our work, our making should create beauty and mend what is broken. 

When we do all of these things, together, then we will share in God’s life and all of us can flourish.