My Enemy, My Brother

Saturday of the 2^nd Week in Ordinary Time

2 Samuel 1:1-4, 11-12, 19, 23-27

In 1918, a woman abandoned her son at Father Flanagan’s Home for Boys in Omaha. Stricken with polio, the boy’s heavy leg braces made climbing stairs very difficult, if not impossible. Seeing this, some of the older boys began taking turns carrying him up the stairs. Stopping one of them afterward, Father asked, “Isn’t he heavy?” The boy replied, “He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother.” This became the motto for the home, which is open to this day, and where that attitude is still fostered and put into practice.

If David carried anything having to do with Saul, it probably would’ve been resentment. Although the two started out well enough, Saul even having his daughter marry David, eventually jealousy, fear, and self-centeredness drove the king to hurt David, even to the point of trying to kill him. Given that, it probably wouldn’t surprise us if David was relieved, or even glad, that Saul died in battle. Yet, as we heard today, he mourns the loss; he even writes a lament for Saul, calling him ‘beloved,’ just like he does his own best friend and Saul’s son, Jonathan, who also died in the same battle.

Some say that David’s remorse was all for show; crocodile tears, as my mother would have said. I understand that. David is a complex character, had a political streak, and probably acted with mixed motives many times. I may be naïve, but I don’t think this is one of them. At least twice, David had the opportunity to kill Saul and rightfully claim self-defense (1 Samuel 24, 26). Yet, he didn’t. Why not? Because Saul was the Lord’s anointed; he was king. David had humility enough to know his place as servant, Saul’s place as king, and, most importantly, God’s place as supreme judge (1 Samuel 24:16).

In the coming years, David will learn even more about humility. Over the next several weekdays, we will see the him at his most noteworthy and his most notorious. It is perhaps the irony of David’s life that he will repeat so many of the errors of Saul’s ways; like him, David will suffer the effects of jealousy, fear, and self-centeredness; he will allow himself to seek (and obtain!) the death of another man; and he will ultimately be driven to his knees begging for mercy. Yet, unlike Saul, David isn’t too proud to seek it, finding that God looks not only for sorrow, but, also for a humble and contrite heart.

But here, at the beginning of the book, God gives us an example of why He calls David a man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), and in so doing teaches us two lessons. First, David’s grief over the death of Saul shows us that we have a choice; when we’ve been hurt, we can respond in kind, which leaves only bitterness and hatred, or we can respond with love, which leaves us at peace. It isn’t that we are expected to become fast friends with those who want to harm us, whether that be a terrorist far away or enemy close to home, but that we pray for them, that they may seek and find salvation. We do this because this is how God loves, and it is the love He wants us to have; that all people come to kneel before God and worship Him as one. Second, David’s grief teaches us that our responses are infectious; what we do, others see and may imitate. What did David’s followers do when they saw him grieve? They, too, grieved.

Let us then pray for the gift of humility, that like David and the children at Boys Town, we may come to see God and each other through the lens of our own brokenness, and respond with praise and thanksgiving to God for His merciful love, and to each other with hearts made after His.

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