1 Sam 8:4-7,10-22 / Mk 2:1-12
In today’s Old Testament reading, we find the Israelites making one of the most foolish mistakes in all their history. They wanted to be like all the other nations around them. They wanted a king. How ironic! They claimed unceasingly to be different from and better than every other nation on earth, indeed, to be God’s chosen people. Yet in the same breath, they said they wanted to be like their so-called inferiors!
It’s a foolish mistake we Christians make all too often. Our vocation as followers of Jesus is to live by values that are essentially counter-cultural. True Christians judge success and greatness by standards that are very different from the world’s. Having and getting are not our highest values. Building a just society in which everyone has a place takes top billing for true Christians.
The list of differences between Christians and the culture is long, and it poses very nicely the essential question for us: When it comes to lived values, are we recognizable as Christians? Do our daily choices speak unmistakably that we are different from the surrounding culture in wholesome ways? If not, we might want to look again at what happened to the Israelites who so desperately wanted to fit in, that they let go of what made them special.
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