The Definition of Irony

1 Samuel 16:14-23

Today we come to the third message in our series about David: “Walking Through and Stepping Up.” God has rejected Saul as king, telling him through Samuel that he would be replaced by “a man after God’s own heart.” Last Sunday John walked us through the story of David being anointed by Samuel, who was directed by God to choose him from among all of his older and perhaps more eligible brothers. He may not have been an obvious choice, but God was “looking on his heart” and seeing his potential. Did David know what was going on? We don’t actually know. Samuel anoints him in the presence of his family, but there is no record of what he said as he was doing it – if anything! But it’s clear that everyone knew that something special was going on. Indeed it says that from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. He was a changed person. He must have had some sense that God had something important in store for him, despite his humble beginnings. His world was beginning to open up, and he was headed somewhere special. But where?

Today’s message is entitled The Definition of Irony. What is the definition of irony? The word can actually mean several different things. For our purposes today we will define it as “a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects.” It seems that David did not get what he expected – or at least what we might expect for him.

Sometimes just words are ironic, other times it’s the situation that has irony. Irony can involve a pun – or people not following their own advice; it can make us laugh or even groan. Sometimes irony causes us to reconsider what a particular symbol really means. We feel for people caught in embarrassing ironic situations. They can underscore the truth that there are indeed no shortcuts on the road to success, and there are no shortcuts to fulfilling God’s purposes for us either. We might like to jump directly to the glory, to the spiritual maturity and fulfillment, to the noticeable impact of what we are doing for God, but sometimes the road is long and filled with apparent detours. But God knows what He is doing. We can see this in His preparation of David to be king. In order for him to “step up” to be a leader, David had to “walk through” various challenges. There were no shortcuts on his road to success either.

Had David learned something from Saul’s mistakes? He may not have been aware of them early on, but Saul was a living example of the folly of trying to take shortcuts. You will recall, for example, the time in 1 Samuel chapter 13 when Saul got impatient and offered the sacrifice without waiting for Samuel. He thought that he knew a better, more efficient way of doing things than simply following God’s instructions.

David, on the other hand, was willing to be humble and “wait for the Lord,” a phrase he wove into several of his psalms. In Psalm 37, for example, he says

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes…Hope in the Lord and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are destroyed, you will see it.—Psalm 37:5-7, 34

David knew that timing was important and that there was no rushing God’s purposes. God’s ways were higher than his ways and God’s thoughts than his thoughts. Keeping to God’s way would involve being still before Him and waiting patiently for His timing, not rushing ahead. It might seem like the wicked were succeeding, as was the case with Saul, who ended up pursuing David relentlessly, as we will see in coming chapters. But David could have confidence that in due time God would exalt him to inherit the land as king.

Let’s turn to our passage for today, and see what you think is ironic in it. I would invite you to pull out your Bibles and look at it, because we will be looking at the whole of it at once and its context.

Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.  Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”

So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.”

One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.”

Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.

David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.”

Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.—I Samuel 16:14-23

So what is the first example of irony that we see – in verse 14? An evil spirit from the Lord. That’s an unexpected state of affairs! You will recall that early on in his career, after he was anointed by Samuel, Saul had the Spirit of God come upon him powerfully and he prophesied. That was back in Chapter 10. That Spirit has now departed, though it does come upon him again in Chapter 19, and he will prophesy once again, as he is lying naked all day and night in Samuel’s presence, another strange experience.

That God would send an evil spirit to torment Saul might seem surprising, but we need to keep in mind that all spirits are subject to God. The Lord was judging Saul at this juncture, which he had every right to do. Saul had rejected him, so He had rejected Saul as king. Sin has consequences. God is a just judge. Thus, it was entirely reasonable and righteous for Him to allow this evil spirit to torment Saul. However, we still might struggle with the fact that it is referred to as an evil spirit. The NIV suggests that the word for “evil” could also be translated as “harmful.” Therefore, God was not doing something evil in the sense that it was wrong or morally unjustified. Whatever harm came to Saul was indeed the result of his own sin, his unwillingness to submit to God.

We can only guess at how this evil spirit affected him. Did it come as a bout of depression or anxiety or rage? We will see later on that Saul tries to kill David during one of these episodes. We need to be careful not to equate all mental illness with God’s judgment. If someone is depressed it may not be a direct result of their sin. It certainly could be related, but we also need to keep in mind that we live in a fallen world, and all manner of illnesses come upon the righteous and the unrighteous both. Depression can be caused by chemical imbalances in a person’s brain and be treatable with medication. Whatever this mental aberration was, it would be interesting to know how Saul’s servants knew that it was from God. They seem quite matter-of-fact about it. Perhaps everyone around knew that God had rejected Saul, and they were expecting some form of judgment like this.

Did Saul try to repent and turn to God for relief? Apparently not. The best his attendants can offer is palliative care, something to just make him feel better. So they turn to music, which can have a powerful effect on mood. Music is one of God’s gifts to us, to help us connect with and express our emotions, to use in worship, and simply to give us pleasure. Many of you know much more about music than I do, but I do know that when I am down I can feel better when I listen to praise music. And when Ian begins to play on his keyboard in the evening in our house it does set a mood of all of us. Music has the ability to lift us to God or to appeal to our base instincts. We can assume that the music that David played was beautiful and soothing.

We don’t know what his instrument looked like. The older version of the NIV referred to it as a harp; now it is thought to be a type of lyre – where the strings pass over a bridge rather than directly into the hollow body of the instrument. In any case it had strings and a wooden frame of some sort, small enough to be carried around easily. Perhaps David had perfected his playing skills as he whiled away the hours watching his flocks. It seems that one of Saul’s servants had heard him play or somehow had found out about his ability as a musician.

So now we come to another point of irony in this story. The person who comes to help Saul in his torment is actually the man whom God has just chosen as his replacement! David would provide some short-term relief for Saul’s troubles, but overall he would make Saul even more miserable. The helper would be soon be perceived as a threat, and Saul would spend the rest of his life trying to kill David.

However, in this initial stage it seems that God wanted to help prepare David for being king by bringing him into the royal court, to “learn the system” in a way, and perhaps in getting to know Saul to be convinced not to make the same mistakes. He would observe firsthand the effects of turning away from God, most significantly the departure of the Holy Spirit, and become determined that it should never happen to him. Perhaps David remembered God’s judgment on Saul when he wrote Psalm 51, convicted of his sin with Bathsheba. In confessing that and pouring out his heart to God he pleads, “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.” David could not imagine being separated from God; he would do whatever was necessary to make things right, and that was the significant difference between him and Saul. Saul made excuses and tried to justify himself. When David was confronted with his sin, he humbly confessed it and pleaded with God to restore their relationship.

Some Christians worry about committing the unforgiveable sin that Jesus talks about in Matthew 12 and Mark 3, namely “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.” He brought it up when the Pharisees attributed the work of God to Satan. The consequences are certainly serious. Jesus calls it an eternal sin that will never be forgiven. But it’s important to remember that if you are concerned about committing it, then you have not committed it! Rejecting the Holy Spirit permanently, as Saul did, meant that he lost even the desire to obey God and stay close to Him. In spite of the awful things that David did – murder and adultery in the case with Bathsheba – he never lost his hunger for God, his sense of dependence and his desire for intimacy. He was always conscious of his need for grace and forgiveness, willing to humble himself to preserve his relationship with God.

So the shepherd boy comes to the palace. He might have a sense of God about to do something, but we need to remember that this was a whole new world for him. He is just an ordinary village boy, without leadership experience – except of his flock. Saul sounds a little skeptical when he asks Jesse to send his son “David, who is with the sheep.” But they do hit it off, and Saul offers him a permanent position as his servant. Actually, he proposes the arrangement to Jesse, since David is still under the authority of his father. I’m not sure that Jesse would have been in a position to refuse, but in any case we can assume that he agreed, and David entered the service of the king.

David’s role as a servant is probably the most ironic aspect of this story. Samuel has just anointed him, presumably for great things. The simple shepherd has been chosen by God for some special role. But where does the path to greatness take him? Into obscure service! He is not just playing second fiddle to the king; Saul fails to recognize all that he could do. The attendants had hinted at it, rather plainly actually. “He is a brave man and a warrior,” they said in verse 18. David a warrior? The suggestion itself is in fact ironic, because the only warfare that David had engaged in so far was apparently against wild animals, as he guarded his flock. But he was clearly a young man with potential. Not only is he attractive, with some natural abilities in speaking and fighting, but “the Lord is with him.” Does Saul enroll him into some leadership development program? No, he is made an armor-bearer, as well as court musician.

And so some of the irony slips over into the passage for next week: David the armor-bearer tries on the armor to fight Goliath and hates it. Despite making an initial good impression with Saul, David must have faded into the background somewhat. After the Goliath incident Saul is asking, “Who is this guy? Where did he come from?” Is he really just a humble shepherd from Bethlehem from the very ordinary family of Jesse? Are you sure he is not someone special?

But let’s not jump ahead of the story. Saul’s attendants had somehow recognized David as a warrior – and he would go on to become one of the greatest warriors that Israel would ever see – but here he is playing the lyre, the job of a servant. The warrior reference obviously didn’t register with Saul. He is given armor to carry, not to wear. So the one chosen by God is given a place of humble service. Did David chafe under that? Did he look at Saul, so messed up, so worthless now as a king, and think, that’s the job I should be doing? Saul needs to get out of the way and let the Lord’s anointed take over?

David may have thought it, but he did not act on it. He was willing to submit – to Saul as his king, but even more so to God. Later on, we will see that he does not kill Saul when he has the chance, despite all of Saul’s efforts to kill him. He could trust God. He didn’t have to work it all out himself. He was willing to take it one step at a time and wait on the Lord. This was a faith-building time for David.

So we have the irony of humble service being the first step on the path to greatness. Servanthood linked to being great. What verse in the New Testament does that remind you of? Jesus says in Matthew 20 that to be great in God’s kingdom one must learn to be a servant, just as “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Why is service important to God? Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love other people. That statement sums up the reason for our existence. How is love worked out in the nitty gritty of daily life? Voluntary service is a big part of loving others. It is very visible and practical – and not something that comes naturally to most of us. Service means focusing on someone else’s needs rather than your own. It is the antidote to selfishness, which is poison in any relationship.

What does it mean for you to be a servant? It is unlikely that you will need to be an armor-bearer or even play a lyre for a king, but God does want you to serve others in practical ways. We actually have some really good servants in this church – people who frequently go way out of their way to help others – but you may not hear much about them. Part of serving with pure motives is to keep quiet about it, sort of like not letting your “left hand know what your right hand is doing,” as Jesus commanded in Matthew 6 when he spoke about giving to the poor. We should all want to be honored by God rather than men.

Still, I would like to see more mention of the kinds of ways that people are serving in our body, not to glorify them but to provide examples to the rest of us of the ways that there are to serve, the opportunities that are there to help each other. So I would like to suggest that it would be okay and even beneficial during sharing time for people who have been helped by others to acknowledge that and thank those folks. I wonder if some of the rest of us might think, hey, I could do that, too. This isn’t to apply any pressure – God loves a cheerful giver – but it should reinforce what we have referred to as “every member ministry.” We don’t leave the work of “church” to professionals. We are all called to minister to each other, using the gifts that God has given us. And the pastors here are talking about the ways in which we could help each other discover our spiritual gifts. So stay tuned to hear more about that in the near future. Church is not meant to be a spectator sport. We are meant to be a living organism, with each part playing its unique role, as it talks about in 1 Corinthians 12:

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.  Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good…Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.  And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.—I Corinthians 12:4-7,27-28

Each of us is called to serve, but some people actually have the spiritual gift of service. It is called the gift of “helping” in the above passage. People who have this gift can help the rest of us see the opportunities for helping others. One problem, however, that I have noticed is that the most committed servants are often the least inclined to ask others to help them in their service: another point of irony to highlight today? Anyway, I would also encourage those among us doing the most serving to be intentional about inviting others to join you as you serve, so that they can learn by your example.

And let’s keep remembering the example of David, God’s anointed, on the cusp of doing great things, but for now being humble, patient, and selfless in serving sad, tormented King Saul.