PREJA VU

2 samuel 15:13-16:13; Ps 3 Lord, rise up and save me; Mark 5:1-20

"An informant came to David with the report, "The children of Israel have transferred their loyalty to Absalom."

Transferred their loyalty.

This little phrase can be summarization of the entire history of Israel.  Through out their journey as a people of God they continually transferred their loyalty to so called 'gods' or kings of other nations or even to themselves rather than to the God that formed them into a nation, led them through the desert, and brought them to the promised land.

Their loyalty was not always firm or fixed but loose and easily transferable.  They sought their own benefit, putting their personal dreams and endeavors above that of what God desired for them.

This reality is pretty common today as well. People are continually seeking themselves in love.  They put themselves first and not the other.

I see this is relationships.  Couples who come to me and want to get married will often say that they "love the way the other makes them feel."  They only focus on whats in it for them.  They seek themselves in love.

I see this with people who are so called "seekers."  These are men and women who do not have a faith to call their own or a "religion" to belong to but rather they seek what makes them have that "feeling" rather than truth itself.

I see this when people leave the church and go else where.  They say they are seeking God but what they are really seeking is themselves in love.

I see this in people who claim to be 'spiritual' not religious.  What they are saying is that they want God in their life on their terms not his.  They want God in their life bit they do not want to give God a say in the matter.  They seek themselves in love.

We transfer our loyalty often becomes we have become attached to ourselves.

Is this not what Jesus warns us about in the gospel when he tells us "if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me,  for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it."

We cannot seek ourself in love but we seek to love God and then truly discover love of self as it is meant to be.

so back to the reading about David.

David is in a tight spot.  He finds himself in the mount of Olives weeping.  This is a classic  preja vu.

Preja vu?  This is when in the bible we see something that points to something that will happen later in Israel or the life of Christ.   David the king is weeping in the mount of olives trying to trust himself to the will of God because he has been betrayed by his own blood.

Jesus will do this later in the gospel, several times.  Once he will be weeping over Israel and at a later time he will sweating drops of blood seeking strength to do the will of God as he also will be betrayed by one who was part of his intimate circle.

Preja vu.

What I love about this incident in the life of David is his humility.  David is at a all time low in his life.  His own son has turned against him, betrayed by his blood and his own nation.  He is probably thinking about his past transgression and overcome with guilt.  When he thought he could get no further down, out comes a relative of Saul's hurling rocks and insults at him.

David could have easily dispatched the fool but he doesn't.  Rather he recognizes in it the hand of God, "Suppose the LORD has told him to curse David; who then will dare say why are you doing this?…Let him alone and let him curse me, for the LORD has told him to.  Perhaps the LORD will look upon my affliction and make it up to me with benefits for the curse he is uttering this day."

David rather than taking matters it his own hands.  Rather than returning insults with insults or curses with curses, he blessed this man and leaves it entirely in the LORD's hands.

Again, preja vu!

Another king of Israel, will walk that same walk and people will throw curse and insults at him.  His response is not unlike the response of David, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."


Here is the question for us:

How can we in our life foreshadow the actions of Jesus as David does in his?  How can we mimic the response David gives to this low point in his life in such a manner that Jesus' very actions begin to take shape in and through our own?

For us it is not about preja vu but deja vu.  How can we in our life show forth the action of Christ, that which we have already seen and experienced.  People should look upon us and say, "I've seen that before, haven't I."

This is what the life of saint does daily.