Eli was accused of “honor(ing) your sons above me.” That is indeed a grievous accusation and I wonder
if we aren’t quite regularly guilty of similar things. What do we truly honor? Can we say that there is nothing we honor
more than the Lord? Whatever keeps us
from completely honoring Him, whatever keeps us occupied and whatever we spend our
money on rather than giving the tithe is something we honor more than we honor
Him. When Paul wrote Timothy about the
requirements for elders he found it important that such a one would have a
household that honored the Lord, did not bring disrepute on His name. Leadership in the kingdom means setting an
example in all we do and not only for leaders but for all who would take the
name of Christ and become His disciples.
We cannot take the name for the sake of vanity, we must take it in order
to glorify Him. Discipleship and
discipline go hand in hand. We take a
yoke of discipline, a rule of living, that sets us apart in all we think, say
and do. Eli’s sons brought disrepute on
the Lord they served and Eli’s failure to discipline them was equally
egregious.
In Jewish thought, an elder could never refer to one who
comes after him, a descendant, as lord. The
one who precedes is greater and, therefore, lord over the one born later. David writes, in the Psalm Jesus quotes, as a
prophet, and refers to the one who will later rule as “my lord”. Jesus says this proves that this one is
before David because of the way David refers to him here. Again, Jesus rebukes the leaders of the
people for their failure to actually lead.
They use their offices not to glorify the Lord but to have honor and
glory for themselves. For a long season
in our history, such was the case for those who served in the church, we
received honor in the world and recognition of a special status. The times they are a changing and I believe that
is a good thing altogether. When we strip
out the honor of leadership, it can be one place where pride cannot hide; although
it lurks in pride in suffering for Christ’s sake as well as in honor. The one person in the reading who could take
pride is the widow and there is no chance she would do so, she gave up pride
for faith.
Can you imagine how you would feel if you had been one of
those shouting “Crucify Him!” on Good Friday and then heard Peter preach, “this
Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands
of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was
not possible for him to be held by it.”
They had killed God’s chosen Messiah, the one they were all waiting for,
the one whom David, who was not raised from the dead but whose grave was still
there, had prophesied would arise. They were
personally and inescapably guilty of rejecting the Messiah. Was there any way to recover from such an
error? To believe this message would be
to overthrow everything you thought and everything you had ever believed. Mostly it would be the overthrow of your
pride. To receive Jesus is to receive grace, there is no room for pride.
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