Left: Death of Saul and sons (Marcuse)

Pentecost 2009

This morning we’re going on an archaeological dig of sorts, only of words, not artifacts in the ground. We’re going digging for Israel’s Camelot—the one before Mt. Zion, the City of David.

J.R.R. Tolkien, the great wordsmith who gave us the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, believed names are the slowest elements of language to change over time. Therefore, you can learn a lot from place names. Perhaps that explains his fascination with names. Each character, each place, in his work has four or five. Someone dubbed the Silmarillion, choked with difficult obscure names,  ”the Elvish telephone directory.”

You’re invited to put on your Tolkien caps, and see what a singular name in the text can teach us.

1 Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on [Saul's] head, and kissed him; he said, “The LORD has anointed you ruler over his people Israel. You shall reign over the people of the LORD and you will save them from the hand of their enemies all around.

5 …You shall come to Gibeath-elohim, at the place where the Philistine garrison is; there, as you come to the town, you will meet a band of prophets coming down from the shrine with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre playing in front of them; they will be in a prophetic frenzy. 6 Then the spirit of the LORD will possess you, and you will be in a prophetic frenzy along with them and be turned into a different person.

     9 As he turned away to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart; and all these signs were fulfilled that day. 10 When they were going from there to Gibeah, a band of prophets met him; and the spirit of God possessed him, and he fell into a prophetic frenzy along with them. 11 When all who knew him before saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to one another, “What has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” 12 A man of the place answered, “And who is their father?” Therefore it became a proverb, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” 13 When his prophetic frenzy had ended, he went home.       

1 Sam 10:1, 5-6, 9-13 (NRSV)

Before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in the year Christ was raised from the dead, Holy Spirit possession was, you can believe it, a wilder and even more frenzied thing. The Lord’s presence seized unlikely vessels, the most famous of whom was Saul, the ill-fated first king of Israel.

The trouble with Saul is that the only records we have of him and his reign have come down to us heavily edited by David’s court historians. The equivalent would be a Confederate account of Lincoln’s presidency or a far right-wing description of President Obama’s term.

Some scholars believe, for example, that the birth story of Samuel was originally the birth of Saul or that some of the stories about Jonathan, Saul’s matchless son, originally were about his father.

But this name Gibeath-elohim strikes me. It means “Gibeah of God,” and this is the only occurrence in the Hebrew Bible. Otherwise, it’s referred to as Gibeah, Gibeah of Saul, or Gibeah of the Benjamites.

You must understand that some terrible things happened at Gibeah: gang rape every bit as brutal as the gang rape attempted in Sodom, massacre, betrayal. Gibeah became the symbol of a lost king and a failed kingdom.

The prophet Hosea would cry out:

 They have deeply corrupted themselves
     as in the days of Gibeah;
he will remember their iniquity,
     he will punish their sins.

Hosea 9:9 (NRSV)

All the more astounding, then, this unique description of Saul’s capital as the Gibeah of God. What made it so?

We don’t know. The facts are buried deep in the earth. But we have this story, of Saul.

He’d set out to find his father’s donkeys. Without success, he and his servant consulted the seer, a judge-prophet named Samuel.

The prophet welcomed Saul like a king. In fact, he anointed him with oil. And he said, “When you get to Gibeath-elohim, Gibeah of God, you’ll meet a band of prophets, you’ll fall into a frenzy and become another person.”

Samuel always loved Saul, and perhaps always cherished the ideal of what might have been. So it’s no surprise to find on his lips alone this Hebrew term that has the same associations as Camelot has for us, the seat of King Arthur, and the days of the Round Table.

Saul did fall into a frenzy. But he hid what Samuel said and did.

After his selection became public, he won a victory and gave credit to the Lord.

What went wrong? Historians don’t know absolutely. Even without the Davidic court historians’ viewpoint, we know Saul’s bright hopes tarnished.

He fell into despair and madness.

When next the Spirit fell on him, he was pursuing David to kill him. He fell into a spirit-frenzy, stripped off his clothes and lay naked before Samuel all day and all night.

A key phrase is missing, however. 1 Samuel 19 does not say that God gave him another heart or that  he became another person.

Gibeath-elohim, Gibeah of God, remained a dream in the heart of the prophet Samuel. It never became Saul’s capital. Saul never achieved his potential as king, despite twice being possessed by the Spirit.

In much the same way, the Washington of God which ought to be this nation’s capital remains a mostly forgotten mirage.

When we think of the Holy Spirit, we too often dwell on the snazzy bells and whistles which He can perform: speaking in tongues, healing, etc.

Instead, we need to pursue the fruits of the Spirit:

22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Gal 5:22-25 (NRSV)

May we so live that when people ask, “Is John or Susan or Jose among the prophets?” the automatic response is, “Isn’t he or she always?” May our day to day self denial, taking up the cross, and following Jesus  in the power of the Spirit transform us into women and men with new hearts and our capital city into Gibeath-elohim,  Camelot of God.