DAVID’S RESTRAINT

 

DAVID’S RESTRAINT

David’s restraint, when he has Saul in his power, is a model for peacemakers. Saul set out with three thousand men to find and do away with David. David, aware of Paul’s aim, creeps up on Saul while he is asleep and takes away his spear but does not harm him. When Saul wakes and realises what had happened, he cries out, ‘I have behaved like a fool. I have been profoundly in the wrong.’

This incident from the Hebrew scriptures prepares us for the gospel where Jesus says bluntly, ‘love your enemies, do good to those who hate you’. As many have pointed out, a shocking command to Jews then under the Roman yoke. To love is to go out to another with a desire they be free and full of joy. The story is told of Aston Chichester, before he became the first Catholic bishop in Harare, that he accused a boy at a school in England of helping himself to the altar wine. The boy feared the worst when he was called to the office but Chichester had investigated and found the boy was innocent. He told him, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve made a fool of myself.’ History doesn’t tell us what the boy thought of this but he surely went away amazed and elated.  

The desire to respond to other’s fears and build bridges does not seem prominent in the mindset of many world leaders. Rather than removing the spear they use it to impose their own solution. After all these centuries of war and oppression, we still seem far from practising restraint. To take just one example, why is it not obvious that the Palestinians want a place where they can live and prosper without fear? Why is this denied them these past eighty years?

Restraint brings peace to both sides. To compromise is not to show weakness. On the contrary, it takes courage to face the cost of another’s fears and allay them. I come from a country, still divided, but where efforts to remove the bitter hatred of three centuries has succeeded to the extent that young people hardly know what you are talking about when you recall the wounds of the past. To reach that point both sides had to restrain themselves and recognise their antagonisms were leading nowhere.

To see a problem from the point of view of the other person, to get into their mind, is what actors, psychotherapists, priests and many others try to do. Somehow, we have to empty ourselves of our own standpoints and take on that of another. Isn’t that what the Lord himself did when he became one of us? 

23 February 2025  Sunday 7 C  1 Sam 26    1 Cor 15: 45-49        Lk 627-38