Are you a good friend? Would your best friends say that you are a good friend? If your best friends could fill out an anonymous survey evaluating your friendship, what would the results be? I suggest it needs to be anonymous because it is often very difficult for even our closest friends to tell us the truth, if that truth is critical or confrontational. But if it is anonymous, they might.
Think about that evaluation a minute. What kinds of questions should it have? What kinds of questions will help us learn about the quality of our friendship? What makes a good friend? Love, kindness, honesty, shared experiences, communication, truth, trust?
There are all sorts of ways that we can show we are good friends.
Last week in 1st Samuel 18 & 19, we learned that David secretly escaped from King Saul’s house because Saul was trying to kill David. Now David is a fugitive. Who can he trust? The most powerful man in the nation is out to get him. King Saul has a network of spies that are loyal to Saul, and Saul has already commanded his spies to find David.
Maybe you’ve experienced that feeling of being trapped, hunted, on the run. You can be a fugitive for many reasons. You can be in the wrong, trying to avoid getting caught and facing the consequences.
This can happen in relationships. You can be a fugitive in your own marriage or at work or as a child. You did something wrong, something you feel shame about, and the people around you are slowly figuring out that it was you. You screwed up the deal, you lied to your spouse, you disobeyed your parents. You’re trying to hide it, but slowly you get found out. You’re trying to cover your tracks, but we can rarely hide the truth forever. If that’s you, you have a taste of the fugitive life.
You can also be hunted down because someone is incorrectly blaming you for something you didn’t do.
Have you seen the 90s thriller movie, The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford. He is blamed for killing his wife. He doesn’t know who he can trust, so he changes his appearance, he hides, and tries to figure out why he is being wrongly accused.
David is like Harrison Ford’s character, on the run, but he didn’t do anything wrong. In our study of the Life of David, this we week are studying the beginning of David’s fugitive years in 1st Samuel chapter 20. David is on the run from his father-in-law, King Saul. In his jealousy of David’s success and popularity, Saul has twice tried to kill David, so David fled. Last week we read in chapter 19 that David’s first instinct was to get help from someone he believed he could trust, the prophet Samuel.
Saul’s spies reported on David’s whereabouts, so Saul sent men to arrest David. When they showed up, they found Samuel leading a group of prophets in ecstatic worship, and the Spirit of God fell upon the soldiers too, so they were unable to arrest David. So Saul sent a second group, and the same thing happened to them. And to a third group as well. So Saul himself decided to go, and that’s when he too got slain in the Spirit and ripped off all his clothes and was ecstatically writhing like a nude human snake on the ground. In other words, God saved David from Saul.
Here’s what happens next in chapter 20, verses 1-3,
“Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, ‘What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to kill me?’ ‘Never!’ Jonathan replied. ‘You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without letting me know. Why would he hide this from me? It isn’t so!’ But David took an oath and said, ‘Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, “Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.” Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.’”
When you are a fugitive, perhaps your most pressing question is “Who can I trust?” In the previous chapters 18 & 19, we learned that David became fast friends with the crown prince, Jonathan. In chapter 18 they entered into a covenant with each other. Jonathan, though he was the more powerful one by far in the relationship, gave his status symbols of power, his robe, his belt, his sword, etc. to David. We read that the two men became one in spirit, which is another way to say “they became best friends.” Then in chapter 19, King Saul, after unsuccessfully trying to kill David, asked Jonathan to go kill David. Imagine being in Jonathan’s shoes at that point. Who do you give your allegiance to? Your father the king who has the power to kill you? Or your best friend who has also become your brother-in-law, whom your father wants to kill? As the saying goes, “Blood is thicker than water.”
But Jonathan does not choose blood. Jonathan chooses David, warning him to hide. Then Jonathan goes back to his father to try to convince Saul to change his mind. Jonathan sticks his neck out for David, his best friend, standing up for the truth. And it seems to work. In chapter 19 verse 6, Saul says, “As surely as the Lord lives, David will not be put to death.” Jonathan tells David that his father has changed his mind, and then Jonathan brings David back to Saul’s house. Saul’s promise doesn’t last long, and he tries to kill David again. That was when David said, “I’m done, I’m out of here,” and he became a fugitive on the run. But the point in all this is that Jonathan has shown himself to be trustworthy. So after God protects David from Saul and his men who came to arrest him, David knows he can trust Jonathan, and he goes to see Jonathan, to tell him what Saul has been doing.
Jonathan seems incredulous, because last he knew, his father promised never to harm David again. David responds, “Jonathan, I’m telling the truth. Your father is hiding his true intentions from you. He wants to kill me.” Will Jonathan believe David? Once again, Jonathan is the middle man. Being the middle man, the peacemaker, is difficult. As peacemaker you are torn between two opposing sides. Each side wants you to take their side. Each side thinks their side is obviously the only right side, and they get upset at you because you aren’t seeing it their way. When you are in the middle, you can have both sides angry at you. So there is Jonathan, between David and Saul. In this case, there is a clear right person and a clear wrong person. Will Jonathan choose right or wrong?
Photo by lucas Favre on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 