Like a Rock
For a few weeks now I’ve been wrestling with the story of David.
I do not like David. He’s the epitome of power who does harm. But I’ve been wrestling with the beginning of his story, the part where he has no power, the part where he couldn’t even stay away from the fields long enough to be who he was supposed to be.
Wrestling.
When David was anointed, they had to call him in front the sheep.
He received the anointing and then went right back to the field.
Wrestling.
The king would get these headaches and someone knew David could play the lyre so they called David into the palace.
David strolled in to where he was anointed to be, played the lyre, and went right back out to the sheep.
Wrestling.
And I thought it said something ... how frequently David was in the place he was supposed to be but eschewed it for his place of comfort - his comfort zone - where he held all the power, the place he knew best. I thought it said something about how we walk in our destiny but don’t recognize it because we’re too used to being covered with sheep shit and our destiny is too shiny.
Wrestling.
But I thought, after a particularly difficult moment with a particularly beautiful person, David had to come into the palace from the field at some point, right? Like, he figured it out. He became king.
When?
So I checked.
And I read.
And I read.
David didn’t go back to the sheep field after he killed Goliath. He didn’t stay in the palace either. He went to the battle field. He didn’t become the David who was rapist and king (at your pastor who never preached the actual text. He did a thing and God said “what you’ve done to those will be done to yours” and his daughter was raped. He was a rapist.)
But what got me was what David missed about himself - or rather, what I missed - in the preparations for that battle.
First of all, his brother, the one who Samuel thought looked like a king, Eliam, the one whose name means “God is my father,” that brother whose heart God knew? That guy? He told David to stay in his place, that he had no business being amongst the army - a group of men who were trembling in fear, jostling for position, and had no clue what they were doing.
Second, he said he could do it and someone took him to the palace. Again. And Saul’s ass didn’t recognize him ... even though he’d been there before him several times to soothe Saul’s migraine of divine rejection. But Saul gave him armor and a sword and David couldn’t even stand. There’s something about trying to fulfill the expectations of appearing like royalty, falling over in armor that does not fit, trying to fight in paradigms that make no sense, holding on to theologies that were poorly constructed in the first place, trying to be who you’re not because you can’t see that who you are is already sufficient but that ... that’s not what struck me.
David said, “If Imma do this, I’ve gotta use what I’ve always used to protect my father’s sheep.”
Wrestling.
And this... David was a sheep shit of a king because David used what he always used. He didn’t take the anointing to mean that he was shifted from what God created him to be - a shepherd - into the image of something God said the people never actually needed. Even when raping women after he saw them purifying themselves in holy places (at your OT professor. Mine had good sense), David was still a shepherd in high places.
I had wondered when he’d realize he wasn’t a shepherd... but I realized that’s all he ever was. His feet just moved, his flock changed, and the funk around him did, too.
Wrestling.
But what caught my eye was what David used to protect the flock, what he used to protect the people. Stones.
Round, smooth stones.
And my friend Amy, the geologist, might have to correct me cause I only got a C in geology but rocks ain’t born round and smooth. Rocks don’t break apart from the whole as round and smooth bits.
They’re shards. Sharp. Pointy. And then they go through things. They get blown by wind. They get pushed around by water. They get baked in the sun. They struggle. They get kicked by human feet. Round, smooth stones are stones that been through something ... and look like what they’ve been through. They bear the evidence of their journey.
Sharp stones don’t fly well. And square stones aren’t aerodynamic. And those shiny stones that we pay a lot of money for, the unblemished ones we treasure, the clearest and purest, those are worthless on a battlefield.
And I thought, “he put his feet in the water and found some river rocks to drive wolves away from the sheep.”
And I thought, “why do we struggle so hard to be shiny Christians, that look the right way, that appear unblemished, that shine up well, that don’t look like what we’ve been through? Why do we persist in the shallow end of theological pools hoping to be seen, to then be of no real use to the flock, but perfect to be put on display, to be used as symbols of opulence and call ourselves blessed?”
And I wondered what would’ve happened to Goliath if David had used a shiny diamond of a Christian instead of a round smooth stone.
And I wondered what would’ve happened to Israel if David hadn’t taken off Saul’s armor and remembered who he was.
And I remembered my rock collection and how I never liked the gemstones but preferred the round smooth stones - tiger eye, sandstone, obsidian, even uncut polished amethyst.
And I wondered why we prefer to be cut and shiny than round and smooth.
And then I saw folk being seen, speaking nothing with depth, their appearances changing depending on the way the light hits, pretending to be blemish/free, hiding from the processes that made them that way and I blanched.
And then I remembered that I am not like them at all and I cannot pretend.
A diamond that forgets it used to be coal ain’t worth shit to me and a shiny bauble does no good on a battlefield.
I’m tired of dealing with diamonds who find the need to differentiate themselves from the roughs they’re supposed to protect. I’m tired of dealing with shiny, see through folks who cut the deep parts of themselves off so they can glisten in the light. I’m tired of dealing with folks who seek the light but are not useful in the field.
I’m also tired of dealing with folk who won’t admit they’re afraid but will put bass in their voices to go tell someone to stay in their place.
And imma not.
I have no use for shiny, shallow, perfect, GIA rated Christians in my life. I don’t wear jewelry and don’t need gemstones.
I’m just a shepherd, tryna protect the flock of my Parent. I need round smooth stones.
Anyway, I still don’t know what happened to Jesse’s flock when David left the fields and became leader of the army. David switched flocks (we call it itinerancy) but what happened to the sheep?
