Faith and Magic - 1 Samuel 6:1-13
Faith and magic are intertwined in the minds of many. We consider religion and spirituality from a perspective that runs counter to Biblical faith. We associate superstition with faith and fail to grasp that God calls us to a relationship of dependence, rather than obedience to magical rites. God is far above any human ability to manipulate. While on one level we readily acknowledge that, on another we often attempt to follow prescribed formulas specifically to control God, directing God to perform our will over any other. That is the provenance of magic. Faith, on the contrary, calls us to submission and dependence. Why is it so hard for us not to confuse the two?
Israel struggled with concepts of magic in its thinking about Yahweh. They tried to break out of the mold of using rite and ritual to manipulate God, but they routinely fell into the trap to succumbing to magical thinking anyway.
In the finals days of Eli before Samuel became the judge and prophet over Israel, the people were enmeshed in a struggle against the Philistines. They determined that they needed to take the Ark of the covenant with Yahweh out of the tabernacle and into battle with them. Following along the understanding of Hollywood's movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, they figured that carrying the ark with them would grant them a sure victory against their enemies. The looked at the ark as a talisman, a good luck charm, a tool for manipulating God's will and power. They failed to actually seek God's will in the process.
As they marched into battle, the Philistines were aware of the ark's presence. They knew the history of the people's victory in Egypt, over Og, Bashan, Jericho, and others. In response, they doubled their efforts to defeat Israel, considering that was their only hope for any kind of victory. In the process, they took possession of the ark away from Israel. They gained the upper hand and marched away victorious and with the ark in tow.
All seemed fine until they found the statue of their god, Dagon on the floor of their temple before the ark of Yahweh. Next, they found their god's statue decapitated and determined they could not keep the ark. God set plagues of rats and tumors on their skin, such that they determined they needed to return the ark to Israel in order to remove the scourge under which they were living.
Just like the Israelites, they had believed they might manipulate the world of deities by keeping the ark under their control. They met with the reality that Yahweh was not to be manipulated. Yahweh was not susceptible to their control. They quickly figured out that they had no hope of forcing Yahweh to bend to their will. Instead, Yahweh required their service and submission, something they were not quite prepared to accept.
The Philistines determined to send the ark back to Israel, so they called upon their wise men to tell them in what manner to do so. They harnessed two milk cows to a cart bearing the ark, tied up their calves at home, and set them on the road toward Israel with offerings of golden images of the tumors and the rats affecting them, requesting that Yahweh show them mercy and release them from the plagues which had assailed their land and people.
This action was different in character from the manner of Israel taking the ark into battle. Rather than seeking power to control and manipulate, it relinquished control into God's hands. Rather than trying to force God's hand, it let go of any sense of ownership and the right to dictate outcomes. Rather than claim something for themselves, it placed their cares and concerns before Yahweh and in submission to Yahweh's will. Instead of treating the ark as a magical artifact, they treated it in the respect due to the One it represented.
The ark was supposed to symbolize Yahweh's throne in heaven. Its cover was supposed to stand in for the heavenly seat from which Yahweh dispensed justice, mercy, and laws. As the Tabernacle itself, it was supposed to remind Israel of the heavenly temple, the throne and home of Yahweh. It was to be a representation of God's presence among the nation of Israel, God's throne to use upon the earth.
While the Israelites had attempted to use the ark as a tool or weapon of war, the Philistines returned it in recognition that it was not something they had any right to much less the power to control. Rather than considering it as a mystical or magical artifact with power they might wield, they returned it with a sense of respect for Yahweh as God beyond their ability to control. This was a far cry from taking it into war to win battles over whatever enemies they decided to conquer. This was a cry for mercy in subjection to Yahweh's claim over their very lives.
Philistine worship abounded in the concerns of magic and seeking ways to manipulate their gods to obey the desires of the people. This was true for all of the fertility cults surrounding Israel. It was at the heart of what it meant to worship in their circles. Religion for them was about forcing the hand of the gods to provide for the needs of the people. It was about cajoling deities into remembering that their crops and cattle depended upon rain. It was about pressing the gods to make the land, the animals, and the people fertile. It was about gaining a modicum of control over the world, thus to attain a semblance of security and prosperity.
That is what Israel was routinely tempted to give themselves over to joining. It was for this that so many laws were designed to keep Israel at a distance from the fertility rites. Rather than seeking to control Yahweh, they were to recognize both that Yahweh was beyond their control and that Yahweh had created the world such that it was fertile by its very nature. There would be no need to cajole Yahweh into making the cattle fertile or making seeds germinate. Yahweh already wanted the earth to bear fruit, for the cattle to multiply, and for there to be ample resources to sustain life in its myriad variety.
Every so often, however, Israel had to review this lesson by watching their neighbors demonstrate having heard the message. They had to encounter faith in place of magical thinking in the eyes and actions of their neighbors. They had to be forced to take stock of the fact that Yahweh indeed cared and was not willing to be manipulated by the will of humanity. It is, after all, our responsibility to serve God, not to attempt to force God to serve our whims.
Magic and mysticism are not valid representations of faith. They reduce the worship and service of God to rites designed to manipulate and coerce the God who is so far above all that. Israel understood that the deities of the surrounding nations might indeed be manipulated, but such could only happen due to their being so much less than Yahweh. There is simply no hope for us to devise a way to control God. If we were to find a way, it would mean manipulating a deity not worthy of our service.
The problem is we continue trying to do just that. We attempt to control God through prayers to manipulate. We attempt to control God through the offering of tithes. We attempt to control God by making promises of sacrifice, by making a deal with God as though God needed anything we might be able or willing to offer. If God were ever within the reach of our manipulation, we don't serve much of a God. As long as we attempt to manipulate God, we are not much in the way of servants.
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