Seeing the best in people.
| When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard of what the Philistines had done to Saul, 12 all their valiant men journeyed through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them. 13 Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days. (1Samuel31:11-13) |
But the men of Jabesh Gilead thought differently. Jabesh Gilead was a frontier town east of the Jordan. Years earlier, when Saul was a brand new king, the town was being besieged by the Ammonites and when they offered to surrender because of the overwhelming odds, the Ammonites made gouging out the right eye of every citizen the condition of peaceful surrender. The elders of Jabesh Gilead sent out a cry for help.
The cry for help reached the ears of a young king Saul as he was ploughing his fields: "When Saul heard their words, the Spirit of God came upon him in power, and he burned with anger. 7 He took a pair of oxen, cut them into pieces, and sent the pieces by messengers throughout Israel, proclaiming, "This is what will be done to the oxen of anyone who does not follow Saul and Samuel." (1Sam11:6-7) The Israelites responded immediately and rescued Jabesh Gilead.
This was Saul at his best.
And the people of Jabesh Gilead never forgot it.
In spite of all of Saul's failures they take a huge risk to do the honourable thing. They chose to remember Saul at his best and not Saul at his worst.
David does the same thing when the report of Saul's death reaches him. He cries out in a long lament for Saul and Jonathan. Part of his song of mourning has this verse:
"Saul and Jonathan--
in life they were loved and gracious,
and in death they were not parted.
They were swifter than eagles,
they were stronger than lions." (2Sam1:23)
Let's face it, if anyone had an excuse to trash-talk Saul in death, it would have been David. We could imagine him putting on a stage-whisper and saying: "Well, one doesn't want to speak ill of the dead, but Saul...." But this is not David's way and it is not the way of the men of Jabesh Gilead.
May you and I also become good at seeing the best in all people.
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