Bible reading: 2 Samuel 5:1-7,9-10.

All the tribes of Israel went to David at Hebron and said to him, “We are your own flesh and blood. In the past, even when Saul was still our king, you led the people of Israel in battle, and the Lord promised you that you would lead his people and be their ruler.” So all the leaders of Israel came to King David at Hebron. He made a sacred alliance with them, they anointed him, and he became king of Israel. David was thirty years old when he became king, and he ruled for forty years. He ruled in Hebron over Judah for seven and a half years, and in Jerusalem over all Israel and Judah for thirty-three years.

The time came when King David and his men set out to attack Jerusalem. The Jebusites, who lived there, thought that David would not be able to conquer the city, and so they said to him, “You will never get in here; even the blind and the lame will turn you back”. But David did capture their fortress of Zion; he lived in it and named it “David’s City.” He built the city around it, starting at the place where land was filled in on the east side of the hill.

David grew stronger all the time, because the Lord God Almighty was with him.

Message.

Everyone has heard of the sinking of the “Titanic” after it struck an iceberg on 14^th April 1912. This disaster, in which over 1500 people drowned, has become the stuff of legend although its death toll has more recently been surpassed by ferry tragedies in the Philippines and Senegal. However an earlier maritime disaster was far more significant in terms of British history, but is relatively unknown – I’d certainly never heard of it. This was the loss of the so-called “White Ship”, the “Blanche-Nef”, on 25^th November 1120. The captain and crew were proud of their recently-refurbished vessel and believed it could overtake its companions on the voyage to England; they were also almost certainly drunk. As a result the ship hit a rock off the coast of Normandy; of the 300 people on board, only one survived.

But why was this shipwreck so important? It was because the dead included nobles and members of the royal family, including William Adelin, the son of King Henry I of England and heir apparent, together with Henry’s illegitimate children Richard of Lincoln and Matilda FitzRoy. Henry was left with only one legitimate child, his daughter also named Matilda, who was unpopular among the English nobility because she had married the Count of Anjou, a traditional enemy. Because of this, and because a woman had never reigned alone in England, the barons were reluctant to accept Matilda as queen when Henry died in 1135. They preferred Stephen, Henry’s nephew, who had planned to travel on the White Ship but disembarked just before it sailed due to a sudden bout of diarrhoea. This led to a devastating civil war in England, Wales and Normandy which lasted from 1138 to 1153. Stephen finally gained control but died the following year.

Why am I talking about British medieval history when we’re in church and supposed to be studying the Bible? Well, it’s because most of us, including me, have very little knowledge of Old Testament history and probably think that the kingship of Israel moved smoothly to David following the death of Saul, his predecessor. After all, we all know the story of the prophet Samuel going to Jesse’s house and, after looking at all his strong, strapping sons, anointing the shepherd boy David to be the future king of Israel. So surely the transition between one king and the next would be simple? No, it wasn’t, not at all. For although David was readily accepted in Judah, the southern part of the country, Saul’s general Abner installed Saul’s son, Ish-Bosheth, as king of Israel, the northern part. Seven years of treachery, murder, military battles and sexual intrigue took place before David emerged as victor, defeated the Jebusites of Jerusalem and set up his court there.

At last, it seemed, the nation could settle down in unity and peace. And, indeed, the reigns of David and his son Solomon represent the high-water mark of Jewish national prestige and power. The Tabernacle of wood and canvas is at last replaced by a permanent Temple, David builds himself a palace “fit for a king”, Jerusalem becomes the capital city, foreign rulers begin to send envoys so that trading agreements can be set up. We can imagine the sense of excitement and well-being that must have spread across the country during this period of peace and prosperity. And all the time David’s personal status and power as an effective leader are growing because, as the book of Samuel tells us, “the Lord God Almighty was with him”. (Sadly, as we find out later in the book, this strength leads him to think that he can do whatever he likes; he gives in to his desires and not only commits sexual sin but also murder, although he is reluctant to admit it).

That phrase, “the Lord was with him” is, I think, highly problematic. You might be surprised to hear me say that because, as one writer puts it, “The short sentence ‘I am with you’ is at the heart of the good news in the Bible”. This writer gives us his reasons for saying this: for instance Moses thought up five excuses – including a fear of public speaking – for not being the Hebrews’ leader, only for God to answer by saying, “I will be with you”; and Jeremiah argued that, as he was only a teenager, he could not be a prophet, but God responded: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you”. In the New Testament we find Matthew quoting from Isaiah, “They shall name him Emmanuel – ‘God is with us’” – in order to underline Jesus’ significance; And of course the last words of Jesus to his dismayed disciples, charged to take his message to the world, are: “I am with you to the end of the age”. The promise of God’s constant presence was, and still is, hugely encouraging.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

But there is another side to this phrase, for it is often applied, at least in the Old Testament, to military victory and the slaughter which goes with it. For instance Moses tells Joshua, before he leads the Hebrews in their invasion of Canaan: “Be strong and courageous … The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you”; this is echoed by God saying to Joshua himself: “No one will be able to stand against you … As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave nor forsake you”. Scrolling forward many centuries, we are told that king Hezekiah trusted in God who “was with him” who made him “successful in whatever he undertook”, including resistance against the Assyrians and victory over that old enemy, the Philistines. And returning to an earlier period of David’s life, we read, “David led the troops in their campaigns. In everything he did he had great success, because the Lord was with him”.

Throughout history, combatants have often claimed that God was with them – and I’m not just thinking of Muslim jihadists or the Christian armies who fought (and massacred) during the Crusades. The 18^th-century French philosopher Voltaire, no friend of organised religion, describes in his satire “Candide” the butchery of a battle in which 30,000 men are killed by cannons, muskets and bayonets; after it the two kings go back to their camps and lead the singing of “Te Deum” – “Praise God”. That’s fiction; but in both World Wars German soldiers wore belt buckles that said “Gott mit Uns”: “God is with us”, while the Anglican Bishop of London was declaring, “This is a Holy War; to fight in it is an honour”. He also said, to a group of 5000 volunteers: “Train yourselves, get ready, and, when the moment comes, in the name of God strike home”. In contrast we need to hear what one person wrote about today’s passage: “David’s bloody capture of Jerusalem is merely another example of a warrior king eviscerating a basically innocent foe and thanking God for the monstrous victory”.

So there’s a question about God giving leaders military success. But does he help them in peacetime too, as our reading suggests? Again, the Bible seems to claim that he does. For God, it’s said, not only rescued Joseph from his Egyptian prison but enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh, who made him into what we would call his First Minister. Equally Solomon, David’s son, established a firm grip over Israel, “for the Lord his God was with him and made him exceedingly great”. While I don’t want to doubt what the Bible says here – and I certainly believe that leaders do well both to pray and seek to enact Biblical principles of justice and fairness – I do get worried when any ruler claims that their success is a consequence of God’s personal blessing upon them. The danger is that they forget they have only been granted their position “by the grace of God”, becoming arrogant and thinking they are beyond criticism. The word for that is “hubris”.

In fact this is a danger for all leaders: of nations, of businesses, even of churches. There are around the world Pastors whose decisions can never be questioned, whose interpretation of Scripture must never be queried, whose desire for wealth and status must never be disputed, who gather around them a group of lackeys who will never say, “We disagree”, who put down any challenges to their authority by saying that no-one must defy God’s anointed leader. That to me is not Jesus’ way of leadership; so please, if I ever get “too big for my boots”, don’t hesitate to say, “You’re wrong” and cut me down to size.

I began by speaking of King Henry and the “White Ship”. Five hundred years later, in 1649, King Charles I of England was executed outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. His crime was basically one of arrogance, of not being prepared to accept the will of Parliament. This stemmed from his belief in the “divine right of kings”, which says that God, not the people, gives a monarch their right to rule. Only God can judge a poor king or queen and any attempt to depose, dethrone or restrict their powers may be regarded as rebellion against God. It wasn’t of course Charles who invented this doctrine (in fact he was the last British monarch to uphold it); the idea had been around for centuries. And it was backed by the Bible’s story of the prophet Samuel anointing Saul as king in God’s name. The danger is that it can lead to tyranny.

We now have a new leader in Downing Street. Keir Starmer As far as I know he doesn’t, as far as I know, have any particular religious belief, unlike some of his ministers such as Wes Streeting who is a High Church Anglican Christian. Vicky Starmer is of course Jewish, which is why Friday evenings are so important for the family. One must presume that she knows the stories of Samuel, Saul and David which we’ve been looking at over the last few weeks although I have no idea about how or even if she’d try to relate them to 21^st century politics!

However I truly believe that we can learn from these stories even though they come from a time and a culture so different to our own. For the qualities of a good leader don’t change. I found a list of them on the St Teilo’s School website; they include driving improvements, helping people to learn and then to help others, encouraging folk from many backgrounds to work together, nurturing ambition, removing disadvantage and creating resilience, and (last but not least) listening to the people they are leading. Those qualities (and I’ve left a few out) don’t, I think, only apply to a school leader, but are universal.

We have already heard how Jesus modelled a leadership style which was humble yet had authority, which led the way but didn’t seek any kind of personal status. The supreme example of that was of course his death on the Cross: a picture of total failure and humiliation which nevertheless led to glory and has inspired countless millions of followers. God, we are told, was with David; God was surely with his son Jesus.

Let’s pray for our new Prime Minister; he – like all Prime Ministers and Presidents – won’t find the task to be easy. Let’s pray that he, and all his newly elected MPs, won’t let power go to their heads and lose touch with the people the are supposed to be leading. And, if we do pray, who knows what might happen? Perhaps – without them even realising or acknowledging it – God will be with them too.