Saul exemplifies the image of the ideal king. He comes from a good family; he is handsome; he towers over his fellows. It’s as if he walked straight out of ancient Israelite central casting. But anyone who knows the story of Saul and David knows that Saul’s story does not end well; the young David will ultimately supplant Saul as king when the latter loses his mind in jealousy and vengeance against his young musician-warrior. We even get a foretaste in today’s reading as Saul fails in the shepherd’s basic responsibility to find his lost animals, thus foreshadowing his later failure as shepherd of Israel.  

Contrast Saul’s lofty image with Jesus’s table companions in Mark. Tax collectors working for Herod and the Romans. Public sinners who likely included debtors, prostitutes, lepers, and other ostracized people. And not only is Jesus calling these impure sinners to follow him; he is actually eating with them! This table fellowship violates nearly every tenet of the Law as understood in Jesus’s time. We are only in the second chapter of Mark, and already Jesus’s Reign of God is flipping the religious status quo on its head.

Today’s readings remind us that appearances can be deceiving. For all of his physical prowess and good looks, King Saul ends up as a tragic, broken, jealous man, abandoned by YHWH and Samuel alike. In contrast, the social outcasts of first-century Galilee end up sharing a table banquet with the true Messiah. Such are the reversals of the Reign of God.

What “reign of God reversal” is God calling you to notice today?