Friday, March 24, 2017
Commemoration of Oscar Romero*
Reading: I Samuel 16:1-13
“So
Shemu’el (Samuel) took the horn of oil and anointed David amid his brothers.
And the spirit of YHWH surged upon David from that day onward." 1 Samuel 16:13 (Everett Fox, tr.)
The books of First and Second Samuel are books about power,
about the corruption of power and about personal responsibility, and in this
story beginning the longest continuous narrative in the Bible, we meet the
shepherd-boy who will become king, David. Here, the prophet Samuel anoints
David, the youngest son of Jesse, for kingship, after rejecting David’s seven
older brothers. David was anointed for kingship. Prophets were anointed, high
priests were anointed. Anointing was for healing, for hospitality, for burial.
We anoint the ears and eyes of
catechumens. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible says, then, in
John 9:6 that Jesus “anointed” (epechrisen)
the blind man’s eyes with mud. (The New Revised – NRSV – says “spread.” What a
loss.) Christ means the Anointed One. How did David use his power as the
anointed king? How did Jesus use his power as the Anointed One?
God of
glory, fill us with your spirit and anoint us for your work in the world. Amen
- Take bit of pure olive oil.
Anoint your hands, your eyes, your lips, your ears, your feet, your heart.
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