A Tale of Three Kings: A Study of Brokenness

This chapter returns to David’s perspective on the circumstances of his life in Saul’s palace. When Saul hurls spears at him, David wonders what to do about it. The narrator points out to the reader how counter-intuitive David’s hesitancy is: “After all, everyone else in the world knows what to do when a spear is thrown at you. Why, you pick up the spear and throw it right back!” (17). There is an implicit connection made again to contemporary church leadership situations. The narrator suggests that someone who picks up a spear thrown by a leader (allegorically, a personal attack of some kind) and throws it in return might succeed in getting a bad leader out of power and might even rise to leadership themselves. But in that case, the narrator suggests, the act of handling things this way would not make one a good leader: “Yes, perhaps you are the Lord’s anointed. After the order of King Saul” (18).

Rather than throwing a spear back at Saul, David simply dodges them and makes no attempt to strike back. He ducks the flying spears and pretends nothing happened. The narrator relates David’s three secrets for making sure he never gets hit with a spear (which allegorically stands for a personal attack from a leader): “One, never learn anything about the fashionable, easily mastered art of spear throwing. Two, stay out of the company of all spear throwers. And three, keep your mouth tightly closed” (20). The narrator makes it clear that even though personal attacks can still sting when one is keeping these rules, they will keep one from being felled by a thrown spear.

This chapter is concerned with the allegorical application of the Saul/David story to contemporary church leadership. The narrator interacts directly with the reader (the latter of which is represented by quoted questions in the text) as they converse about a situation in which the reader’s theoretical male pastoral leader is portrayed as being like Saul: “‘My king is mad. At least, I so perceive him. What can I do?’ First, recognize this immutable fact: You cannot tell (none of us can) who is the Lord’s anointed and who is not” (21). The narrator underscores the impossibility of knowing the nature of God’s call on another person, and thus a church leader who is behaving with authoritarian brutality toward others—like Saul—might in fact still be gifted by God for leadership.

The dialogue between the narrator and reader continues, with the reader protesting that they did not like the previous chapter’s implications. The reader asks what this means for the church conflict in which they are currently engaged: “What do I do when the kingdom I’m in is ruled by a spear-wielding king? Should I leave? If so, how? Just what does a person do in the middle of a spear-throwing contest?” (23). To this, the narrator replies that neither fighting back nor leaving is usually the best answer: “The answer is ‘You get stabbed to death’” (23). Instead of worrying about the “King Saul” who is throwing spears in one’s church, the narrator advises that one’s eyes should be fixed on the “King Saul II” in one’s own heart. Part of the reason God allows Saul-figures to hold the kingship is that the experience of suffering they produce ends up leading to growth in others, to the patience and humility that flowers in the souls of the Davids who receive that treatment: “King Saul sought to destroy David, but his only success was that he became the instrument of God to put to death the Saul who roamed about in the caverns of David’s own soul” (24). The narrator advises the reader to let the “King Saul” in their own soul be put to death so that a “David” can develop there instead.