If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.
31 March. 1 Samuel chapters 18-20
Today’s reading explores the complicated relationship between David, his patron King Saul, Saul’s daughter Michal who was given to David in marriage, and Saul’s son Jonathan who fell in love with David. It could be the plot of a soap opera – the father-in-law with a mental illness and murderous intent, the (probably gay) brother-in-law, and the wife torn between loyalties to her biological family and her husband. If God could be in this messiest of dysfunctional families, he can be with all our families, whatever their problems.
The person at the centre of all these relationships was David, and he seemed to be able to cope with all of them. When Saul sent him into the heat of battle hoping that he would be killed (as David would later do with Uriah), David returned triumphant. When Saul demanded as a dowry the foreskins of a hundred Philistine soldiers, David obliged. When he found himself loved by both Michal and her brother Jonathan, he took it in his stride (though his intimacy with Jonathan seems to have been restricted to embracing).
Finally, Saul’s threats become too much and Jonathan helps David to escape from a dangerous situation. But this is not the last we will hear of these characters.