Speaker: Joel Miller
Text: 1 Samuel 25:1-35
Adolescence. The dictionary definition is pretty simple: “The period of life when a child develops into an adult.”
And that’s about the only thing that’s simple about adolescence.
I wonder Annabelle, Ella, Ginny, Jay, Ruby, Sam: Does life feel more or less simple than when you were, say, five years old?
This Coming of Age service is our way of honoring the transition our young people make into adolescence. If you grow up in this congregation, we want to mark this as a sacred signpost in your life. You’re no longer a child. You’re not yet an adult. It is not a simple time, but it is remarkable. It’s a stage of life like no other, when you feel, like never before, the intensity of existence. This can range from lose-your-mind excitement, to the weight of depression. In adolescence, you awaken your powers, your sexuality, your inner life, even as you start to bump up against your limitations. You confront huge questions like: Who am I? What do I want to do with my life? Who are my people? Who or what is God or Spirit or the Universe and how does the small piece of the divine within me stay connected to the whole?
You know, pretty simple stuff.
Another thing about adolescence: It’s a category of life we’ve only named for the last century, and now that we’ve named it, or created it, nobody’s really sure when it ends. In the US you become a legal adult when you’re 18. In Europe it ranges from 16 to 20. The brain doesn’t fully form until around 25, so maybe that’s a good marker? Although a study last year from the University of Cambridge pushed the adolescent stage of brain development back to 32.
Two years ago I was at a conference, at a lunch table with an elderly Jewish orthodox rabbi. His first question to me was “How old are you?”. I was 46. To which he replied, and I quote: “Adolescence ends at 50.” To which I replied something like “Sweet. I have four more years to figure things out.” So, according to that rabbi, this is what late stage adolescence looks like.
All that to say, the tasks of adolescence are so important, so vital, that we need time, we need a spacious period of life to live out everything adolescence asks of us. That’s what you’re beginning.
When we do this service we have a story from the Bible that gives us some guidance. This year it’s the story of Abigail and Nabal and David. We studied this story together, and you did a great job of presenting it this morning. I’d like use this story to talk about three tasks of adolescence. Not the only tasks, but three big ones. And I assure you, the six of you aren’t the only ones here working on these tasks.
First, some background to this story.
It takes place at a time when the people of Israel are having a Coming of Age experience of their own. Their ancestors had been enslaved in Egypt, miraculously freed, and then came to be the dominant force in the land of Canaan, which they called Israel and Judah.
In the early days, in their collective childhood, there wasn’t a clear leader. The Bible tells about local chieftains, or judges, who would rise up as temporary leaders in times of crisis. Side-note, one of these judges, Samson, who was very muscular, or “jacked” as the kids say, was an inspiration behind the invention of Superman when a couple Jewish kids from Cleveland, Ohio came up with the first American superhero, a larger-than-life figure who could fight for justice during the rise of Nazi Germany.
The last of these judges was Samuel. It was during Samuel’s lifetime that the people start asking for a king. Much of the Bible is highly skeptical of centralized power, including kingship. But it’s what the people want, and part of growing up is that you have increasing freedom to get what you want, even if it’s not what you need.
Samuel anoints the first King of Israel, Saul. And when Saul doesn’t work out so well, Samuel anoints the second king of Israel, David…while Saul is still alive, which also doesn’t work out so well.
Our story today takes place right here. Saul is still king, increasingly jealous and afraid of David. David is on the run from Saul, and kind of on the campaign trail, trying to gain support for his own power. And just now, as you said at the very beginning of your scripture presentation – Samuel has died. David, with his closest supporters, is hiding out in the wilderness with his eye on the wealthy Nabal as a key campaign contributor.
And…none of these powerful people – Not Saul, not Samuel, not David, and not Nabal end up being the main character of this story.
This brings us to the first of three tasks.
One of the great tasks of adolescence is becoming a separate, distinct person within one’s family, and culture. Psychologists call this differentiation, as in different. We are born into families, however whole or fractured, and we start our lives completely dependent on others. Another way of saying this is that we’re born into a story where we are not the main character. We grow and learn within the story we’re born into. Then we slowly start to realize that the story doesn’t just happen to us. We’re part of it. And we have decisions about how we participate in the story. Even where the story might go.
One of the burdens of adolescence is that we start to feel the uncertainties of our own individuality and responsibility. It’s those big questions we can’t avoid. Who am I? What is my life all about? Who’s with me? The key for healthy differentiation, is to become separate but to stay connected. Separate – we are ourselves and not someone else. But connected.
We are forever in relationship with the web of life. And, we are loved, unconditionally. You are loved, unconditionally, always. You are part of and apart.
Abigail is a married woman in the ancient world. Not exactly prime conditions for differentiating oneself from one’s household and culture. But this is exactly what she does. When her husband Nabal blows off David with insults, she doesn’t simply fall in line. When she learns that David will very likely retaliate with violence, she doesn’t simply change sides and join the other team. She doesn’t stick with either story. Nabal’s or David’s. Instead, she does in a couple verses what it takes us years and even decades to work out. She becomes her own person, which opens up the possibility of an alternative story. She becomes separate, but stays connected. She draws on the deepest wisdom of her ancestors while not getting stuck in their deepest mistakes.
One of the great tasks of adolescence is becoming a separate, distinct main character in the story of one’s life, in the life of one’s community, and that’s what Abigail does.
Which brings us to the second task. When Abigail learns about this trouble brewing between her husband and David, here is what she does: “Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five measures of grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys and said to her young men, ‘Go on ahead of me; I am coming after you’” (vv. 18-19). This is the image we have in front of us.
I’m yet to see a Gen Alpha American riding a donkey down the street, loaded with bread, wine, raisins, and fig cakes – but here’s the point. When Abigail realizes she has become a main character in the story, she starts to gather her gifts. This is a second great task of adolescence. It’s something you’ve been doing, but will do with greater intensity, and greater intentionality during this stage of life. As you become more and more a separate and connected person, you look within you. You look around you. You ask yourself and people you trust, maybe just in your head, or maybe out loud. What are my gifts? What has been given to me that I can offer back to the world? Not just what do I have now, but what can grow within me over time? Those loaves might need to bake a while before they’re ready to eat. That wine might take some years to age before it’s ready to drink.
Before you have “a job,” your primary job is developing your mind, your character, your compassion, your skills, your gifts. Not because you’re accumulating trophies. But because the world needs your gifts. This story needs Abigail, or it’s about to go off the rails. The community needs people who gather gifts. We hope these notebooks you receive today say that message loud and clear. We see you. We see your gifts. Keep going. Keep gathering. We’re with you all the way.
A third task follows pretty naturally from the first and second. As we become separate and more connected, grounded in unconditional love, and as we gather our gifts, we start to give our gifts away. And not just give our gifts, but I will say we risk our gifts. Which is to say, we put ourselves out into the world with no guarantees for how we’ll be received. Despite what I said about the community welcoming our gifts, there are no assurances. Only the risk of the offering.
Abigail brings her gifts out to the wilderness, to David. She has a plan. She is trying to prevent a massacre. But she can’t control how it goes. Maybe she gets ignored, maybe she gets hurt. It’s a real risk.
As the story goes, her real gift isn’t all those things loaded on the donkeys. It’s her words, and her presence. She presents David with an alternative story. It’s a story where he doesn’t need to take vengeance on the whole household of Nabal.
It’s a story where David can establish himself as a leader through mercy rather than violence.
When David hears this from Abigail, he tells her something maybe she hadn’t even considered. She is a messenger from God. Here’s what it says: “David said to Abigail, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today! Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from bloodguilt and from avenging myself by my own hand” (vv. 32-33).
So in a way, for those who love justice and peacemaking, Abigail is this alternative super-hero kind of figure. Not jacked like Samson or Superman. Something much more interesting and available to everyone. Someone who has gathered her gifts, and risked offering them back to the world. Someone who has become a messenger of God in a violent world. Like Jesus. And all our spiritual ancestors who offered an alternative story line we can follow. Like so many of the adults in this room.
The tasks of adolescence are so important, so vital, that we all need time. We need a spacious period of life to live out everything adolescence asks of us. They are tasks we never quite complete – which is a relief for those of us in our 40s and above.
As you begin this remarkable, intense, risky, gift-full time of life, always remember that you are loved without condition and without exception. It is from this place of love that you become your own person while staying connected to others, you gather your gifts, and you become the face of God to others as you offer yourself to the world.