Saviors, Books, and Kings Starting with S

I have an uneasy relationship with Jesus, though I do have to say that when he calls me into his office, he’s as patient as he is disappointed. He is as Gerald depicted him. I sit down across the desk. And he looks at me for a minute—a long minute—then he begins shaking his head and saying my name, over and over again, “Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick. What am I going to do with you?” And I shrug. And he shakes his head again. “Oh, boy!” he sighs. And he lets me go.

I have an uneasy relationship with books. Perhaps it’s the result of their shape; they’re much more angular than Jesus, and angrier. They call down from their shelves, “Hey! You! Hey!” A cacophony of voices: shrill, gruff, sharp, whinging. The ones I haven’t read want to be read. The ones I have read want to be read again. This isn’t a metaphor. To get away from the noise I have to leave my office and go for a walk.

“Uneasy is the head that wears a crown.” That’s Henry IV, Part 2 (Act III, Scene 1). Henry is in his bedchamber, talking to himself. How is it that his subjects are asleep, and he cannot sleep? Even, a ship-boy sleeps, in the middle of the roughest storm. What’s the story? Can repose bring sleep

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

I’m start thinking on my walk about crowns, because I’m trying to think about power. And I’m trying to think about power, because I’m trying to make sense of the epistle lesson for Sunday. It’s First Corinthians 1, where Paul argues—louder than any book—that the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God more powerful (v. 25).

And for some reason I think about Jack Levine’s “portrait” of King David. It’s in one of my books, a reproduction, somewhere. Not that I can find it when I get back. But I do find Levine’s depiction of King Saul (from 1952). I also bump into Konrad Witz’s painting of Solomon and Sheba (1435). Both kings wear uneasy crowns.

Saul’s is a turban with a golden dome. (I’m sorry I can’t find a link to this; or I can but it doesn’t link. If you do, let me know.) And it sits not so much uneasy as ignored. Also ignored is the curved sword at Saul’s belt. It isn’t as if the king, worn and bleary-eyed—sleeping no better than Henry—it isn’t as if Saul has forgotten he’s king, but he wishes he could, staring past the viewer into some middle distance. But he can’t see far enough to remember before, his rambunctious beginnings, the innocent energy of his young manhood, so he can’t see either past his troubles, now longstanding. But soon they’ll be over. Let David have the @#%*&@ throne.

David hovers over Saul’s present and future; he looms over Solomon’s past and present. At least, that’s the way I read Witz’s dual portrait of the young king receiving Sheba. We don’t know much about the Swiss painter of this quick-frozen scene, but can see that he was a master of texture: the king’s robe is a richly embroidered green; the queen’s is plainer but substantial, and her white head-dress wraps elegantly about her fine-featured face. Oh, but his grand red hat is . . . well, rather too grand. It makes his small, smooth face seem even smaller. Under it Solomon is not wise at all but a small boy in his father’s fedora, falling down over his ears.

God’s weakness, I’m inclined to believe, doesn’t have to be too powerful to be stronger than men, for even the strongest of us are frail of body, faint of heart, and feeble of spirit, beaten down by the past, laid low by our futures. Except,

Except, Paul says, we are not perishing, for we have that weakness—and the foolishness—of God.

Let’s hope.

Rick