I Bet On You!
Justice Felix Frankfurter was a long time on the Supreme Court in a somewhat irascible manner. He was the master at networking and at spotting talent. He identified many gifted students at Harvard Law School, and actively and effectively supported their careers. He understood himself to follow in the succession of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and Louis Brandeis, each of whom urged “judicial restraint” and insisted that the court not preempt the law-making responsibility of Congress by being activist on the court. Frankfurter regarded Holmes as the model justice whom he wanted and tried to emulate. In his welcome biography of Felix Frankfurter, Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment (2022), Brad Synder reports that Justice Frankfurter wrote to William Coleman, his law clerk. It was,
“a joy to have worked with you for the year, and I shall watch you with great hopes.” A year later, he wrote Coleman: “What I can say of you with great confidence is what was Justice Holmes’s ultimate praise of a man, ‘I bet on him,’ I bet on you, whatever choice you may make and whatever the Fates may have in store for you’.” (p. 523)
Frankfurter, and Holmes before him, not only bet on such promising young lawyers, but mentored and energized them, promoted them, and helped them to supportive professional relationships.
Later on in speaking of Frankfurter’s tenacious loyalty to his selected favorite students, Snyder writes:
The Red Scare had destroyed Hiss’s reputation beyond repair, and, in the process, had damaged Frankfurter’s liberal network. Nothing, however, could shake Frankfurter’s loyalty to his former students, whether they became secretary of state like Dean Acheson or a convicted felon like Alger Hiss. He was invested in their lives and their careers and considered them surrogate sons. He stood by them during their successes and failures. He bet on them (p. 547).
This formula repeated from Holmes has drawn my attention. I have reflected on what it means that an adult with authority and maturity should bet on a younger person. The phrase has interested me as I have pondered my five grandchildren as they find their way to adulthood. It is the business of grandparents, I imagine, to bet on their grandchildren, and more generally for older people to bet on younger people in effective ways to invite them to find meaningful, significant, well-lived lives.
When I took Holmes’s phrase to the Bible, as is my wont, I was led to think about the familiar—and the unfamiliar—story of Samuel. The familiar part of Samuel’s story is lovely and idyllic. It begins, as so many biblical birth narratives, in barrenness (I Samuel 1:2). Hannah yearns for a son and promises that her son would be rigorously obedient to YHWH:
O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head (I Samuel 1:11).
Eli the priest hears the petition of Hannah and gives her a blessing:
Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him (I Samuel 1:17).
In due course Hannah becomes pregnant and keeps her promise that her son should be given to YHWH:
For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord (I Samuel 1:27-28).
In response to the birth and dedication of her son, Hannah offers an exuberant doxology to God (I Samuel 2:1-10). She does not sing of her son; rather, she sings of the transformative, disruptive, revolutionary power of YHWH as she anticipates the king to come (v. 10).
Early on, the boy, Samuel, (“asked of the Lord”) was assigned to work at the local sanctuary of Shiloh (2:19-3:1). The final episode in Samuel’s formation concerns his dramatic encounter with the God of whom Hannah has sung (I Samuel 3:1-19). Without explanation or embarrassment, the narrative reports the way in which YHWH, in the night, summoned Samuel:
Samuel, Samuel (3:4).
The boy thought it was the priest, Eli, calling him. The Lord called him again:
Samuel (3:6)!
By the call the third time, Eli has figured out the voice addressing Samuel:
Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” (v. 9).
Now a fourth time:
Samuel, Samuel (v. 10).
This time the connection is made; Samuel answers as he has been instructed by Eli. The connection is made, even though the news delivered is not good for Eli and his priestly family (vv. 11-14). The narrative thus concerns Samuel’s growth into his demanding vocation:
As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground (3:19).
What interests us here is that Eli bet on Samuel. He did all the prep work with the boy in order that he could be responsive to his vocation. In the end, Eli does not flinch from the hard words given to Samuel concerning his house (3:18). Thus day by day in the sanctuary Eli had nurtured and guided Samuel to be ready for this moment that would ignite his life. It is impossible to imagine the boy coming to his vocation without the good, reliable bet of Eli. Most often when we read this narrative, we stop at 3:10 with Samuel’s ready response to the summons of God. Beyond that, the narrative becomes less favorable and more demanding. The less familiar part of Samuel’s story, lacking in such brilliant idyllic charm, follows. At the outset Samuel functions to continue the line of “judges” featured in the Book of Judges. He calls for repentance, he offers sacrifices, and he mobilizes Israel to defeat the Philistines (I Samuel 7:3-16). At the end of this report, he “administers justice” (7:17).
By chapter 8 Samuel is confronted with a great crisis. He is a representative and embodiment of the old order of the judges. But now popular opinion in Israel demands a king, thus rejecting the old order of the judges in order to replicate the practice of other nations (I Samuel 8:4-18). After Samuel resists and refuses such popular opinion, he is instructed by YHWH to give in to the demand for a king (8:22). This is against Samuel’s better judgment and apparently against the better judgment of YHWH as well.
We may identify three subsequent moments in Samuel’s career. First, after the failure of Saul as king, Samuel once more performs his role as judge (I Samuel 12:1-23). His reperformance consists in three parts:
(a) He offers a statement of his own rectitude so that he can legitimately continue his leadership role:
Here I am; testify against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? Testify against me and I will restore it to you (I Samuel 12:3).
The people readily acquit him.
(b) Samuel offers a review of YHWH’s “saving deeds” upon which Israel may continue to rely:
Now therefore take your stand, so that I may enter into judgment with you before the Lord, and I will declare to you all the saving deeds of the Lord that he performed for you and for your ancestors (v. 7).
It is as though he insists that the old order is sufficient for the life and wellbeing of Israel.
(c) In his role as judge Samuel offers guidance to his people with a summons to “fear and serve” YHWH, and an assurance to the people that YHWH has not and will not reject Israel (12:20-24). This chapter is like a “last stand” for the old order of judges that Samuel has so faithfully and effectively enacted.
But then the narrative abruptly shifts gears. Samuel who has resisted kingship and rejected Saul now becomes a willing king-maker. He is led to Bethlehem where he sees and surveys the sons of Jesse. He is readily drawn to the handsome, attractive sons of Jesse as candidates for kingship; but finally he gets it right. He settles on the youngest, least noticed son of Jesse:
The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah
(I Samuel 16:12-13).
Samuel has completed his work in making Israel’s transition to monarchy. And then he died:
Now Samuel died; and all Israel assembled and mourned for him. They buried him at his home in Ramah (I Samuel 25:1).
I have wondered: did Samuel remember Eli as he resisted kingship? Did he think of Eli as he reasserted his role as judge? Did he think of Eli as he became a knowing king-maker at Bethlehem? We do not know. But Eli sure is engrained in him whether he was aware of it or not. He had been formed for this work, and he did not try to escape from the destiny into which Eli had initiated him.
We might have expected that this report of his death would be the final notice of Samuel in the narrative. But Samuel lingers (I Samuel 28:15-19). In death he is “brought up” to dispute Saul one more time. In his death-marked speech to fearful Saul, Samuel confirms the rejection of Saul and YHWH’s designation of David as king:
The Lord has done to you just as he spoke by me; for the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand, and given it to your neighbor, David (I Samuel 28:17).
In that utterance Samuel opens the way for the rule of David and the long narrative account of the dynasty of David that will eventually end in exile (I and II Kings). Samuel is this remarkable figure who presides over the decisive transformation of Israel from a tribal society to a monarchy. He is reluctant to make that move, but is swept along by the irresistible drive of David who is recognized here to be propelled by divine intention in the form and force of the Spirit.
It is never easy to see the adult in the child. But the child on whom Eli had bet turns out to be the adult who was most required in Israel. We may conclude that all that happened in the adult life of Samuel was seeded and evoked in inchoate form in the child. Samuel had been bet on by his mother, Hannah. Samuel had been bet on by the priest, Eli. Together they fashioned an identity and a calling for the boy. In the end, it is unmistakably clear that YHWH had bet on Samuel. But YHWH’s bet only came to fruition by way of Hannah and Eli, mother and priest. The fruition of such an adult can only happen via human bets. Like Holmes with his law clerks and like Frankfurter with his law students, Hannah and Eli did the betting that produced this remarkable adult who carried in his body the force of his faith (the faith of Israel) into the public domain of Israel.
It occurs to me that the church is a community that is properly engaged in betting on children and young people. There are many others who will teach children the way to “succeed,” or “do well” or “make a good living.” But the evocation of adults with sustainable character is peculiar work of the synagogue and the church upon which the future of our democratic society depends. Thus a congregation is an arena for such a bet. In the congregation every child is known by name—every child, not only the “bright and beautiful.” Every child is identified by name and supported in love and empowered to live in covenantal fidelity. Surely it is the case that baptism is the act whereby the church sacramentally bets on a child. And confirmation is the glad awareness by the young person that “I have been bet on!” Such “betting” is day-to-day thing. It is done in community, but it is a one-at-a–time act for the child. It is work that requires patience and attentiveness of a daily kind. The bet cannot be rushed, and the child, to be sure, exercises great freedom in how to live out that bet.
There is one other note to mark concerning Eli. He had failed quite miserably with his own sons (I Samuel 2:22-25, 27-34). Given his sorry failure as a parent, Eli nevertheless is empowered and authorized to be the one who would effectively bet on Samuel. It is not hard to imagine that Samuel inhaled the good words of Eli, and that these words helped to shape this adult who was given courage and resolve for his dangerous, obedient life.
At least in the Gospel of Luke there is no doubt that Jesus’ early life is narrated in a way that is patterned after the life of Samuel as a boy. Thus in her “Magnificat,” mother Mary reiterates the Song of Hannah (Luke 1:46-53; see I Samuel 2:1-10). ). Luke, moreover, in his report on Jesus as a boy, can write:
The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him (Luke 2:40).
The words are an echo of I Samuel 2:29. In due course not only mother Mary and the shepherds (Luke 2:8-20), Simeon (Luke 2:25-35), and Anna (Luke 2:36-38) all bet on Jesus. Before Luke finishes his narrative of the child, he will exclaim that God bet on Jesus at his baptism:
And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).
God bet on Jesus:
The Spirit the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19).
God bet on Jesus to live a transformative life in the world among the needy. God bet on Jesus to sustain his obedience all the way to Friday, not to flinch before the powers who would finally execute him. God bet on Jesus early Sunday to initiate the new age of resurrection. In the church’s mumbling, long-term effort to articulate the mystery of “Incarnation and Trinity,” our attempt is to show how it is that God bet on Jesus, the way a Father would bet on a Son.
It follows, does it not, that as God bet on Jesus, so God bets on the people of Jesus,
to do the transformative work for the disinherited,
to engage in risky obedience, and
to sign on for life in the new age of love and justice, righteousness and compassion.
Imagine what it is like, in our “dark night,” to ponder the mystery that we have been bet on by the God who does not flinch from very long odds.
Walter Brueggemann
November 11, 2022
