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SIEGFRIED & ROY AND OUR UNTAMABLE GOD, PART 1

In 1957, Siegfried and Roy met on a German cruise ship, where Siegfried worked as a steward, and Roy as a waiter. One night, while horsing around on a makeshift stage, Roy saw Siegfried pull a rabbit out of a hat. Roy asked him if he could do the same allusion using a cheetah. Roy had smuggled on board his pet cheetah named Chico. Siegfried assured him that he could, and as they say, the rest is history.

For 30 years this dynamic duo dominated the strip in Las Vegas, the entertainment capital of the world, delighting over 25 million show-goers.

After 5,000 shows using wild animals without incident, the unthinkable happened. You remember the news story. On Friday, October 3, 2003, (Roy Horn's 59th birthday) a 7-year-old, 600 pound royal white tiger named Montecore grabbed Roy by the neck and carried him offstage. Backstage show attendants doused the big cat with fire extinguishers but not before a lot of damage had been done. Roy is very fortunate to be alive.

Siegfried was quick to defend the tiger, suggesting that Montecore accidentally mauled Roy. Later he tried to get the tiger off the hook by explaining that the animal had been trying to help Horn after the illusionist slipped during the performance. More recently Roy commented that the tiger was acting strange that night; the tiger wasn’t acting like himself.

Well, I’m no authority on tigers, but it seems to me the tiger was acting an awful lot like . . . well, like a tiger.

Some animal experts would agree. “The cat wasn't trying to protect him,” said Jonathan Kraft, who runs an organization called Keepers of the Wild. “That was a typical killing bite. I admire the guys, I just think they are sending a wrong message. The message needs to be: These are wild animals.”

Louis Dorfman, an animal behaviorist from Dallas, said Siegfried’s account of an accidental mauling was "a beautiful story but it just doesn't wash.” A tiger is a tiger. The old cliché is true: You can’t tame a tiger.

This same principle rings true when it comes to God. Oh we might try to tame the Divine. Dorothy Sayers observed that the church has “very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him ‘meek and mild,’ and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.” You can try, but you cannot domesticate the Divine.

The Israelites tried--but with disastrous results. First Samuel, chapter four tells the story. I’ll read part of the story and then we’ll unpack it.

1And Samuel’s word came to all Israel.

Now the Israelites went out to fight against the Philistines. The Israelites camped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines at Aphek. 2The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield. 3When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the LORD bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the LORD’S covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.”

The Israelites were at war against the Philistines. The Philistines had come to the Holy Land from across the sea—probably from Crete. They were known as the “Sea People.” They believed in the real estate axiom, “Location, location, location”--for they settled in the coveted coastal regions of Palestine along the Mediterranean Sea. They were regarded by the Israelites as cruel barbarians.

Now there is a reason why the Philistines were so feared by the Israelites. First Samuel 13:19 gives us a snapshot of this. The text says: “Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, ‘Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!’

“So on the day of the battle, no Israel soldier had a sword or spear in his hand.” In the ancient world new technology was emerging, but it was not accessible to all nations at the same time. The Philistines were living in the Iron Age. But in Israel we’re told that “not a blacksmith could be found.” In other words, the Israelites were stuck in the Stone Age. To put it in contemporary nomenclature, the Philistines had weapons of mass destruction while Israel had slingshots.

So Israel went to war and 4,000 of their soldiers were massacred. The Israelites responded as you would expect. They debriefed, asking the obvious question: What happened? Where was God? “Why did the Lord bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines?”

Then one of the elders had an idea. He said, “I know! Let’s go into battle again, only this time, we’ll use our secret weapon. This time, let’s bring the Ark of the Covenant with us.”

Now the Ark of the Covenant was a gold-overlayed wooden chest with two cherubim on the lid which stored the tablets of the covenant; it was housed first in the tabernacle, then in the Most Holy Place room of the Jerusalem temple; it represented the presence of God within Israel. Where the Ark was, God was. So the Israelites figured, “The Philistines have weapons crafted of iron; we’ve got the Ark.”

You see, bringing the Ark into the battle was their way of cornering God to say, “Okay, Yahweh, Your reputation is on the line now. You have to come through in order to protect Your name. So long as we have God in a box and bring Him into our battle, we can’t lose.”

This represents a shift in thinking about God. No longer is He the Supreme Being of the universe that all must humbly submit to; rather, God becomes Someone they can use. They figured, “We have God in a box.”

Perhaps an episode of “The Simpsons” will help to illustrate. I am told there was a show where Homer pledged money to a PBS Telethon. He never intended to pay the pledge; but he was tired of the commercials, so he promised money he didn’t have. Well the TV executives tracked Homer down. As punishment, he was forced to serve as a missionary on a Pacific island. (I realize it’s a far-fetched plot, but hey, we’re talking cartoons.) So during this mission, Homer’s group built a new church. Now, Homer is not a spiritual guy; nevertheless, he was quite proud of their accomplishment. He stood at a distance admiring his work when he quipped, “Well, I don’t know much about God, but we sure have built him a nice little cage.”

That’s the way the Israelites had God figured. They were more or less saying, “If things don’t go our way, we’ve got the Ark. We’ve got God in a box. We don’t know much about God, but we sure built Him a nice, little cage.”

Now before we point our fingers at God’s people of old, do you suppose we might be cage builders with God as well?

John Ortberg, from whom I borrowed the Simpons story, comments:

“Sometimes, we think, ‘If I just keep up my end of the spiritual bargain in the way the spiritual life is supposed to work, if I have devotions on a regular basis or if I avoid scandals and a big sexual sin and keep my nose clean, or if I serve the church or I read the Bible, I tow the line, then God better keep up his end of the bargain. He’d better give me what I want or my faith is going to start to get pretty shaky.’”

A friend of mine pastors a church that attracts a number of guests from all over the country. He told me of one visitor who shared her story of disillusionment with God. Seems her 19-year-old daughter had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and given less than a month to live.

“I have served God for 42 years,” this woman reported to my friend, “I have been active in my local church. I put my kids through Christian schools. I have obeyed the Ten Commandments. But now I’m giving up on God. I cannot love any God who would kill my girl.”

My pastor friend shared this story from First Samuel 4 as a way to say that we can’t control God with our good deeds. Faithfulness is no guarantee that God will protect us from all harm. Remember: we cannot put God in a box.

When we try to put God in a box we can get spiritually cocky and think we know all about God--what radio station He listens to, the kind of worship He enjoys, even the style of clothing He’d wear. Soon we can develop a judgmental attitude toward others who don’t see God as we know Him to be. And we can be theologically correct right down to our decaffeinated, non-alcoholic, smoke-free, vegan little souls—because we’ve got God in a box.

But, what if it turns out that our God is not so tame? What if He is too feral and free to be controlled by our clever prayers and slick worship services and good behavior?
Tomorrow we’ll see how the Israelites learned of God’s untamable nature. And it wasn’t just the Israelites! The Philistines had a few things to learn about this powerful, untamed God as well.

But for now let me give you a take-home from our study to apply to your life. Here’s an assignment: Take time today and talk to our untamable God. Acknowledge His sovereignty. Bow in His majestic presence. Think of God as someone to serve, rather than someone to use. Humble yourself before Him, conceding any temptation to try and control Him. For in the end, our God will not be put in a box.