This sermon is built around a question, a question which I am not even going to try to answer. If this kind of sermon, one of questions not answers, disturbs you, then we are in trouble. But I'm prepared to leave you disturbed, for you are in good company. The question I find so hard to answer has disturbed and troubled the people of God since the time of Samuel the prophet. The way the question is put in the passage from 1 Samuel which was our scripture reading today is: "Is there any other way, for the people of God, than the way of the King?" That may not be one of the burning questions of your life right now (you not being overly concerned with kings or their ways), but bear with me.

You heard, in the scripture, the story of a day when the people of God came to Samuel saying: "Appoint f…