1 Samuel 16:2. "And Samuel said, 'How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.' And the Lord said, 'Take a heifer with you, and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.''" 

The Lord was sending Samuel to Jesse in Bethlehem to anoint one of his sons as king to replace Saul. Samuel had also anointed Saul, and was saddened that Saul had turned away from the Lord and the Lord was therefore taking the kingdom from him. Samuel had just told Saul all of this, so he was also afraid to go and anoint a new king, thinking Saul would kill him if he learned of it. God's response to Samuel's fear is to tell Samuel to take a heifer with him and say he was coming to sacrifice to the Lord. God goes on to tell Samuel to invite Jesse and his sons to the sacrifice, and God will show him what to do, and who to anoint, from there.

Samuel really was going to offer the sacrifice, it was not just a cover story, but it clearly was a bit of a pretext - a way of getting Samuel to Jesse without raising suspicion. When I read this, it bothered me a little. It seems a bit manipulative. I can be too scrupulous sometimes, and reading this made that tendency kick in. It didn't seem right to me to use a sacrifice to God as a means to an end, rather than the end in and of itself. This is like going to Mass in order to encounter someone I know will be there - it's good to go to Mass, but if I have an ulterior motive, is it still good? Or am I using this incredible sacrifice and sacrament for my own purposes?

I think God gave me this reading today to show me my tendency scrupulosly overthink things. Obviously, even God sometimes tells us to use His established forms of worship for more than one reason. But I have to be careful to remember that God told Samuel to do this. Samuel didn't decide on his own that a new king had to be anointed, and choose that new king himself. Samuel didn't try to think of a way to get somewhere and decide to use a sacrifice to God as cover. In other words, Samuel was not doing his will, but God's, and that makes all the difference. So the lesson for me is if, after prayer and discernment, I truly believe God is calling me to do something, but thinking about it triggers my scrupulosity, I have to follow God, and not substitute my own, imperfect judgment. I am not allowed to be more scrupulous than God! (This reminds me of a satirical headline I saw once - "'I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself!' says woman with better moral compass than God.")

Finally, and unrelated to the above, yesterday was the Feast of the Epiphany, and the Gospel included Herod learning that a new king had been born in Bethlehem, and trying to manipulate the wise men into telling him where this new king was. Reading about Samuel, Saul, and David today raised so many similarities in my mind between those two stories! Saul is the king of the Jews, as Herod was; Saul has turned away from God, as Herod had; God was raising up a new king, from Bethlehem; and the existing king could not learn about this, at least not right away. I absolutely love how the Bible has so many signposts, foreshadowing, and iterations (one might even call them Easter Eggs;). It is amazing, and all the proof we need to know that it is divinely inspired!