Loading...Fr. Matt's Sermon Text
Among the reasons that a monarchy was not God’s best plan for how Israel was to order its life is the fact that such structures regularly turn in on themselves. The focus becomes on maintaining power, which often gets distorted by the exercise of power in the service of the powerful.
We have seen that in the story of King David, who had a very bad run of self-serving behavior, but when called on it by Nathan the prophet, came to his senses, repented, and made a new start with the Lord. And yet, as Alan Jones, in his book Passion for Pilgrimage, reminds us, “Our behavior has consequences, even dire ones.” [Alan Jones, Passion for Pilgrimage. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, 26.] For King David, the dire consequences of his behavior are self-serving and destructive conduct within his household that ultimately leads to open rebellion of son against father and the battle in the forest of Ephraim that is the story of this 10th episode of our Summertime Saga.
David loved Absalom dearly. He was quite a spectacle. A few chapters earlier in 2nd Samuel there is this description of Absalom: “In all Israel there was no one to be praised so much for his beauty as Absalom; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him” (2 Samuel 14:25). Perhaps those good looks led to Absalom thinking too highly of himself because he began to sow dissension in the kingdom, and in 2 Samuel 15 we read that, “Absalom stole the hearts of the people of Israel.” Not only did Absalom steal hearts, he also recruited an impressive cohort of fighting men, whom he summoned to bring the reign and the life of his father to an end.
The waves of conflict crest at the battle in the forest of Ephraim, a region of heavy woods and thickets east of the Jordan River. Before sending his troops in, David gives specific instructions to, “deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom” (2 Samuel 18:5). David may still hold out hope for reconciliation, while Absalom’s preferred outcome to the feud would be for his father to be the only casualty, after which all Israel, Absalom supposes, will unite around him. Neither Absalom’s wish for his father’s demise, nor David’s command that his son be spared are to be. The battle is a victory for the men of David, a crushing defeat for the men of Absalom. Even the forest is against them, a literary device to show that the God of creation is on the side of David. Absalom, riding his mule, the preferred mount for royalty, through the thick woods, becomes entangled by the neck in the crook of a great oak tree, and there, hanging between heaven and earth, is lethally struck by Joab and his armor-bearers, who send a Cushite, a foreigner from a place south of Egypt, to bring the tidings to David. When David hears of it, there goes up one of the most heartfelt laments in all of holy Scripture.
The rebellion is over, but the beloved son, whose final moments were spent hanging between heaven and earth, is gone, his body, according to 2nd Samuel 18:17, thrown into a great pit in the forest and covered with a very great heap of stones. The cost of rebellion for a father who loves his son is terrible indeed.
This story of a rebellion in Israel points to a larger story of humanity’s rebellion against God. The prayer book catechism gets to the heart of the reason for our rebellion by stating that we put ourselves in the place of God [BCP 845], displaying the pride that is the heart of the human condition distorted. We were not created for such discordance, but to live, as the catechism teaches us, in harmony with creation and with God. [BCP 845.} And what lengths did God the Father undertake in order to restore the harmony, giving his beloved Son to hang in cruciform agony, suspended between heaven and earth, descending into a great abyss, seemingly gone to perdition, a great stone set in place. Terrible indeed is the cost of human rebellion to a Father’s love of his Son. But, this Father is also the God of creation, who is on the side of his Son, whose great love raises the Son triumphantly over death, the great enemy of all creation, including the human.
Now this Son lives and reigns. This Son who shares in the nature of our Father, whose love is a continual self-giving, by continuing to give himself to as as the living bread, so that we may be restored to harmony and share in the divine life that deprives death of its sting; and to share in the divine nature by giving of ourselves to make known the deep satisfaction of soul hunger and thirst that is offered to all people in Jesus, the bread of life.
May it ever be that we live, not to put ourselves in the place of God, but instead by the Spirit to live according to the will of God, and draw others into the grace of God.
