2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
How the mighty have fallen.” those words, which have become a cliche’ spoken at the demise of almost every powerful person at their physical or political collapse were first recorded on the lips of mighty King David when he heard of the death in battle of his predecessor King Saul and his beloved friend Jonathan.
“How the mighty have fallen” could pertain to David himself at the conclusion of today’s first reading when we see a broken man slowly climbing the stairs to his bedroom muttering the words: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”1
This is not the man we know. This is not the man we have been reading about through the warm summer Sundays here in this place. This is not the mighty man who has been passed down to us in legend and lore but rather a broken man, a defeated man.
When we think of David, we think of him as the handsome young man chosen by Samuel to be the next King of Israel even though he was the youngest of all the son’s of Jesse and a mere shepherd at the time.
When we think of David we think of him as the underdog who takes on the giant Goliath armed with on a few smooth stones and the word of the Lord: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty...”2
And yes, if we are honest and have a very good memory, we also remember David as the one who took another man’s wife to be his own and then used the power of his kingship to get that poor man “tanked” and sent into battle more than a little bit hung over where he is killed.
In the words of Nathan his “He is the man.” Not in the sense we use “You’re the man!” (As in “You’re the man!” Who wouldn’t want somebody to say that about us. “Hey! You’re the man!) but he is the man who is going to be the downfall of not only himself but his household.
Remember Nathan, speaking on behalf of the LORD, told him that there would be “trouble for you out of your own family.”3
That trouble comes in the person on one of David’s own sons, Absalom, who has designs on his father’s kingship and kingdom. He accuses his father of failed leadership and not listening to the complaints and concerns of the people. His platform: “The king is out of touch and I would be a much better king than he would. I would be more fair, more just, more understandings. You would never have a better king than me.”
To make matters worse he embarrasses his father David in front of the entire kingdom by taking some of the king’s harem to be his own. The people find this out and suddenly David becomes weak in their eyes.
David is weak and Absalom is strong and suddenly the people are choosing up sides and a war is started. It’s David’s troops versus Absalom’s troops in a fight to the finish.
Even in a weekend when Chicago’s Air and Water Show celebrates our nation’s military might we are reminded that as the saying goes: “War is not healthy for men, women, children, and other living things.”
We see it in Gaza where in retaliation for an attack an entire region full of people are being displaced at best and blown to bits at worse. School children even! We see it in Sudan where warring tribes are battling each other and causing famine in the land. We see it in the Ukraine where people are fighting and dying to keep their nation free from a despot.
One of the things I kept thinking about as Lowell and I watched Friday’s rehearsals for this weekend’s “Air and Water Show” was when the Blue Angel’s F-18 Super Hornets where flying over the lakefront in one noisy pass after another showing one aerobatic skill after another that made it look like we were watching a “Top Gun” movie how glad I was that this was just a show and just how frightening this would be if this were for real! Being buzzed by jet fighters you can only hear at first and only see when they are almost on top of you has to be something that is beyond terrifying. No, “war is not healthy for men, women, children and over living things.”
Casualties are inescapable as King David finds out as he tries to spare his son Absalom from harm. He tells his general: “Be gentle with the young man Absalom for my sake.”4
David still wants to be in control. He somehow believe that in the midst of war he can choose who will live and who will die. He doesn’t seem to care how many other mothers, fathers, sisters, or brothers go to bed that night weeping over the death of a loved one so long as he doesn’t. It seems that it is fine for everyone else to experience the horrors of war so long as he doesn’t. Unfortunately, there is no escaping what he and his son Absalom in their quest for power and brought on their people.
At first what happens to Absalom is an accident. “Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak. His head caught fast in the oak, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on.”5
Left hanging in midair he is an easy target and, against King David’s direct order, he is easily killed by his own father’s troops.
This is another one of those moments where people who want to ban books prove that they have not read the bible. This passage should have come with a “trigger warning” like they have on television. “The following scenes may be hard to watch.”
The news is hard to bear for the young man’s father because even mighty King David can’t escape the horrors of war. And so, he leaves us climbing the stairs, overcome by grief and moaning, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"6
You may be wondering, as I have been, for the last few weeks what has gone wrong with King David. This is not the David we know! This is not Michelangelo’s David proud and handsome. This is a once mighty man who has fallen.
I think what happened to David is that he became “full of himself” and thought he could do anything to anyone and get away with it. He even thought that he could wage a war against his son and have that very same son remain unscathed. He thought he, and he alone, was the master of his fate.
In reading over these stories again I realized that someone was missing and that someone was God. There is no sense of asking, “What is God’s will here?” in the life of King David. He is going to do what he wants to do wherever he wants to do it.
I like to think that crying his eyes out on his bed David discovered something. I’d like to think he discovered that he wasn’t the centre of the universe, God was. I’d like to think that he realized that he caused all the mayhem in his life. I’d like to think that this realization caused him finally, finally to rely upon God’s grace.
And I’d like to think that this very same realization has drove us to this place this morning. It is the realization that we need grace in our lives and that is what worship reminds us.
I think what we are doing right now reminds us that there is more to life than personal power and might. I think what we are doing right now is so counter cultural that many do not understand it.
Confessing that “we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves” is pretty radical stuff. And hearing that in this place, and may I add only in a place called church that, in Christ, you have received, “the entire forgiveness of all your sins” is even more radical.
You are not hearing this kind of thing listening to the Sunday Morning “Sabbath gas bags” on television.
You're not hearing this kind of thing alone on your Sunday morning run unless you are remembering where you’ve heard it and deciding to pick-up the pace so you can hurry back to the place where you will hear it again.
You're not hearing this jammed in with thousands of your closest friends to watch “magnificent men in their flying machines” on Chicago’s lakefront. But you will hear it here so that later in the week when, just when you need it most, it will come to you with all the force of a hint and power beyond measure. Because you heard it here.
Here in this place we have been reminded that there is something more. That what is important is grace. Grace that comes into our hearts and into our hands in the humblest of acts.
As we come forward and Christ comes to us and we hear those words “for you” we receive something worth more than power and might but in the simplest forms of communion’s bread and wine, we receive a glimpse of eternity lived in God’s grace.
So come to that place where Christ is our host, our gift and our guest realize that even when you fall and fall mightily, Christ will still be there to raise you up. Raise you up in God’s grace.
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1. 2 Samuel 1:25a. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version] Updated edition.
2. 1 Samual 17:45. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]
3. 2 Samuel 12:7-12. (MESSAGE) MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).
4. 2 Samuel 18:5. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]
5. 2 Samuel 18:9. (NRSVUE)
6. 2 Samuel 18:33. (KJV) [KJV=The King James Version]
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