Over the last few weeks we’ve traced the story of King David. My colleagues Alisdair and Christian preached powerfully on the sins of David and his repentance. Today, we hear the heartbreaking story of David’s loss of his son, Absalom.
Those who crafted the Revised Common Lectionary, the schedule of readings we follow in this church, have made some pretty egregious cuts to the story that provide very important context. I want to look at what’s been left out.
I’m going to echo Al’s earlier content warning. There will be discussions of violence, sexual assault, incest, and the loss of children. Please do what you need to take care of yourself. We’re holding you in love.
Two weeks ago, Al preached about David’s rape of Bathsheba. But the child conceived from that assault is not Solomon.
Last week, Nathan confronted David and David confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord.” We don’t hear what happens after that, though, so I’ll tell you. Nathan says, “Now the Lord has put away your sin. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die.”
And then, “The LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became very ill.”
David fasts and prays, but the child still dies. The writers do not call the baby David or Bathsheba’s child, but “the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David.” Depending on how Bathsheba felt about it (which we are not privy to), we have to accept the possibility that she could have seen this as a mercy. When the child dies, David puts on clean clothes and eats. When his servants question him about this, he says that when the child was still alive, he thought maybe he could change God’s mind, but now it’s too late. He then says something very sad and rather haunting: “I shall go to the child, but he will not return to me.” The word translated ‘go’ first appears in the Book of Genesis, describing the LORD ‘walking’ in the Garden in the cool of the evening, only to discover the beloved children She had placed there now hide from her in fear.
Put a pin in that, will you?
After the child is dead, “David consoled his wife Bathsheba, and went to her, and lay with her; and she bore a son, and he named him Solomon. The Lord loved him, and sent a message by the prophet Nathan; so he named him Jedidiah, because of the Lord.” The name ‘Solomon’ means ‘peace.’ ‘Jedidiah’ means ‘beloved of God.’ These names suggest that God feels this child was conceived in peace and love. David remembers who God is, de-centers himself, and treats Bathsheba like a human being for the first time in the narrative. Then, at the next battle, David, rather than staying home, goes out and helps his people. All is well again.
Except, no.
David’s grown children repeat his sins, only worse.
While the story of David and Bathsheba has been interpreted in a variety of ways over the years, the story of David’s firstborn son Amnon and the rape he commits against his half-sister Tamar is not open to interpretation. The text tells us explicitly that Amnon coerces Tamar into his home and violently assaults her, despite her pleading for him not to. Once he’s finished, the text says he’s disgusted with her and has his servants physically force her out of the house in tears.
David is enraged...but does nothing. The text again is explicit. This is because Amnon is his firstborn, his favourite, the golden child.
Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, plots revenge. He lures Amnon to his house for a festival, makes him drunk, and has him murdered. Absalom then flees, as his father once did from Saul.
David is once again distraught, but manages to forgive Absalom, who returns from exile after many years. But of course, Absalom has lost all respect for David, and tries to stir up a revolt to take the crown himself.
Can you blame him?
This is the background for today’s reading. Joab arranges for the murder of Absalom against David’s wishes. We then hear David’s truly heartbreaking lament for his son, one of the most masterfully composed passages in the Hebrew Bible.
As much sympathy as I have for David, it’s easy to see how his choices could lead to this. He, of course, was God’s favourite, and he committed a horrible crime against an innocent woman and her husband. When his son does the same thing, David has a chance to understand the grief of God’s own heart, watching a beloved child commit a heinous act. Good parents know that consequences must follow acts of cruelty. Good parents know you don’t sacrifice one child for another.
But David can’t do what needs to be done. Not to his special boy.
Has he stopped believing that God is on his side?
There isn’t much left in David’s story. Solomon ascends as king, and while God does love Solomon dearly, he too disappoints God in the end, disobeying God’s commandments and forcing hard labour on the people as Pharaoh once did. Solomon’s son Rehoboam, who succeeds him, promises even worse hardship upon the people. The Israelites depose him and anoint Jeroboam as king. The line of David is broken.
I can’t help but remember First Samuel Chapter 8, when the Israelites ask the prophet Samuel to appoint them a king: “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
When Saul took spoil from holy war against God’s commandment, they should have remembered those words. When David raped Bathsheba and murdered Uriah, they should have remembered. When Solomon and Rehoboam imposed slavery upon the people, they should have remembered. But the people whom God had set apart as “a royal priesthood and a holy nation” wanted to be like other nations.
Why? Maybe they, too, had stopped believing that God was on their side.
So – do we do this?
Do we, individually or corporately, trust things in place of God in our lives? Wealth, power, ideology, privilege? Do we believe that there will never be enough grace to go around, and so turn away from God’s call to embody reckless, Jubilee grace?
Do we have the courage to admit when we’ve messed up – or, like David, or indeed, our great grandfather Adam, do we try to hide instead?
Do we believe all is lost, that God’s promises can’t be for us?
Remember the words of David I mentioned before: “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” That word ‘go’ is not just a memory of God walking only to learn we had severed Her trust. It’s not just the bittersweet hope of a grieving father.
It’s also the word used to describe Enoch and Noah, who “walked with God.”
And while the child David lost will not return, that word is also used to describe the actions of the raven and the dove returning to the ark, and the receding of the Flood waters from the earth.
We Christians are ourselves a people of return.
Yes, human beings hide, deny, betray, abuse, and kill. It has been so from the beginning.
And we are told, over and over again, that we can walk with God, and return to God’s safe harbour, even over the waters of a Flood sent to destroy the earth.
Even from the stone tomb of death.
Like David we can repent from abuse, and choose kindness.
Like Solomon, Jedidiah, we can live into the truth of our belovedness, and ask God not for wealth or long life, but for wisdom, as Solomon will do in next week’s reading.
Even at the end of the world, we’re invited into conversation, lament, repentance, and covenant, even when we make all of the worst choices.
Especially when we make all of the worst choices.
The manna of God’s love does not burn away at first light.
God’s love was never pilgrimage rations. God’s love is a banquet.
Do you believe?
