2 Samuel 22: 2-4, 17-20, 32-36, 47-51 2 Samuel 23:1-7
Give that back.
No, it’s mine.Hunh-un, it’s everyones.
Nunh-un, it’s mine.
No…. Yes…. No…. Yes….
Does that sound at all familiar? If it doesn’t, please tell me how you managed
to get through life up to this point without hearing that because it’s a very
common refrain in our home. Usually it
ends with tears or with one of us stepping in and saying something like, “Boys! (pause) Give me the ball. (pause) Sebastian is right. This was your ball when we first got it, but
we’ve had it for awhile now and everyone in the family is allowed to play with
it. Can you share nicely, or does the ball
need to have a time out?”
Sometimes it’s Sebastian and sometimes it’s Alistair. It could be a ball or a car or any one of the
toys that we have at home. But the
refrain is always the same. Someone had
a toy and someone took the toy without asking or offering to play with it
together, and the highest authority that my boys seem to be able to appeal to
is ownership, better known as “mine, mine, mine.”
I suppose that I should be grateful that we have progressed
beyond the point of simply grabbing on the assumption that possession is 9/10ths
of the law, and I am definitely relieved that we don’t have to deal with a
child who resorts to the power of superior strength (at least not yet). But, I am really, really tired of having to
referee playtime so that everyone can have fun … at least everyone except me.
I suppose that all of this could be “just the way kids are,”
but I can’t help wondering if part of the struggle to get my children to share
well might grow from my own patterns of interaction. I am not one to simply grab my “things” out
of the hands of my children or my wife for that matter … at least not unless
the objects are dangerous or delicate, but I do react strongly when the boys
pick up “adult” objects like necklaces or checkbooks. And, I have been known to get disproportionately
upset when I discover that my pillow has become one of the props for
playtime. (DO NOT TOUCH MY PILLOW. Don’t judge me, please. We all have our own little hang-ups.)
But that’s not what I really wonder about because the back
and forth isn’t just about who gets to have what toy. It happens every time the boys have a
disagreement about anything. It always
seems to come down to “yes … no … yes … no,” and I suspect that the boys may be
picking up on my own need to have the last word. I suspect that they may have understood that
a truth about our society. Very often,
the person who gets the last word in is – or seems to be – the winner, and they
want very much to be the winner.
They’ve got it right, you know. It is always the winner who gets the last
word. It’s the people who end up in
control who have the power to write history – or the present – into whatever
form they want to. The history books
when I grew up said nothing about the intentional use of small-pox carrying
blankets to destroy or at least weaken the native peoples of the Americas so
that Europeans could lay claim to this land or that the United States received
a message of surrender days before the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. I wonder how many countless
other events that we would call atrocities if we considered them have been
conveniently shoved under the carpet by those who want to claim that their
lofty accomplishments were not brought about by horrible means.
In the back of our minds, we know that this is the
truth. We know it because we do it on a
small scale every day. We tell each
other … and sometimes even ourselves … that the mean way we treat people or the
things that we do even though we shouldn’t are okay. Or if they are not really “okay,” then they
are at least justified. Or if there’s really
not a justification, then we try to believe that it all comes down to a matter
of perspective, that we didn’t know … didn’t understand what our actions would
do to other people. And if that doesn’t
work, we just close our eyes and forget.
There’s a whole lot of forgetting in this world right
now. There’s so much that we don’t want
to remember because it saps the energy of our hope and faith to face the
realities. It’s so much easier to let
things slip by us, turning a blind eye to the suffering and injustice that we
know is there even if we won’t quite look at it straight on. The thing is, if we won’t even look at the
inhumanity of our world, how on earth will we ever be able to work at changing
anything?
Our commitment to forgetting is not unique. People have been selective about what they
want to remember throughout history. We
choose to hold the greatest moments of our families or tribes or nations or
whatever groups we belong to. Every once
in awhile, we record the worst moments as well.
And that mix of the great and the horrible is what comes to define
us. It gives us an understanding of our
past, shows us where we have been headed, and lays out the building blocks of
our future.
One of the great gifts of the histories in the Hebrew
Scriptures (and the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel fit into
that category) – one of their great gifts to us is that they were allowed to
include so much of the day to day. The
good stuff and the bad stuff as well as the defining moments. That gives us a much greater understanding of
who we have been in relationship to God.
It acknowledges that even the greatest of heroic rulers is nothing like being
perfect, and it shows us how even the least esteemed people among us can
accomplish great things.
So, we have heard the story of a faithful woman, Hannah, who
patiently and passionately railed at YHWH for withholding the blessing of a
child, and we have heard how she was rewarded with a son who became the last,
great judge of Israel. We have heard of
Eli’s failure as a priest and his courage and wisdom in stepping aside and
guiding Samuel on his own journey. We
know how Samuel whined and complained about the coming of the kings, and we can
remember how he sought out both Saul and David, naming them each YHWH’s chosen
in turn.
We have heard how Saul grew in power and wisdom and became a
great king who righteously obeyed YHWH and drove back all of Israel’s
enemies. And we have heard how Saul
became too full of himself and his own power, how he forgot the power behind
the throne and lost the support of his God.
We can remember the story of how he descended into despair and a kind of
madness so obsessed with killing David that he brought about the death of his
own son.
And we have heard the story of David’s reign with all its
ups and downs. We know how he started
out as a shepherd boy nearly forgotten in the fields. We have heard how he slew Goliath and began
the defeat of the Philistines. We can
tell of the mercy he showed when he spared Saul’s at least three times even as
he was defending himself from that paranoid king. And we have also gotten to hear the stories
of how David failed to do the will of YHWH, how he had a friend and supporter
killed in battle so that he could seduce that man’s wife, and how he ended up
killing his own son just as Saul had before him.
That history – that raw history is a gift to us because it
lets us join in the story. Hannah, Eli,
Samuel, Saul, David – they were by no means perfect people. They are people that we can imagine ourselves
being. They felt things that we have
felt. They did things that we might do
ourselves. But here, at the end of 2nd
Samuel, we have, perhaps, the greatest gift of the whole two books. In these last words of king David, we have a
window onto the deeper truth of the story.
We have an opening into understanding the story that is within,
underneath, and surrounding the tales of the kings.
These two scriptures – the two psalms of David that are
included at the end of the books of Samuel serve another purpose besides just
summing up David’s life. They mirror the
song of Hannah that Carrie shared with us six weeks ago. Together, the songs form a theological
context in which the whole story of Samuel and Saul and David should be
understood. It’s a context that we don’t
usually get to hear because of the way that we pick scriptures here and there
for our worship, but it’s an essential counterpoint to our sense of the glorification
of the kings and especially king David.
1st and 2nd Samuel are not simply a
tale of power and conflict as the kingdom of Israel arose. They are about the deliverance of YHWH – of
the God who has chosen to act in this world in order to bring about a deeper
Shalom – a deeper wholeness and peace.
With Hannah’s doxology at the beginning and David’s psalm of praise at
the end, it was easier for Israel to remember – to remember and believe – that
even though it was by David’s hand that they were saved from the hands of the nations
around them, it was always and everywhere YHWH – the God of Israel – who was
the true source of their deliverance.[1]
David’s last words – the words that he spoke as he reflected
on his own life were not words of regret or words of self-congratulation. They were words of praise and thanksgiving
that spoke the truth that YHWH had had, that God always has the last word … and
that word is salvation…. And if we have
been able to see ourselves in David and in the other characters in these
stories – if we have been able to step into these scriptures through them, then
we also can take this truth for ourselves.
YHWH is our deliverer just as she was theirs.
YHWH is our deliverer just as she was theirs….
But what do we do with that truth? YHWH is our deliverer, our salvation, and
…. Does it actually make any difference?
Does it make any difference to you?
In my better moments, that gives me hope and courage. Remembering that others before me have been
through the same struggles and were able to do some things well, to overcome
their failings with God’s help – that gives me the strength to resist despair
and to imagine a future that is different.
At other times, it at least gives me relief. I am not the end of the story … or its
beginning. The last word will always be
God’s, and I am no more and no less than an imperfect channel for that
benediction.
Grace, mercy, and hope … that’s what it means for me.
What does it mean for you?
[1]
Walter Brueggeman, First and Second Samuel in the Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for teaching and preaching (John
Knox Press, Louisville 1990) 339.
