Jesus: Son of David, Son of God
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
January 11, 1998
Memory Verse: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David." (Luke 1:32)
Today's Texts: 2 Samuel 7:8-16, Psalm 132:11-18 and Matthew 2:1-12
Prayer: Holy One of Israel, you made a covenant with your servant David that would last forever. You promised to raise up a Branch that would execute justice and righteousness. In Jesus Christ we see and hear the fulfillment of that promise. Come Lord Jesus, and speak to us your word. Amen.
This morning I start a new sermon series on the connections between Jesus and David. It is my hope and conviction that we will receive much spiritual value from comparing and contrasting these two pivotal lives in the Jewish and Christian traditions.
Although the impetus for this series began last summer at Chautauqua, when I had the opportunity to read Walter Brueggemann's book on David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory, I decided to schedule it for the Sundays after Epiphany because of the connotations and emphases during this season of the church year.
Epiphany is a late and conflicted development in the history of the Christian calendar. You are, perhaps, aware that Sunday was the first and defining celebration of Christianity. Growing out of Judaism, Christians had been in the habit of worshiping on Friday evening and observing the Sabbath on Saturday. The resurrection of Jesus Christ turned Sunday into "the Lord's Day," when Christians would gather to remember and celebrate God's victory over sin and death.
Growing out of Judaism, Christians had also been in the habit of keeping a lunar calendar with regular and specific holidays including Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, and the annual day of atonement known as Yom Kippur. Passover and Pentecost were quickly taken over and given new meaning by Christians. Instead of commemorating the release of Israel from Egyptian slavery, Passover was now remembered as the time when God raised Jesus from the dead. Instead of celebrating the spring wheat harvest and the giving of the Law on Sinai, Shavuot was celebrated as the time when God gave the Spirit to the church in a dramatic act of divine empowerment.
That may have been all there was to the Christian calendar for the first two hundred years of the church's existence: Sunday morning worship plus Easter and Pentecost. Eventually, however, the church recognized additional days in the liturgical calendar which grew out of its own unique experience of God, having nothing to do with the ancient Jewish festal cycle. Epiphany is one such day, focusing on the mystery of the incarnation -- God's word made human in Jesus of Nazareth. Epiphany actually arose before Christmas, although you would never know it from the general neglect of Epiphany in our culture.
The word Epiphany is a Greek word meaning "revelation" or "manifestation." The day of Epiphany was focused on the revelation or manifestation of God in Jesus Christ, not through his death and resurrection but through his birth and life. It, and the Sundays which follow it, explore the dimensions of Jesus' divinity as the Anointed One of God. At its inception, Epiphany was associated with Jesus' birth, baptism, and first miracle -- turning the water into wine at the Cana wedding feast. Some of the Eastern churches still celebrate the birth of Christ on January 6, but most churches have moved that celebration to December 25th -- leaving Epiphany to commemorate the coming of the wise men twelve days later.
I have talked before in this pulpit about these liturgical and theological developments in the history of the Christian church. The first sign of Jesus' divinity was the resurrection itself. Others had performed miracles, and some had even raised people from the dead, but no one had been raised from the dead without human intervention under the watchful eye of armed Roman guards. Easter was viewed as the consummate act of God, validating and anointing Jesus as the Christ. The apostle Paul, earliest of all the New Testament authors, put it this way about 25 years after the Easter event: Jesus Christ our Lord "was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead." (Romans 1:3-4).
The gospel of Mark, which was probably written about 15 years later, shortly after the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D., moves the anointing of Jesus as the Son of God back to the time of his baptism at the hands of John the Baptist. Mark contains no information about Jesus' birth or childhood. Jesus simply appears on the scene at the Jordan River, where John was baptizing. When Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were torn apart, the Spirit descended upon him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, saying, "You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:10-11). Now, instead of coming at the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus' anointing as the Son of God is moved up to the beginning of his ministry.
The gospels of Matthew and Luke, the authors of which apparently made use of the gospel of Mark as a source of information, move the anointing back even further to the time of Jesus' birth. When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary in the gospel of Luke, he tells her that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and cause her to bear a Child who will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). We read a similar story in the gospel of Matthew, after which this morning's New Testament lesson immediately follows.
The wise men from the East travel to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the Child who has been born king of the Jews?" Being directed by the temple priests and scribes to Bethlehem, the city of David, the wise men were overwhelmed with joy when they finally arrived at the house where Jesus was born. Recognizing his divine anointing from the celestial signs which had guided them along their journey, the wise men paid homage to the Child, offering him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. For one brief moment in time, Jesus was being treated like a king.
The last gospel to be written, the gospel of John, moves the anointing back even earlier than Matthew and Luke. It was no longer the resurrection, as in Paul, which established Jesus as the Son of God. It was no longer the baptism, as in Mark. It was not even his conception and birth. In the gospel of John, Jesus is described as the preexistent Word of God -- the Logos -- who was in the beginning with God -- and who was God -- come to earth in human form. John's gospel, which aimed to make the Christian message intelligible to Gentile citizens of the Greco-Roman world, argues that the anointing always belonged to Jesus. "The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only Son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).
Epiphany is the time between Christmas and Lent when we look for signs of Jesus' anointing as the Son of God. Nothing is off limits except the final act of Jesus' life, namely his death and resurrection. Everything else is fair game, from his birth to his baptism to his miracles to his transfiguration on Mount Hermon. These extraordinary events are taken as clear and incontrovertible evidence that Jesus was indeed Emmanuel, which means, "God with us."
But there are other ways to see the divinity of Christ than through these curious, unexplained mysteries. One way, adopted by the writers of the New Testament themselves, is to see Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. This is indeed the most common route of all. Practically every book in the New Testament makes use of Old Testament quotations, allusions, and themes. The gospels were particularly prone to speak in terms of promise and fulfillment. They found one passage after another to bolster their claim that Jesus was, in fact, sent by God according to the scriptures.
John Shelby Spong in his book Liberating the Gospels goes so far as to argue that the promises of the Old Testament shaped the development and even the content of the Jesus story itself. Once people became convinced that the presence of God had been in their midst, they crafted a story that lent credence to their claims. They were not interested in writing an historically accurate biography according to the standards of the late 20th century. They were interested in writing a spiritually compelling biography that gave expression to their experience and faith. This approach represented a time-honored tradition within Judaism which Spong calls the midrashic method. It is a matter of searching and applying the Hebrew scriptures to expose the truth of God.
One of the Hebrew themes picked up by all of the major New Testament authors was that Jesus was descended from the line of David. The midrashic method would hardly have allowed any other pedigree for the Son of God. To understand this, we must understand David and the history of Israel.
Walter Brueggemann writes that "David is the dominant figure in Israel's narrative. Only Moses receives as much attention, but the narratives concerning Moses move in a very different direction. More than any other person, Israel is fascinated by David, deeply attracted to him, bewildered by him, occasionally embarrassed by him, but never disowning him. David is one of those extraordinary figures who has a literary future. That is, his memory and presence keep generating more and more stories."
"One must, of course, recognize that others formulated those stories, perhaps even fabricated them. But surely there can be no doubt that it is David's magnificent and mysterious person that generated them, perhaps because Israel could never quite get it right. None of the stories could quite comprehend him, let alone contain him. He is a person who fits David Tracy's notion of a 'classic,' surrounded by a community that continually returns to him for authority, not doubting that there is more yet to be given" (David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory).
By associating Jesus with David the New Testament writers were doing far more than history, if they were doing history at all. They were elevating Jesus into the highest ranks of Hebrew luminaries. They were making connections of mythic proportions. They were staking a Messianic claim in the classic sense of the word.
In the history of Israel, David was the one who moved the capital to Jerusalem and ruled over the twelve tribes at their greatest expanse. Although David's son, Solomon, built the first Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, he never attained the same degree of prominence and symbolic significance as his father. David was the progenitor and the archetype of Hebrew royalty.
When the city of Jerusalem was finally sacked by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., more than 400 years after the reign of King David, one prophet after another predicted that someone from the house of David, in the likeness of David, would be anointed by God to restore the fortunes of Israel and to set things right with the world. Some of these passages are the most famous passages in scripture:
This was, after all, the promise God made to David after he had settled in Jerusalem. "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring...and establish his kingdom. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. I will not take away my steadfast love from him. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever" (2 Samuel 7:12, 14, 15-16).
With a promise like that there was no way Jesus could be the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, and not be descended from David. God's promise, if it meant anything at all, meant that the Messiah would come from the house of Judah, in the town of Bethlehem, where David himself was born. Jesus may not have been a standard-issue Messiah, destined to put Jerusalem back on the map, but he was a classic Messiah, destined to give new meaning to those ancient and enduring prophecies concerning the coming reign of God.
For the next six weeks we will explore the David story in order to gain insight into the Jesus story. We will find signs of Jesus' divinity in the connective tissue between these two stories. And along the way we may have an epiphany or two of our own -- for this is the season to see the signs of God. Amen.
The following books provide more information about today's sermon topic: Walter Brueggemann, David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1985), Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over A Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (Harper • San Francisco, CA, 1997), John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes (Harper • San Francisco, CA, 1996).
Somebody Out of Nobody
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
January 18, 1998
Memory Verse: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David." (Luke 1:32)
Today's Texts: 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 147:1-11, and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Prayer: Holy Spirit, you move among us and call us to faith. Move among us now. Call us now. Speak to us your word. Amen.
This past week our Webmaster sent me a joke about a heavenly golf game. Moses hit the first ball, driving it long and hard. The ball landed in the fairway, but rolled directly toward a water hazard. Quickly Moses raised his club and parted the water, allowing the ball to roll to the other side, safe and sound.
Next, Jesus strolled up to the tee and hit his ball directly toward the same water hazard. It landed right in the center of the pond and hovered over the water. Jesus casually walked out on the pond and chipped the ball onto the green.
The third guy got up and sort of randomly whacked the ball. It headed out over the fence and into oncoming traffic on a nearby street. It bounced off a truck and hit a nearby tree. The tree sent it onto the roof of a nearby shack, rolling into the gutter, down the drain spout, out onto the fairway, and straight toward the same water hazard. On the way to the pond, the ball hit a little stone and bounced out over the water onto a lily pad, where it rested quietly. Suddenly a large bullfrog jumped up and snatched the ball into his mouth. Just then, an eagle swooped down and grabbed the frog and flew away. As they passed over the green, the frog squealed with fright and dropped the ball, which bounced right into the cup for a hole in one.
Moses turned to Jesus and said, "I hate playing golf with your Dad."
Last week I introduced my sermon series on Jesus and his "Dad" by talking about the evolution of the church's Christology in the seventy years immediately following Jesus' death and resurrection.
Paul, the earliest New Testament author, said that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power at the time of his resurrection (Romans 1:4). Mark, the earliest of the Gospel writers, said that Jesus was anointed with the Spirit and proclaimed the Son of God at the time of baptism (Mark 1:10f). Matthew and Luke, who apparently used Mark as one of their reference works, said that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born as the Son of God (Matthew 1:20ff, Luke 1:35). The gospel of John, perhaps the latest New Testament author, said that Jesus had been with God since the beginning of time, as the organizing principle of the universe (John 1:1ff).
Several people have asked me, over the course of the past week, whether my reconnaissance of the positions taken by various New Testament authors was intended to expose them as somehow contradictory or at odds with each other. This was not my intent. I do not view these passages as contradictory, but as complementary. They reflect the theological development of the early church over time, and they also reflect the world-view of the authors who were each trying to express the inexpressible fact that in Jesus of Nazareth they had met the Christ, the Anointed One of God.
One way to do that was to talk in terms of Jesus and God. Paul and Mark, you might say, spoke as though Jesus had been adopted by God -- at his resurrection or his baptism, respectively. Matthew and Luke spoke of Jesus as a natural born Son of God -- conceived in a virgin's womb by the power of the Holy Spirit. John spoke of Jesus as God incarnate -- the Word made flesh and living among us. It is indeed hard to find language for the deep mysteries of God. Adequate images and metaphors are all to elusive.
One image or metaphor that all the New Testament authors could agree upon was Jesus as the Son of David. Matthew and Luke go so far as to come up with genealogies, in one case back to Abraham and in the other back to Adam. These genealogies, which frequently diverge from one generation to the next, both agree that Jesus traced his family tree through David and the tribe of Judah.
This agreement had more to do with theology than biology. By affirming Jesus as the Son of David, the New Testament authors were making no less of a theological statement than when they spoke of in terms of his resurrection, baptism, birth, conception, or preexistence. David was the ultimate image and metaphor of someone who knew, relied upon, invoked, and leaned into the rushing wind of God's Spirit. By looking at David we see new ways of appreciating Jesus. By looking at David we see new signs of Christ's divinity.
This morning's story in 1 Samuel, chapter 16, is the beginning of the David story. And "story" is exactly the right word. Unlike the Law -- with its rules and regulations -- or the Prophets -- with their admonitions and consolations -- or the Wisdom Literature -- with its insight and understanding -- the story of David is a biography giving us more information about David than any other character in the bible. By drawing us into the narrative, with so much detail and color, the writer teaches us about God in very human and earthy terms. The writer gives us an illustration of God in the flesh, as one of us, transforming life itself.
The story starts with God's initiative. The story always starts with God's initiative. Not that we always allow God to take the initiative. Ten years before the start of David's story, the people of Israel took the initiative, coming to Samuel, a seer and prophet who was already an old man, to ask for a king.
"Appoint for us a king," the elders demanded, "to govern us like other nations" (1 Samuel 8:5). The request did not please Samuel, but he could not persuade them otherwise. "When we escaped from Egyptian slavery, did we have a king? When we wandered in the wilderness for forty years, did we have a king? When we settled in the land of Canaan, for more than two hundred years, did we have a king? No! God provided leaders, as leaders were needed, without human agency or bureaucracy. We relied upon God, and God alone! We had no taxes, no standing armies, and no indentured servants. Let's not change the formula."
But the people refused to listen. They were too impressed with the kings and kingdoms of the world. They wanted God to rule over them like the gods of the nations. They wanted a king to exercise authority over them like the kings of the nations, governing them and leading them in battle. When the people could not be turned, God told Samuel to give them what they wanted. God told Samuel to find a king.
It didn't take long for a man named Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, to come to Samuel's attention. The man looked like a king. He was a John Wayne type: handsome and tall, standing head and shoulders above everyone else (1 Samuel 9:2). If this one didn't have the right suff, who did? If this one couldn't command people's respect, who could? If this one wasn't the one God had in mind, who was? Samuel anointed him king, with a flask of oil, on the outskirts of an Ephraimite village.
For a time, the people were impressed with their new king. He rallied the troops and got everyone excited about his prowess as a military leader. He led successful campaigns against the smaller nations of the region. He even had some success against Israel's primary enemy, the Philistines. But in one critical battle his fear of the people got the best of him. He failed to wait for old man Samuel in order to make the appointed burnt offering. He failed to wait for God.
After repeated acts of disobedience, God turned away from Saul and took the initiative to find a new king. Once again he made use of old man Samuel, now even older, the last of the seers and prophets to rule as judge over Israel. "Stop grieving over the demise of Saul," said the Lord, "and go to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse, for I have provided myself a king among his sons."
You heard the story read as our Old Testament lesson. Eugene Peterson compares the scene to a state fair, replete with calf-roping, bull-riding, the greased pig, a Ferris wheel, and 4-H animals in competition for the blue ribbon. Only in Bethlehem, the 4-H animals were the eight sons of Jesse, paraded out, one at a time, for old man Samuel to see. The scene begs for an imaginative retelling.
The oldest son, Eliab, was the first to be put on display before the judge. There was something very familiar about Eliab. He reminded Samuel of King Saul. Tall, dark, and handsome, Eliab dripped of royalty. He was prize stock if there ever was any. Samuel was all set to unstop his flask of oil, when the Lord said to him, "Do not look on the outward appearance, as you did with King Saul. Look on the heart, where only I can see." So Samuel waived Eliab along.
Then came Abinadab, the body builder. He went across the stage, flexing his muscles for all to see, striking poses that would make men and women alike ooh and ah with amazement and incredulity. In the rough and tumble world of the ancient near east, with frequent wars and other tests of strength, surely Abinadab was the one God had in mind. But the Lord had not chosen Abinadab.
So Jesse sent his third son, Shammah, across the stage. He wasn't much to look at, but he was the smartest kid in town. Straight As in school. Advanced degrees, including one in political science. If anyone could negotiate his way through the maze of entanglements and pitfalls of the ancient near east, it was the Henry Kissinger of the 10th century before the common era. But the Lord had not chosen Shammah.
So it went with the next four. Each paraded across the stage, each had something going for him in the eyes of the world, but each had been rejected by God. One had advanced in business so as to have great wealth. Another had married wisely so as to have great connections. Still another had lived away from home so as to have great sophistication. The seventh had stayed at home so as to have great responsibility. You can come up with your own list as to what these people had going for them. With the right agent, one of them may even have been able to turn Samuel's head. But the Lord had not chosen them, and Samuel was listening to the Lord.
The show was over. The people who'd come to see the show were starting to wonder. Would old man Samuel refuse to award the blue ribbon to anyone? Even Samuel was beginning to wonder. Had he failed to understand God in the first place? Had he lost his prophetic edge? Had he made this journey to Bethlehem for nothing? Surely there must be some mistake. Surely there must be another son.
"Well," Jesse said, "there is another. But he's not much to look at and he's really much too young. He's out in the fields keeping the sheep. He's just a boy. He's not as tall as Eliab, as strong as Abinadab, nor as smart as Shammah. He's not as ..." "Stop," said Samuel, "I know. Just bring him to me. We will not sit down until he comes here." They went out and brought back David. With his youth, his ruddy complexion, and his beautiful eyes, he almost looked effeminate. Who would have thought that this small, young boy was the chosen one of God, anointed to be king over the twelve tribes of Israel.
"Rise and anoint him," said the Lord, "for this is one." And in the presence of his brothers, Samuel gave him the blue ribbon. Samuel took the flask of oil and poured it over his head, and, we are told, "the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward."
So it is with the spirit of the Lord. Making somebody out of nobody, like David. Making something out of nothing, like that wacky golf shot. Turning the tables on the expectations and assumptions of the world. Surprising us with eyes that look upon the heart, rather than upon the outward appearance of things.
God has a way of doing that. Taking a young shepherd boy from Bethlehem and anointing him king. Taking a young carpenter from Nazareth and anointing him Son of God. He wasn't much to look at. He didn't have much going for him in the eyes of the world. But "when all the people had been baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the Holy descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased'" (Luke 3:21f).
"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Nathaniel says to Philip in the gospel of John. "Come and see," was Philip's reply. Do you see the connection between David and Jesus? God looks upon the heart, not upon the outward appearance of things. God makes somebody out of nobody. The youngest son of Jesse from the town of Bethlehem. The first son of Mary and Joseph, from the town of Nazareth, far from the seat of power.
When God does the anointing, the credentials of this world are not considered. It was a sign of God to choose someone from Nazareth. It was an epiphany to choose someone who had been born in David's town of Bethlehem.. Don't let anyone lead you astray. God used David. God used Jesus. And they were nothing when they were called. God can use you too, no matter who you are, to work and to will that which is good. Amen.The following books provide more information about today's sermon topic: Walter Brueggemann, David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1985), Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over A Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (Harper • San Francisco, CA, 1997), Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1992).
Relying on the Power of God
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
January 25, 1998
Memory Verse: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David." (Luke 1:32)
Today's Texts: 1 Samuel 17:1-8, 32, 38-45, 48-50, Psalm 27:1-6, Luke 4:14-21
Prayer: God of Holy Mystery and Deep Magic, you are doing strange things among us. Reveal yourself. Help us to hear your word and do your will. Amen.
As most of you know by now, I have suddenly, unexpectedly, and reluctantly made the decision to resign my position as the Senior Minister of this church, effective February 8, 1998. This means that I will need to cut short my sermon series on Jesus: Son of David, Son of God. But a better topic for the remaining three Sundays could not be found. The lives of David and Jesus are filled with ups and downs, including changes in fortune no less abrupt and dramatic than this one. The truth that we find in these ancient stories may help us to find the truth in our own story and to maneuver our way through this period of disorientation and chaos.
Last week we talked about the anointing of David as the King of Israel and Judah at the hands of Samuel, a wise old seer and prophet. You will remember that David was anointed as a young boy, after Samuel had taken a good hard look at his seven older brothers. When Samuel poured the oil on David's head, as with the baptism of Jesus at the hands of John the Baptist, "the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him from that day forward" (1 Samuel 16:13b).
One might think that David's anointing would be quickly followed by some kind of coronation, but that's not how the story goes. Keep in mind that Samuel was on a divine, covert operation -- replete with deception, intrigue, and double-dealing. King Saul was still very much alive and well, reigning over Israel and Judah as part of a newly formed monarchy. God may have anointed David to be king, but it took many years for the people to recognize and celebrate his leadership. It took many years for the shepherd boy from Bethlehem to realize his destiny.
Along the way to assuming the throne, David went through a number of experiences which were crucial in the formation of his legendary character. Some of these experiences were in the court of King Saul himself. David went from his anointing by Samuel to serving as an imperial errand boy. No illusions of grandeur here. David was learning to be humble as he carried the king's armor and played music on the lyre. Whenever King Saul would fall into a deep depression, something that occurred with increasing frequency in the final years of his life, David would play music to make the king feel better.
Whenever King Saul would lead his troops into battle, David would go along to clean and carry his armor. Not a very cushy job for the would-be king. But then cushy jobs are not the stuff of which character is made.
This morning's Old Testament lesson presents the highlights of one of the most familiar stories in the bible. What child growing up in the church, and often those in secular society, has not heard about David and Goliath? The boy against the giant. The slingshot and the sword. It has all the makings of a blockbuster, Steven Spielberg movie.
I imagine it to be a scene like the opening drama of Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. Perhaps you remember that scene, ironically set in St. David's Field. Costner is a wounded Union soldier in the Civil War. The battle has been at a stand still for days. Union and Confederate soldiers are behind their lines, weary and waiting for someone to make the first move. Costner's injury to his foot and leg is debilitating. Another statistic in the scourge of war. The medic comes by, takes one look, and says, "Take it off."
Before they can amputate, however, Costner musters up the courage to choose a different course of action. Rather than be an amputee, Costner decides to die. He reaches down and painfully, excruciatingly manages to put on his boot. He then gets on a horse, delirious, and rides out into the meadow separating the two armies.
At first, neither side can understand what he's doing. It's absolute nonsense. Certain suicide. And there's a lull in the battle. Finally, the Confederates start shooting, one after another, as Costner rides across the meadow. Strangely. Curiously. Amazingly. Each and every bullet misses the mark. Costner himself can't believe his good fortune. Or bad fortune, as the case may be. Remember, he was trying to get himself killed. The troops break out in applause. They can hardly believe their eyes. The Confederates dare him to go back across the field.
This time Costner goes across the field with his arms outstretched and his head flung back. In so doing, he broke the spell which had immobilized the troops for so many days was broken. The meadow which had once seemed so impenetrable was laid open. The Union troops rally, break out of their bunker, and succeed at winning the battle. Costner, who has still not managed to get himself killed by pure, dumb luck, ends up being attended to by the General's personal physician -- who saves his leg and makes him a reluctant, Civil War hero.
The story of David and Goliath is just as dramatic, only the names, weapons, and worldview have changed. Instead of the Union and the Confederacy it was the Philistines and the Hebrews. Instead of guns and horses it was hand-to-hand combat. Instead of pure, dumb luck it was a mighty act of God.
The battle took place in the valley of Elah. The Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. In the days before our sanitized, remote-control violence, the bravest and fiercest of the Philistine warriors came out in the valley to taunt King Saul and his Israelite band.
His name was Goliath and he stood six feet, nine inches tall -- even taller than the commanding King Saul. Goliath wore a helmet of bronze and a heavy coat of mail. He had bronze shin guards, a bronze javelin, and a bronze shield. He was, indeed, the Bronze Age incarnate. After two millennia of Canaanite metallurgy, this man could swagger and strut the latest in military technology. He was an awesome sight to behold.
First, he taunted the Israelites troops to come down and fight. But the Israelites looked at Goliath, his stature and his armaments, only to cower in fear and disbelief. Then, Goliath proposed a duel. If conflicts could have been solved this way, throughout human history, it would have spared the lives of millions: "Choose one man to come out and fight. If he prevails, we will serve you. If I prevail, you will serve us." But in all the army of King Saul not a man could be found to accept the challenge.
The army of King Saul included David's three oldest brothers. You remember them: Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah -- who had been paraded before old man Samuel as worthy successors to King Saul. The army also included David as an errand boy, tending to the King's armor, running back and forth between the valley of Elah and his hometown of Bethlehem. For forty days and forty nights, Goliath came out into the valley and made his challenge to the Israelite troops. For forty days and forty nights, not a man could be found in all of Israel to accept the challenge. It was an anxious, God-forsaken time.
Finally, David could stand it no more. He was on the battlefield with some fresh provisions for his brothers -- with the Philistine and Hebrew troops staked out on their respective hillsides, shouting the war cry -- when the Philistine giant once again threw down the gauntlet. "Choose one man to come out and fight. If he prevails, we will serve you. If I prevail, you will serve us." Once again no one responded. The size and armaments of Goliath were just too intimidating.
David could not believe his eyes. He went through the Hebrew troops, saying, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" David's oldest brother, Eliab, heard David talking to the troops and retorted: "Why do you challenge us when you yourself do not have the heart to do battle with the Philistine? Go back home to your sheep!" But David would not be deterred.
He went to King Saul and asked for permission to accept the Philistine's challenge. The prospect seemed ridiculous, as in Kevin Costner riding up and down the meadow. David was just a boy. Goliath was a seasoned warrior. David was small and weak. Goliath was enormous and powerful. David had no weapons with which to wage a fight. Goliath was the acme of Bronze Age technology. By every appearance, David was asking to go to certain death. But the Lord does not look upon the outward appearance of things. The Lord looks upon the heart, and in this instance the Lord gave David a heart of steel.
When Saul protested that he could not let a boy go to certain death, David was adamant. "This Philistine," he said, "is no worse than a bear or a lion attacking the sheep back home. I have had to deal with wild animals before, and I will deal with the Philistine just the same." So King Saul said to David, "Go, and may the Lord be with you!"
But that, King Saul reasoned, might not be enough. Rather than sending the boy out defenseless, to certain death, he gave David his own suit of armor. David strapped it on and could barely move. It wasn't just the weight and the size of the armor that gave David problems. It was the reliance on something other than the power of God. David had not agreed to accept the Philistine's challenge because he thought of himself as being up to a physical test of strength. David accepted the challenge because he knew that God wanted him to go out and take a stand. Relying on anything other than the power of God would be certain death. So he unstrapped the armor and went down into the valley below, dressed as nothing more than the shepherd boy that he was.
When David came out into the valley, Goliath roared in laughter and derision. Could this boy be the strongest man in all of Israel and Judah? Why he didn't even have a sword! Goliath fussed and fumed, taunted and teased, while David kneeled at the brook -- carefully selecting five smooth stones, testing each for balance, putting them one at a time in his pouch. The troops joined in the derision, mocking and shouting, but David maintained his calm in the center of the storm.
"What is this?" Goliath taunted the Hebrews, "is there no man in all of Israel with the stomach for a fight. I will take this boy and feed his carcass to the birds of prey." But David replied with boldness and faith. "You come to me with sword and spear and javelin. I come to you with the power of the living God. We will see the substance of your taunts. I will defeat you this very day, so that all the earth may know there is a God in Israel. And so that this very assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand."
You know the rest of the story. David ran toward Goliath, that giant of a man, took out a single stone, put it in his slingshot, and let it fly. The stone hit Goliath in the forehead and knocked him out, at which point David cut off Goliath's head with his own sword. When the Philistines saw their champion dead, they fled. The Hebrews pursued and routed them in battle. They could not believe their good fortune. "Who is that young man?" they murmured. "He is David, the son of Jesse, of Bethlehem," was the straightforward reply.
Many have taken comfort and direction from the story of David and Goliath in the last 3,000 years. The battle does not always go to the strong. The race does not always go to the swift. Sometimes, when we least expect it, God does a surprising thing to snatch victory from defeat. It was a lesson David had to learn more than once before he would put on the royal robes.
We are talking here about the formation of a leader, and about the trials he must go through before his leadership can be effective. Peterson observes that the story of David and Goliath is about "acquiring a God-dominated imagination and rejecting a Goliath-dominated imagination." The world knows all about Goliath. Just look at the budget of the Pentagon. But a true leader relies upon the power God, trusting God in all things to work and to will that which is good.
So Jesus went to his hometown synagogue, in Nazareth, where he read the passage from the prophet Isaiah, saying: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The Spirit has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. The Spirit has empowered me to give sight to the blind. The Spirit has sent me to proclaim release to the captives. The Spirit has charged me to let the oppressed go free. The Spirit has given me a vision of God's reign, of the acceptable year of the Lord." And as he sat back down he said, "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:18-21). The Spirit this, the Spirit that -- it was all about relying on the power of God.
Do not look on the outward appearance of things. Do not be discouraged. Do not be overwhelmed by the weapons and ways of the world. Do not let evil control your imaginations and dictate the way you think. Instead, allow your imaginations to be filled with a consciousness of God. Don't wear anyone else's armor. Borrowed armor never quite fits. Speak and act from the authentic place you know to be good, right and true. Immerse yourself in the Spirit. That is what David did in the valley of Elah, that is what Jesus did in the region of Galilee, and that is what we can do today when we open ourselves to and rely upon the continuing mystery and movement of God. Amen.The following books provide more information about today's sermon topic: Walter Brueggemann, David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1985), Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over A Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (Harper • San Francisco, CA, 1997), Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1992).
Savior of the Immobilized
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
February 1, 1998
Memory Verse: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David." (Luke 1:32)
Today's Texts: 1 Samuel 21:10-22:5, Psalm 107:1-15, and Luke 5:1-11
Prayer: Calling and Empowering Spirit, you have surprised people through the ages with the power of your word. Surprise us now. Speak to us now. Make us commune with you. Amen.
I want to start by saying thank you. The cards, letters, calls, and visits of the past week have been heartwarming and helpful. I know that last Sunday was difficult, with emotions running high on both sides. But in its aftermath, there have been delightful moments of grace that I and my family will remember forever. God is truly working in our midst.
In this morning's Old Testament lesson, we find David and his companions outlawed and holed up in the cave of Adullam. Before we enter that cave, however, we need to understand how David, the future king of Israel and Judah, ended up there. Epiphanies of God do not always take the form of triumphant, mountain-top experiences. Sometimes they appear in the shadow of death itself.
The David story begins with three quick vignettes. David is anointed by Samuel after which he serves in the court of King Saul and defeats the Philistine giant. This victory, which led to a routing of the entire Philistine army, made David a very popular person. As a result of his success on the battle field, he became commander-and-chief of the armed forces and developed a life-long friendship with Jonathan, the son of King Saul.
Everything was going David's way. The momentum was clearly in his favor. As the armies came home from battle, they were greeted with merriment, dancing, and song. "Saul has killed his thousands," the women sang, "and David his ten thousands." The king and the warrior, Saul and David, were returning in victory. What could be better? The people had every reason to celebrate.
Ironically that's when David's real problems began. Having squared off with and triumphed over Israel's archenemies, David came home to face far greater dangers among his friends. King Saul quickly became jealous of David's popularity. Instead of sharing in the celebration, rejoicing in the success of his newly-appointed commander-and-chief, King Saul became envious of David and looked for every opportunity to get rid of him.
This was obviously no mere rivalry. This was a full-blown battle between two people who had once been friends, who worshiped the same God, and who presumably had the same ambition: making the world safe for Israel and Judah. Saul and David could have made a great team, doing more together than either could alone, but instead they became arch rivals to the point of death.
It's impossible to understand David, Eugene Peterson argues, without understanding this experience of enmity. David's personality was forged in the crucible of conflict. Conflict with his enemies. Conflict with his friends. Although love is the basic tenet of our faith, "enmity," Peterson observes, "is the actual condition in which more often than not we find ourselves. We're criticized, teased, avoided, shot at, abandoned, stoned, cursed, hunted down, snubbed, stabbed in the back, treated like a doormat, and damned with faint praise."
This was certainly the actual condition of David, more often than not. God's excellent opinion of David was not shared by everyone. David's success and popularity had filled King Saul with a murderous intent. It quickly became clear to David that he could no longer stay safely in the royal court. His friends were not able to protect him. So David fled and escaped to Samuel's house in Ramah, the same Samuel who had anointed him king in the first place.
With David on the run, Saul sent out his people to track David down and to kill him. Much to the consternation and befuddlement of Jonathan, who could not understand why David deserved such treatment, there was no changing of Saul's mind. His enmity was complete. For no good reason, Saul had become hellbent on David's destruction.
For the next ten years, during the decade of his twenties, David was on the run from Saul. In no time at all, David had gone from being a celebrated national war hero to public enemy number one. The experience of unfounded enmity could have broken David, making him bitter and ashamed. But instead David went out into the wilderness, where God restored his spirit and taught him the lessons he needed to learn before taking the throne.
On his way into the wilderness David stopped at the sanctuary of Nob, provoking an incident that Jesus called upon when he got in trouble with the ruling authorities of his day. David asked the priest of Nob for food and weapons. The priest said that he had only the consecrated bread of the Presence, the holy elements such as we have on our communion table today, as well as the sword of Goliath. David took them both, claiming that he and his men were on a mission for God. A thousand years later, Jesus commended David's action, apparently putting people ahead of policies and principles.
From Nob David fled to Gath, a Philistine village located on the coastal plain in southern Palestine. Things must have been pretty bad for David to flea to Gath. There must have been no safe place to hide in all of Israel and Judah. The entire country must have been turned against him by the murderous rage of King Saul. So David went to the town of Saul's enemy, only to find that a common enemy does not necessarily produce a common friend.
Much to his dismay, David was quickly spotted and recognized in Goliath's hometown. David's image and reputation as the giant killer was too large to hide. So David feigned mental illness in order to be dismissed from Gath as a raving lunatic. Once dismissed, David went into the wilderness, to the cave of Adullam, just 10 miles from his hometown of Bethlehem.
When word got out that David was hiding in the hills, his brothers, who had not been his greatest fans, and many others came out to be with him. Those in the company of David are described in this wonderfully curious way. "Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered to him; and he became captain over them. Those who were with him numbered about four hundred" (1 Samuel 22:2).
Talk about a ragtag band of nobodies! Talk about a disreputable lot with nothing to lose! Talk about ordinary folks who've been run over and immobilized by life! Those were the kind of people who took to following David around in the wilderness. King Saul thought of them as bandits, outlaws, and rebels. But David thought of them as disciples in training. In the wilderness they learned not only to serve and protect their leader; they learned to think of themselves in new ways. They learned to trust and rely upon God for their salvation.
The wilderness has a way of doing that. Moses wandered with the people for forty years in the wilderness in order to learn that lesson. Jesus went out into the wilderness for forty days, during which time he fasted and prayed. David went out for ten years, embracing the wilderness as refuge, training ground, and staging area. In the wilderness, David learned that God had a special affinity for the very people Saul was prone to reject. Losers. Dropouts. The homeless poor. People who failed to make it in regular society.
Such were the people in David's band. The distressed, the debtors, and the discontented. A motley crew transformed by God into a community of faithful followers. This, Peterson observes, is the point of the story. "We must stretch our imaginations," he writes, "to the horizons of God's sovereignty and see that David's company, even though made up of the distressed, the debtors, and the discontented, was made by God -- a people defined not by where they came from or what they did but by what God did in and for them. This seems to be the sort of people that God commonly uses to form companies of believers, disciples, (and) worshipers. ... Not the cultural and political sophisticates, but the drifters and outcasts who (exist) on the margins (of society.)"
Jesus followed the same path in his choice of disciples. This morning's New Testament lesson tells the story. Peter, James, and John. They weren't much by the standards of this world. They were not scribes or Pharisees, priests or Sadducees. They were not religious leaders, trained in the law and the prophets. They were not political leaders, holding office on behalf of the Romans or the Jews. They were not leaders of any kind. They were just poor, ordinary people eking out an existence in a small coastal town on the Sea of Galilee.
On this particular day, they were poor, ordinary, discouraged people. Peter and his crew had been fishing all night, without success. When they came in to wash their nets, Jesus was teaching from the shore. The crowd was pressing in upon him, so Jesus got into Peter's boat in order to avoid being crushed. After Jesus finished speaking, he told Peter to put out into deep water and to let down his nets for a catch. Peter was reluctant. Peter was immobilized. The fish weren't running. Hadn't they been fishing all night? Didn't they know their trade? But something made Peter obey. "Master, if you say so, I will let down the nets."
The catch was so large as to turn these poor, ordinary, discouraged people into rich, extraordinary, encouraged disciples. God was again in the business of revealing the divine hand by selecting the weak and powerless of the world "to shame the wise and the strong ... to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God" (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). This was the posture of the apostle Paul and this was the posture of Jesus as he sat at table with adulterers, tax-collectors, and sinners.
Do you see the connection between David and Jesus? They both kept company with disreputable people in order to form a new community of faith. Do you see the epiphany? In God's hands, the immobilized followers of David and Jesus both went on to change the world. If you're distressed, in debt, or discontented, do not fear. You're the very people for whom God is looking. May God strengthen and use you to change our world as well. Amen.
The following books provide more information about today's sermon topic: Walter Brueggemann, David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1985), Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over A Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (Harper • San Francisco, CA, 1997), Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1992).
Showing Kindness to the Other
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
February 8, 1998
Memory Verse: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David." (Luke 1:32)
Today's Texts: 1 Samuel 30:21-25, Psalm 68:4-10, and Luke 5:12-16
Prayer: Gracious God, we thank you for the gift of life. We are your family, gathered to hear your word. Speak to us the things that make for peace. Open our hearts to love. Amen
Having never served in the armed forces, I have always found it to be curious when Commander Riker walks into the private quarters of Captain Pickard, on the Starship Enterprise, and asks for "permission to speak freely." The request implies that the rest of the time he's biting his tongue, withholding valuable opinions and information until he's specifically spoken to by his commanding officer. That is not a style or posture with which I am particularly comfortable. "Permission to speak freely" should be the order of the day in the body of Christ.
Nevertheless, I would ask for your permission, or at least your indulgence, to speak freely on this my last Sunday as your fourteenth Senior Minister. I will do so, one last time, by making connections between David's story and our story -- between Jesus and the people Jesus loves.
There has been a lot of talk, in recent weeks, about the diversity of this church and the resulting lack of consensus regarding its core vision and values. My attempts to provide direction, based upon my calling as an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, have therefore been celebrated by some and criticized by others. The criticisms have focused on the process of providing direction as well as on the direction itself. That is the risk of serving as a change-agent in a 145-year-old institution.
Three weeks ago, as most of you know, the conversation took on new dimensions, and I agreed to resign. These developments are but the latest chapter in an ongoing struggle. When I arrived in 1993, people began to talk with me about conflicts involving ministers and staff persons going back at least 15 years. The conflicts with the Interim Minister, Bill Matthews, and my immediate predecessor, Dale Rosenberger, were, of course, still quite fresh and raw. But some people went much further back, relaying stories of difficult transitions not as historical notes but as living realities which continued to impact their personality and their sense of community in this church.
It was my hope that we could leave these conflicts behind, and, indeed, in the past year, I had grown naively optimistic that a new Spirit was moving in this church -- less critical, less controlling, less divided. All that has now come tumbling down around us. The body of Christ, like humpty-dumpty, has fallen off the wall, and we all hope -- myself included -- that it can be put back together again here at First Church.
The purpose of this sermon is to take some encouragement and direction in the process of putting things back together from the story of David at the Wadi Besor. This story commends to us the virtue of showing kindness to the other -- to those who are different from ourselves. It is a classic story that deserves to be brought out of its obscurity and made familiar to the average Christian.
I want to come at this story by saying some obvious things about the brokenness of our congregation at this particular moment. Our congregation is divided into two groups of people: those who agree with the decision to conclude my ministry as the Senior Minister at this time and those who disagree with that decision. There other groups, such as those who are confused and those who simply do not care, but the vast majority of us in this room have an opinion, one way or the other.
Each of these groups can be divided into two subgroups. There are those who agree with this decision enthusiastically and those who agree with it reluctantly. The enthusiastic group has been reaching out to me with conciliatory notes, suggesting that I not take this too personally. The reluctant group has been reaching out to me with grieving notes, suggesting that I resign myself to this sad but inevitable turn of events. No house, so divided, can long endure.
Those who disagree with this decision also fall into two subgroups. There are those for whom the disagreement has become a call to arms and those for whom it has become a reason to retreat. The advancing group has been reaching out to me with encouraging notes, suggesting that the vision and values I have been lifting up in this church will not die but will live on -- perhaps even stronger than before. The retreating group has been reaching out to me with discouraging notes, suggesting that they have given up on this place once and for all. They intend either to become inactive or to give up their membership entirely.
This simplistic analysis is not meant to be exhaustive. If you don't fit into any of those four groups, that's fine -- it just means that we have five, six, or seven groups. The reality I'm trying to communicate is that right now we have a broken fellowship, divided in many ways, with great confusion and distress. Some have said that it's worse now than it has been in the past 20 years. I'm in no position to comment on that. But I do know it's pretty bad, with lots of pain, lots of anger, and lots of flailing around as people seek to regain their balance.
The temptation, which has already begun to surface, is for one group to be critical and dismissive of the others. The advancing group is critical of the retreating group, saying you should not leave the church. The retreating group is critical of the advancing group, saying you should not waste your time on this place. The reluctant group is critical of the enthusiastic group, saying you should not gloat over such an unfortunate situation. The enthusiastic group is critical of the reluctant group, saying you should not allow your sympathies to overwhelm your objectivity.
So the debate rages, between one group and the other, like the "Sneetches on the beaches" in the Dr. Seuss story who could not agree upon which one was the best one and what one was who. But the story of David at the Wadi Besor, like Old Turtle in the children's book by Douglas Wood, bids us all to STOP.
You will remember from last week that David spent the decade of his twenties in the wilderness. Having been anointed by the prophet Samuel, and having quickly thereafter become a military hero with the defeat of Goliath, David got into trouble with the ruling authorities because of his burgeoning popularity. King Saul became jealous of David, and six times sought to kill him.
David finally left the court of the king and took refuge in the wilderness. He lived in caves with a ragtag army of misfits, outcasts, and losers. The wilderness experience was used by God to transform this group, which grew to about 600 strong, into a faithful community. They became the first-fruits of a new royal dynasty, the likes of which Israel has seen neither before nor since.
What made David and his kingdom so great may well have been the things he discovered about God and life while out in the wilderness. And no discovery may have been greater than the one he made at the Wadi Besor. After eluding Saul in the wilderness, at times confounding Saul with his refusal to use lethal force, David and his company became the victims of the Amalekites -- another nomadic people who had troubled Israel and Judah from the time of their wandering in the wilderness under Moses.
After David and his men had gone off to battle with King Achish, the Amalekites raided David's stronghold at Ziglag, making off with their women and children, stealing their treasure, and burning down their camp. The situation presented an immediate crisis for David's leadership. The troops were angry that David had left the stronghold unprotected, and they were ready to stone him. David was at risk of losing his command. And that's when David decided to "strengthen himself in the Lord." He prayed. He worshiped. He called on Abiathar the priest for counsel. As a result, he rallied the troops to pursue and overtake the Amalekites.
Tracking down the Amalekites in open country was no small task. It tested the patience and the stamina of David's company. When they came to the Wadi Besor, a small brook in the wilderness, the company split in two. One-third of the group, or 200 men, decided to drop out of the pursuit.
The scriptures say that this split in David's garrison was due to exhaustion and weariness, but you can bet there was more to the story than that. 400 men wanted to fight. The other 200 did not. Perhaps they thought there was no way to win. Perhaps they had given up on David's leadership. Perhaps they were just tired of fighting. Whatever the reason, 200 men stayed behind and 400 went on.
The story climaxes in David's decisive victory over the Amalekites with his remaining 400 followers. They were given a tip by an ailing Egyptian as to where the Amalekites were hiding, so David was able to catch them off guard. Nothing was lost. No women or children. No property or valuables. Nothing was missing, whether great or small. Once again, David ended up the hero.
But this victory is not the climax that you and I most need to hear about this morning with our diverse feelings and emotions. Nor is it the climax that most clearly manifests the invisible hand of God. I am much more impressed by how David handled the situation once he returned to the Wadi Besor. The 200 exhausted, skeptical, discontented people who stayed behind and decided to separate themselves from the group were greeted by David with open arms. He neither held a grudge nor sought their repudiation. "The share of the one who goes down to battle," David proclaimed, "shall be the same as the one who stays by the supplies. They shall all share alike" (1 Samuel 30:24).
That's an amazing proclamation. Those who had gone into battle certainly did not agree. They did not respect the decision of their fellow soldiers to stay behind and they did not want to give them an equal portion of the spoils. But David made a decree that continued ever after as a statute and ordinance in Israel: our disagreements notwithstanding, we shall treat each other with kindness and respect. The weak and the strong shall share and share alike. Those who leave and those who stay. Those who fight and those who flee. Those who rejoice and those who weep. Our differences do not change the incontrovertible fact that we are one family in the eyes of God.
Isn't that just like Jesus, who treated everyone with compassion and grace -- the lowest of the low and the highest of the high? Isn't that the word we need to hear today? Whatever group you may find yourselves in, the point is not to disparage, demean, or convert the other. Each position and perspective has its own integrity, its own weight, its own value, and its own truth. But how do we relate to the other in the weeks and months ahead? That is the more important question, about which this story has so much to teach us.
Our disagreements and disabilities notwithstanding, we are one people. Our differences and difficulties notwithstanding, we are one people. Our deliberations and decisions notwithstanding, we are one people. As some of us now go our separate ways, that may be hard to hear. As the rest of us now stay to work out our differences, that may be hard to hear. That was certainly hard for David's troops to hear. But that is the very word we need to hear as sisters and brothers in the family of God.
Show kindness to the other. Treat each other with compassion and respect. Love one another as God has loved you. Understand each other as interdependent members in the body of Christ. The poet W. H. Auden put it quite simply: "We must love one another or die." That is the truth of the gospel. Amen.
The following books provide more information about today's sermon topic: Walter Brueggemann, David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1985), Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over A Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (Harper • San Francisco, CA, 1997), Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1992).