Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Foolish Love?"

Text: 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

Do you remember how, in the past,

we’ve talked about Isaac and Rebekah,

and their sons Jacob and Esau,

as one of the first dysfunctional families in biblical history?

Well, they can’t hold a candle to David and his brood.

Watching David and his wives and children

gives us an all-too-clear glimpse

of what it is to be human …

But there are places in which

they also give us a glimpse of what God is like.

This morning’s story is one of those,

but to understand why,

you’ll have to know "the rest of the story."

I should have brought in a chalkboard to draw you a family tree;

you may want to make a note or two to yourselves,

to keep all the players straight!

First, David and his wives:

We don’t know who all of them were,

much less the hundred of concubines who also kept him company at times.

We know about his first wife, Michal:

She was the daughter of king Saul,

and she fell madly in love with David early on,

long before David was king.

David was so smitten with her that he offered Saul

twice the usual amount of an appropriate dowry

in order to be able to marry her.

Unfortunately, things went sour,

in part, perhaps, because she later had to share him with other wives …

and Michal died childless,

which was of course thought to be a great curse in those times.

We know about Bathsheba;

in fact, we’ve heard about her and David the last two Sundays:

how he admired her from afar,

had his way with her,

and then arranged for her husband to be killed in battle.

Bathsheba was the mother of Solomon, among others.

We know about Abigail,

who had earlier charmed David into not raiding against her husband’s people;

and whom David later married after that husband’s death.

We know about Abishag,

who may or may not ever have been considered "officially" a wife,

but who was young and beautiful,

and brought in to look after David in his old age,

in the hopes perhaps of … reviving him somehow.

It didn’t work, though; David died,

and another of his sons tried to take Abishag for himself,

whereupon Solomon put that half-brother of his to death.

Which brings us to the children.

The best-known of David’s children is, of course, Solomon,

who became king after his father’s death.

David’s oldest son, though, was Amnon.

As far as I can tell, we don’t have a record of who his mother was:

it can’t have been Michal, because she was childless,

but it can’t have been Bathsheba,

because Amnon was older than Solomon.

Anyhow, under normal circumstances,

Amnon and not Solomon would have been in line

to succeed David as king.

Furthermore, there’s also Absalom,

the one whose death we heard about today.

He is described as a half-brother to Amnon.

He also is older than Solomon,

so he can’t be the child of either Michal or Bathsheba or Amnon’s mother.

Absalom also has a sister,

whose name is Tamar.

With me so far?

That’s wife 1, Michal, with no children …

Wife 2 (or maybe higher), anonymous, mother of Amnon …

Wife 3, anonymous, mother of Absalom and Tamar …

Wife 4 (or maybe higher), Bathsheba, mother of Solomon.

If you were going to draw this family tree,

you’d need a three-dimensional sheet of paper!

Now here’s where the dysfunctional part really kicks in.

Amnon decides that his half-sister Tamar

is one good-looking babe,

and we learn in chapter 13 of 2 Samuel that he

"was so tormented that he made himself ill" because of her.

So he and a friend who also happens to be his cousin

hatch a plot:

Amnon pretends to be ill,

and when father David comes to see him and find out what is wrong,

Amnon says, "Oh please, send my sister Tamar in here

to bring me a little something to eat."

David, suspecting nothing, does just that

And when Tamar brings the food to Amnon,

he sends everyone else out of the room,

and rapes her …

then, afterwards, he is "seized with a great loathing for her,"

and sends her away.

David believes her story, but does nothing,

because Amnon is his first-born.

Absalom tells Tamar "Be quiet; do not take this to heart" …

but secretly, he begins plotting revenge.

He has to wait two full years;

but then, at the feast that takes place following the sheep-shearing,

Absalom commands his servant to kill Amnon,

and they do so.

And Absalom flees,

because he knows that father David is going to be ever so unhappy.

It’s not clear how long he stays away.

David later invites him to return to Jerusalem,

but refuses to meet with him or to see him,

and things continue that way for another two years.

Through a process too involved to describe here,

Absalom begins scheming to win the hearts of the people,

and to try to set them against David.

After about four years he succeeds,

to the extent that David and his loyal followers have to flee Jerusalem

and hide out in the mountains.

And, to demonstrate that he is indeed the ruler of the city, and David can’t touch him,

Absalom has a tent installed on the roof of the palace

so that everyone who passes by can watch

as he systematically … "takes possession of" …

all of his father’s concubines.

David’s forces reassemble and rally,

and battle rages in the fields outside the walls of Jerusalem.

And this, finally, is where we pick up

this morning’s Old Testament reading.

Although David is a fierce warrior and a talented general,

the leaders of his forces have persuaded him

that he should not join the battle with them.

They are expendable, they say,

but David is not.

And reluctantly he agrees to remain behind the lines,

but he instructs all of them –

Joab, Abishai, and Ittai, who are going to lead three different forces

to try to surround Absalom’s army –

he instructs them all to tell their followers,

"Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom."

What?

Is David an idiot?

He "dealt gently" with Absalom once before,

and he’s now paying the price for that.

Nevertheless, those are the orders.

And the troops march out to battle,

and "the slaughter there was great on that day,

twenty thousand men."

Absalom meets his end in a way that’s almost comical.

We’ve learned earlier on in chapter 14

that Absalom was rather vain about his long hair:

he had it cut only once a year,

when the weight of it became too much for him,

and that the hair that was cut off

weighed about five pounds.

Well, long-haired Absalom is riding his mule through the forest,

and, mules being what they are,

it cruises along under the branches of a thick oak,

and Absalom’s hair gets caught in the branches.

"He was left hanging between heaven and earth," the text says,

while the mule travels obliviously onward,

perhaps relieved to be suddenly shed of its burden.

So while Absalom is dangling helplessly by his hair in the tree,

ten of Joab’s armor-bearers surround him and kill him.

You know they had heard the order to deal gently with him …

do you suppose they at least killed him gently?

Or did they think their king had been temporarily insane?

at least on this one subject?

Joab arranges for Absalom’s body to be thrown into a huge pit in the forest,

and for a great heap of stones to be piled on top of him.

Then he sends a slave – an Ethiopian, a "Cushite" – to deliver the news to David.

Interesting choice.

I suppose if there’s any risk that the messenger will be killed,

as sometimes happened, in ancient times,

better to risk a slave than someone "important."

Or did Joab figure that David would not hold the slave responsible,

whereas he might come after any one of the rest of them?

Whichever it was, the slave is given the task of running back to where David is,

and delivering the bad news.

Isn’t that just a job you’d love to have?

He must have thought hard about it on the way,

because when he arrives,

he breaks it as gently as he can think to do:

"May the enemies of my lord the king,

and all who rise up to do you harm,

be like that young man."

David is no dummy;

he can read between the lines of that message quite well.

And for at least a few moments,

his military victory becomes meaningless

in the face of the loss of his son.

"Oh Absalom, my son!" he mourns.

"Would that I had died instead of you!"

Now any of us who have lost a child

know how utterly devastating it is …

Those who have children, even adult children,

can imagine, though it’s unpleasant to do so,

what it would be like to lose one of them …

I suspect that even those of us who have no children of our own

can at least begin to imagine

what an awful thing it would be.

But … this child?

A child who has wrought havoc within the entire family?

A child who has tried to steal from you everything that is yours?

A child who has lied and cheated

in order to turn your friends against you?

A child who has raised armies and marched against you,

trying to kill you once and for all?

This, in spite of the fact that he would have inherited the throne

after you died anyway?

This child? Absalom?

At this point in the story,

why would David, or anyone else in the royal family,

be grief-stricken over Absalom?

Well, here’s where David teaches us something about

the utter foolishness of God.

Because in spite of all that Absalom did …

in spite of all that Absalom did to him …

David never stopped loving him.

It wasn’t a cheap-grace kind of love,

not like the way he treated Amnon after what Amnon did to Tamar …

There were consequences for Absalom’s actions,

as when he was allowed to return to Jerusalem

but not to approach his father.

David was never a doormat for Absalom’s machinations …

he did flee the city when Absalom took power,

but only for the purpose of assembling an army to take it back.

But David never stopped loving Absalom.

And when the young man was killed,

David’s grief appears to have been just as real and just as heart-wrenching

as if Absalom had always stayed home and been a good kid

and quietly prepared to take the throne when it was his turn.

How foolish!

Yes.

But that is what God’s love for us is like.

We can rebel …

and many of us do, at one time or another.

We can argue.

We can do things that we know are wrong,

and try to run away from the consequences.

We can be devious, and jealous,

and try to take things that don’t belong to us.

We can do great harm to other people.

We can do all of those things and more,

and God may occasionally be angry with us;

more likely, God will be sad about what we’re doing,

but God will never stop loving us.

God may expect repentance of us,

and may appear to have withdrawn from us until we come to our senses …

but God never stops loving us.

Even after we are dead,

whether we died as a servant of God or an enemy of God,

God never stops loving us.

That doesn’t mean we get to do any durn thing we want,

because we will be held accountable in some way.

But God’s love does not change.

We only have to decide whether we will accept that love, or reject it.

If we believe that;

if we are people who really believe, in our hearts of hearts, that God loves us,

there are a whole lot of "durn things" out there

that we won’t even feel tempted to do.

Was David’s love for Absalom foolish?

Absolutely.

Is God’s love for us foolish?

You bet.

What a blessing!

Let’s live like people who believe it.

Amen.