Aug 14 | Oh, my son: Summer 2018 Preaching Series, Part 9
Today’s citations:
Believe it or not, our preaching series on monarchy is coming to the last couple of stories on David, and almost ready to make the shift to his son, King Solomon.
Many of you know that I sing, but you might not know that I’m a choral music fanatic. I grew up listening to the Tallis Scholars, Chanticleer, the King’s Singers, and various other groups, singing pieces from all over the world, mostly pre-modern. As an adult, I tend to favour composers like Lauridsen, Raminsh, Esenvalds…really anyone of Scandinavian origin. I love thick suspended chords, soft dark beds of bass and sparking soprano sections. And if you know anything about this kind of music, you won’t be surprised to know that I love Eric Whitacre. He’s a bit trendy these days – some folks roll their eyes when I say I like him. He’s seen as a bit of a derivative upstart in the choral world.
I really don’t care. You like what you like, right?
One of his more epic pieces is called “When David Heard.†It uses text from today’s 2nd Samuel reading: “When David heard that Absalom was slain, he went up into his chamber over the gate and thus he said, ‘My son, my son, my son, Absalom, my son.’â€
It’s rather torrid, and it’s far too long, and I can’t listen to it without bawling.
The sopranos quietly begin alone, and then each section, beginning with the bass on the bottom, enters one by one, building a tangled layer of discord that rises into a rich but painful chord, sparkling like flames reflected in broken glass. And then, abruptly a tenor soloist slides up and down, “A-hab-sa-lom,†eventually joined by the rest of his section and the sopranos, sometimes with large beats of silence between each syllable as though taking big shuddery breaths, finally soaring into stratospheric wails, all of which masterfully evokes a sobbing human voice. It’s extraordinary. You can find it on Youtube if you’d like to hear it for yourself.
This is the kind of passage that seems irresponsible to present without context, as the lectionary composers have done.
After the death of their first child, David consoles Bathsheba and they conceive another son, Solomon, whose name, ironically, means peace. The story that follows is anything but.
Absalom is David’s third son, by his wife Maacah, the former wife of the king of Geshur. He is the half-brother of David’s firstborn, Amnon, who we learn is David’s favourite.
Absalom had other siblings, notably a beautiful sister named Tamar. Amnon, her half-brother, becomes besotted with her, and lays a trap to get her alone. When he propositions her, she resists, and so he forces himself upon her.
In a horrid inversion of the story of Jacob’s daughter Dinah, Amnon loathes Tamar once he has gotten what he wanted, and commands her to leave. Again, she protests, saying that this is a worse evil than the rape itself. He doesn’t listen and kicks her out.
David is enraged, but because Amnon is his favourite, he does nothing. Absalom tries (poorly) to comfort his sister, and the text says she remains “a desolate woman†in his house for the rest of her days. Since she was a virgin at the time of the rape, she can no longer marry herself into a better place. Amnon, having done this while also being her half-brother, has committed a terrible sin.
Absalom, full of justified anger, uses trickery to bring Amnon to his house for a feast, and has him killed. He then flees David, like his father once did from Saul.
After a few years, David allows Absalom to return, and even forgives him. But Absalom, clearly mistrustful of his father, begins to win the people of Israel over to his side, hoping to kill and supplant David on the throne. David reluctantly sends out his soldiers to quell the uprising, and although he begs them to spare Absalom’s life, his trusted general Joab has Absalom killed. David, to Joab’s great consternation, is deeply grieved.
Imagine what must have been going through David’s head. He paid dearly for the sin he committed against Bathsheba and God, but despite the punishment he has already received in the death of their first child, Nathan’s prophecy that trouble will be stirred up in David’s house has still come true. His beloved son, Amnon, has committed a similar yet far greater sin of sexual assault against his own half-sister, and has paid the price at the hand of his own half-brother. David is desperate to prevent further bloodshed and does what he can to stop it, but still loses yet another son.
Where could this deeply personal and perhaps very familiar story of compounded grief intersect with Jesus’ cryptic talk of manna and living bread?
We’ve spoken at length about the lust for power and what it does to the human brain and soul. But of course no matter how much earthly power a person attains, they are never free from pain, illness, or death. Sooner or later, it will find us all. David is once again forced into humility. But along with his grief must have been a sense of the world tilting under his feet. David had gone from the leader of a relatively small family of tribes to a player on the world stage. His nation had grown into something bigger, something forming an identity of its own. Forces within the nation were spiralling out of his hands. His children were making their own mistakes and decisions. David was still the king, but his kingdom had, in a way, begun to grow its own soul. As king he was starting to become an idea, a figurehead, more than a shepherd who knew each sheep by name.
This should be familiar to all of us as well. The Church, once a small band of miscreants, has ballooned into a worldwide movement that has waxed and waned in influence and moral authority. She is not just us in this place. She is Catholic and Anglican and Baptist and Pentecostal. She is Calvinist and Lutheran and Moravian. She is communal and hierarchical. She is Western and privileged; Southern and growing; Eastern and besieged; Northern and struggling. She is the people within and also the buildings around them. And we cannot control her or fully claim her, no matter how convenient that would be for us. Like God’s covenant with Israel, the Church will always be mysterious and beautiful and frustrating, a movement much bigger than the sum of her parts.
What Jesus offers us to hold us together is the joy of memory, what theologians call anamnesis. This is not merely a sentimental recollection, but an active work that changes the atmosphere around us. In this passage from John, the Gospel writer uses particular language to hearken the listeners back to the Israelites’ time in the wilderness: grumbling against God, receiving the precious gift of manna, being called into a relationship of trust.
There was already a mystical tradition in Judaism which equated the manna with God’s unending wisdom. Here Jesus stands in the place of Sophia, making manifest God’s wisdom, God’s Word, in flesh. And this occurs not only in the simple lines of this text, this story, but here at this table before you. Where David is left reeling and wondering what good his kingship ever brought him, we are left with this anchor of truth to hold us steady. When we come together to remember, the walls that separate all the members of the Body of Christ are broken down. Our hearts beat together, across time and space. The memory itself is what makes it possible for God to be among us.
There will come a time when in our grief like David we may forget who we are, what holds us to the earth, what holds us to each other. But when our hearts sing those thick, tangled chords of despair, let us lift our voices knowing that we, the building blocks of the kingdom, are never alone.
We are bound not only by memory but by our identity as beloved servants of a broken king.