2 Samuel 18:5-9,
15, 31-33
The king ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, "Deal gently for
my sake with the young man Absalom." And all the people heard when the
king gave orders to all the commanders concerning Absalom.
So the army went out into the field against Israel; and the battle was
fought in the forest of Ephraim.
The men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David, and the
slaughter there was great on that day, twenty thousand men.
The battle spread over the face of all the country; and the forest
claimed more victims that day than the sword.
Absalom happened to meet the servants of David. Absalom was riding on his
mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak. His head
caught fast in the oak, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth, while
the mule that was under him went on.
And ten young men, Joab's armor-bearers, surrounded Absalom and struck
him, and killed him.
Then the Cushite came; and the Cushite said, "Good tidings for my lord
the king! For the LORD has vindicated you this day, delivering you from the
power of all who rose up against you."
The king said to the Cushite, "Is it well with the young man
Absalom?" The Cushite answered, "May the enemies of my lord the king,
and all who rise up to do you harm, be like that young man."
The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and
wept; and as he went, he said, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!
Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!"
Ephesians
4:25-5:2
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our
neighbors, for we are members of one another.
Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do
not make room for the devil.
Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly
with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.
Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for
building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who
hear.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with
a seal for the day of redemption.
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and
slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as
Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice
to God.
John 6:35,
41-51
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me
will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the
bread that came down from heaven."
They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose
father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from
heaven'?"
Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves.
No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will
raise that person up on the last day.
It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.'
Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he
has seen the Father.
Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it
and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this
bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the
world is my flesh."
==================================================================
You know those sayings they always
say about parents and children:
· You sure
can tell whose kid you are!
· The apple
didn’t fall very far from the tree (or the nut, or the acorn)
· Chip off
the old block
· (just saw
this yesterday: Don’t judge people by their relatives. J)
· ……. (what
else?)
· And of
course, like father, like son, or like mother, like daughter (but you hardly
ever hear “like mother, like son, or vice versa, do you?)
People who knew my mom often tell
me how much I remind them of her. And when they say that, I always wonder, and
sometimes I ask them, do they mean that I look a lot like her, or that I act a
lot like her? Because I do have my mom’s dark, curly hair, and other facial
characteristics that could be considered similar. But mom was short, and tiny,
and feisty. Really feisty. I would say she was way more feisty than me. And
impatient! Very impatient. To my mind, my behavior is more like my dad than my
mom. He was more quiet, and patient, and gentle than her. Of course, that could
just be the way I see myself; others may see me in a very different light than
that!
But we carry certain traits from
our parents. Some may be genetic, or hereditary, or behavioral. They may come
from our biological parents, but if we were raised by one parent, or by
adoptive parents, or foster parents, we may also have developed characteristics
that are unique to them. And of course, the circumstances of our lives also
play a large part in shaping who we are, who we become.
In our passage today from Paul’s
letter to the Ephesians, he tells them, and us as well, to “be imitators of God
– as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up
for us.” Paul is reminding us that we have another parent that we take after –
as God’s children, there are characteristics of God that we are called to
model, to imitate. And those characteristics are summed up by telling us to
live in love, sacrificial love, the way Christ loved us so much that he gave himself
up for us.
Our Old Testament and New Testament
passages are great representations of how to be (and how not to be) imitators
of God, or chips off the old block, as we might say.
We continue to learn about David
and his children in our reading today from Second Samuel. Last week’s reading
came from chapter 11, and this week’s is from chapter 18. And I have to tell
you, a LOT happens between those two chapters. Talk about dysfunctional family
dynamics, you’ve got them here. It reads a bit like a reality TV show.
One of the great theologians of our
present time, Frederick Buechner, provides a good summary of what has happened
since we left off on our story of David. He writes this:
“ALMOST
FROM THE START, Absalom had a number of strikes against him. For one thing, he
was much too handsome for his own good, and his special pride was such a
magnificent head of hair that once a year when he had it trimmed, the trimmings
alone tipped the scales at three and a half pounds. For another thing, his
father, King David, was always either spoiling him rotten or reading him the
riot act. This did not promote stability of character. He murdered his
lecherous brother Amnon for fooling around with their sister, Tamar, and when
the old war-horse Joab wouldn't help him patch things up with David afterward,
he set fire to Joab’s hay field. All Israel found this kind of derring-do
irresistible, of course, and when he eventually led a revolt against his
father, a lot of them joined up.
On the eve
of the crucial battle, David was a wreck. If he was afraid he might lose his
throne, he was even more afraid he might lose Absalom. The boy was the thorn in
his flesh, but he was also the apple of his eye, and before the fighting
started, he told the chiefs of staff till they were sick of hearing it that, if
Absalom fell into their clutches, they must promise to go easy on him for his
father's sake. Remembering what had happened to his hay field, old Joab kept
his fingers crossed, and when he found Absalom caught in the branches of an oak
tree by his beautiful hair, he ran him through without blinking an eye. When
they broke the news to David, it broke his heart, just as simple as that, and
he cried out in words that have echoed down the centuries ever since. "0
my son Absalom, my son, my son;' he said. "Would I had died instead of
you, 0 Absalom, my son, my son" (2 Samuel 18:33)." (Originally published in Peculiar Treasures)
He meant
it, of course. If he could have done the boy's dying for him, he would have
done it. If he could have paid the price for the boy's betrayal of him, he
would have paid it. If he could have given his own life to make the boy alive
again, he would have given it. But even a king can't do things like that. As
later history was to prove, it takes a God. “
So here we have a father who
desperately loves his son, but who cannot take on for himself the sins of his
son. He may be king, and he may be a man after God’s own heart, but even a king
cannot keep death from those whom he loves. Only a God can do that.
And so with that we turn to the
gospel reading. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” This is the first of his
“ I AM” statements, and since the Jews know that “I AM” is a name attributed to
God, this makes them a bit twitchy. Who is this Jesus? We know his father; he’s
a carpenter from Galilee. Where does this guy get off saying he came down from
heaven as bread? In the Old Testament bread and wine are used as descriptions
for wisdom, meaning they need to be taken in and processed to be effectively
used.
Jesus uses their questions, as
usual, as a teachable moment. He connects the hearing and learning that comes
from the Father with eating the bread that is eternal, and believing, and
living forever. He connects those who come to him with those who are drawn to
him by the Father. The Son is teaching as the Father teaches. The Son is saving
as the Father saves. The Son is not merely providing the bread of heaven; he IS
the bread of heaven. He is what sustains us above and beyond any meal
imaginable.
God has saved us, forgiven us,
sustained us, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And this is
why Paul says to us,
“Therefore
be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us
and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” He says
we do that by
·
putting away falsehood
·
speaking truth to our neighbors
·
acknowledge our anger but do not let it cause us to
sin
·
do not make room for the devil
·
labor and work honestly, so we have something to share
with the needy (not to hoard for ourselves)
·
speak what is useful for building up – words that give
grace to those who hear.
·
put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and
wrangling and slander and malice – and be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving to one
another – as God in Christ has forgiven you.
o [if only David
and Amnon and Absalom could have chosen these behaviors, could have modeled
themselves after their heavenly parent]
·
do not grieve the Holy Spirit, with which you have
been sealed for redemption.
You are beloved children of God –
you and me and all of us. So like parent, like child, be imitators of God, and
live in love. And by doing this, we contribute to a world where conflicts do
not have to be approached in the way David and Absalom did, where the results
do not have to be so tragic. Where weapons will be transformed into farming
implements. Where lions will lie down with lambs, and be led by little children.
It may sound Pollyanna-ish, but it really ought to sound Christlike – and
because of that, it is exactly what we ought to be about the business of doing.
If we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, if we believe his words and
trust his authority over us, if we accept Holy Scripture as an authoritative
witness to Jesus Christ and to God’s work in the world, by the power of the
Holy Spirit, then we must read this
seriously and take it in as food, as bread, as divine wisdom, as our way of
life. Our parent God has called us to do so, and our brother Christ has shown
us the way. And we have the opportunity to show the way in the way we live our
lives, and nourish others with our daily living, every moment of every day.
In the name of the Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment