2. A Dysfunctional Family: David and Absalom (Manuscript)

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Hey/Good evening everybody,

It is really good to get to sing and worship with you all, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know you over X, Y, and Z…

other intro comments…

This weekend, I want to go on a bit of a journey with you into one of the most emotionally charged, psychologically complex, and spiritually instructive stories in all of the Bible.

We all love a good story.

Whether you prefer to pick up a good book,

Turn on netflix

Go to the cinema,

or even go see plays/musicals in person…

Good stories have the power to SUCK us in,

to draw us into a narrative BIGGER than ourselves,

to expose our deepest longings,

our deepest fears

and ideally,

teach us valuable lessons about real life,

and inspire us to a life more full and beautiful.

Good stories MUST have a few crucial elements.

Just look up online “essentials of a good story”

and you will see most pages including these components:

A protagonist [that’s the hero!]

an antagonist [that’s the villain!]

CONFLICT,

and

and RESOLUTION.

Regardless of genre,

good story books

good shows and movies

tend to have these pieces.

Out of curiosity, what is your favorite book/MOVIE/show genre?

Fantasy?

Romance? Drama?

Thriller? Action? Crime? War?

Comedy?

Documentary? Historical?

Musical?

Amazingly, the story we are delving into this weekend:

tonight, tomorrow morning, tomorrow evening,

and Monday morning,

is a blend of all of these.

The story of David,

The DRAMA of David,

is a story in which we can see each of ourselves,

and a story in which we can see the God who made us for Himself.

This story contains a KEY protagonist who points us to THE Protagonist of human history;

one MAJOR source of conflict.

and a resolution that is found ultimately in looking forward...

[protagnist: David —> Jesus]

conflict rises from our unfaithfulness and faithlessness - define?

Resolution in the Messianic king who perfeclty obeys God and is faithful even when we are faithless, in whom we are counted righteous and loved, regardless of our sins and shortcomings

Any of you in musical theater?

or have acted in a play?

Or have any of you ever seen a musical?

or at least a play?

David’s narrative is a blend of many movie genres:

Drama, Action, Thriller, “Fantasy” in the sense of the divine, spiritual charge of all the events… “sword and sorcery”

All of you have

Merriam Webster:

“a story involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue”

“a state, situation or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces.”

This morning we looked at David’s early life,

when he was the court musician for King Saul,

the young, successful commander of Israel’s army

and the BEST friend of King Saul’s son, Jonathan.

We considered David and Jonathan’s inspiring friendship.

A friendship marked by LOYAL, faithful, promise-keeping love.

A friendship that models for us how WE ought to befriend other godly Christians,

and cultivate lifelong, committed friendships that have God at the center.

Ultimately we saw how Christ himself is the perfectly faithful Friend,

whose loyal love for us never wavers or weakens,

the ONLY One who truly is the FRIEND who sticks closer than a brother.

This evening, we consider David’s Dysfunctional Family (SLIDE).

We are fast-forwarding a bit in the story of David’s life,

as movies often do,

zipping into the future,

and slowly but surely unveiling HOW the protagonist got to the difficult circumstances he currently was in

So if you would,

with me in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 13.

We are going to read all the way from v. 20 of ch. 13 through chapter 14 verse 1, with a couple of you participating.

Interactive dramatic reading - touch base with those students beforehand (ask Wifey to participate in reading)?

In this story we have two MAIN characters.

A protagonist and an antagonist.

And they are related—closely related.

A father, and a son.

A hardworking, but passive father.

And a bitter, and arrogant son.

Like many stories,

every antagonist—the “bad” guy-- has some quality, trait, or backstory with which you can resonate and sympathize,

often their former life hardship or trauma that caused much of their present villainy! [Kind of like the fact that almost every school bully was first themselves bullied; the VICTIM becomes the victimizer]

Loki—of Marvel Studios, for example

Looper.com highlights,

“Loki’s own father, the Frost Giant King Laufey didn’t want him, so Odin adopted him...”

“Loki believed he was a more worthy successor to his father since Thor didn’t display the maturity necessary for leadership, so when he was passed over, he took the slight extremely personally.”

“Over the years he lost his mother Frigga and Odin. His much more evil sister Hela tried to kill him, and he’s frequently been estranged from his brother, Thor.”

Similarly,

in most stories,

every protagonist—the “good” guy—has his “Achilles heal”; his point of weakness, his vice

The same is true in this inspired, historical story of David and Absalom before us.

Let’s begin with our first main character,

the PROTAGONIST,

King David.

v.21 “When King David heard all of these things...”

What did David just hear about?

Summary of Tamar/Amnon

Amnon, David’s eldest son by his wife Ahinoam (?) had horribly violated — raped, his half sister Tamar

The full sister of Absalom, David’s children by his wife Maacah

David hears the tragic report of this abominable, incestuous wickedness that happened in his royal own royal family.

Committed by his ELDEST son,

assumably, of course, the HEIR to the throne,

according to cultural norms.

The heir to the throne was a sexual predator,

a sexual offender,

a rapist...

Even worse,

because of Amnon’s egregious evil against his half-sister Tamar,

we read in v.20 “So Tamar lived a desolate woman, in her brother Absalom’s house.”

add the tearing of the virgin clothes, grief, and permanent ruin of her life; his blatant rejeciton of the law of God; total rejection and disobedience, total disqualification from kingship

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