David and Absalom

Messy Situations

Who needs soap operas when you have politics? People sometimes say that truth is stranger than fiction, and I think often they are right.

I feel like sometimes you could watch Home and Away, or you could watch the 6pm news...

Some of the story lines in the news seems pretty out there. Most recently we’ve had Gladys before ICAC. Still lingering in the news is the whole Christian Porter scandals having shifted from allegations of sexual misconduct to now include mysterious donors.

Further afield, we had Donald Trump for four years, and love him or hate him, he certainly provided some interesting headlines for us.

Many of the politicians that make these headlines have made mistakes along the way. The extent of their culpability can be debated. At times we can even debate whether it is relevant to the job they are doing. But what is clear is that, particularly in politics, mud sticks.

I’ve seen it a few times when a politician will start to make some headway, but someone will pull up some offensive Tweet or Facebook post from their past and knock them off track.

Thankfully for most of us, when we’re for the most part out of the public eye, our past mistakes or poor decisions aren’t presented for the world to see.

But even though it might not be so public, our own mistakes can easily come back to bite us.

Those loose words we said can hang over a relationship like a brick.

They say that trust takes a long time to build, but only a few moments to break.

It doesn’t take a lot for a situation to turn really messy. Perhaps you initiated the mess with a foolish action. Or maybe it was someone else’s foolishness which started the whole process, but you certainly didn’t help the situation by responding in a good way.

And so the issue I want to think about today is: what do we do in these messy situations?

The reality is, you will have mess in your life. The only question is the extent and nature of your mess.

The big temptation in a messy situation, is to become resentful of other people as we figure out why they are to blame.

Now it’s quite possible you can point to the other persons indiscretion - but can you really say there isn’t any foolishness on your own behalf?

Today, I’m going to be looking at the really messy situation of David and Absalom. As we go through - it would be really easy for David to think - why have my kids turned out so rotten?

Certainly, they made lots of bad choices that really did make David’s life hard.

But the reality is, there is more to the story then that.

David and Bathsheba

Actually, to understand the story we’re going to be looking at now, we need to understand what I looked at last week - the events of David with Bathsheba.

It was a shocking story of David sleeping with another man’s wife, followed by the horror of David effectively murdering her husband. Anyway you look at it - it was bad.

These events are recorded for us in 2 Samuel 11-12 and a quick reading might think that the end of the matter finished as chapter 12 drew to a close, and the mess that is about to begin in chapter 13 is completely unrelated.

But a closer reading will betray such an idea.

You see, chapter 12 has the Lord making it clear that as a result of David’s actions, the sword will not depart his house, and that his wives will be slept with in broad daylight. It seems clear in the text that the mess that start in chapter 13 is a fulfilment of this.

In saying this, I do want to make something clear. Although it is spelt out clearly for us here, it does not necessarily follow that any mess that you are experiencing in your life is a direct result of a particular sinful episode in your life. It might be - for example if you had an affair, or lost your license due to drink driving. But the point of what I’m saying this morning is not that you should try and figure out what the sin is in your life that is causing this. Sometimes it can be a lot more general.

But for today’s story, we do need to read the events in light of David’s failure.

Amnon and Tamar

Well, there’s a lot in the story that we’re going to look at today. I’m really only going to give a brief summary, but I’d encourage you to read the whole event for yourself so you can get all of the details.

This mess starts with David’s eldest son Amnon. And just like David who was overcome with lust for Bathsheba, Amnon also struggles with lust - but perversely with his half-sister Tamar.

Chapter 13 verse 1 says he fell in love, however, in the context, I think we could safely say that what he actually felt was lust, not love.

Well, with the help of a so-called advisor, he concocts a plan where he rapes his half-sister. And almost as soon as he does this disgraceful thing, the sin turns sour. He goes from a so-called love of her, to a hatred of her.

He leaves this virgin daughter of the king, a daughter with much promise, to be a desolate woman.

This moment of perverse passion is about to set off a huge chain reaction.

Amonon and Absalom

Well Tamar has a full brother in Absalom, and he’s about to take centre stage of the biblical narrative for the next 5 or so chapters.

While Tamar lives the rest of her life as a desolate woman with Absalom, Absalom’s heart grows bitter with thoughts of revenge.

Actually, there’s a bit of irony with his name. Absalom can be broken into “Ab” which is a shortened form of Abba, which means Father. And “salom” which is derived from the word “Shalom”, which means peace. So, his name means - “Father of peace” - but he does not bring peace - he brings disunity.

Well, this bitterness grows for two years. And we see Absalom form a plan to enact his revenge. Actually, throughout this morning’s events, you’ll see that quite a few people hatch plans, mostly ill-advised, and carry them out.

Absalom’s plan is to get Amnon to come to him - a plan that involves his father, King David.

David knows well that the relationships between his sons have gone bad - in fact, his own relationship with his son is pretty ordinary as well. David resists at first, but eventually, sends his son, Amnon along to Absalom. I’m not quite sure what Amnon felt about it, but he does end up going.

The plan was quite simple and to the point, get Amnon drunk, and then kill him. A plan that was carried out.

The problem with revenge

So, if I pause just a moment, we can straight away see one possible response to a messy situation. Revenge.

When things go bad, our natural inclination is to find who’s at fault.

Sometimes, it’s not clear. For Absalom, it was very clear. Amnon was absolutely one hundred percent in the wrong.

Once we know who’s to blame we need to get even.

There’s a very clear problem and this story illustrates it very well. In getting even, we almost always never stop things being messy. Revenge just makes things messier.

Absalom and David

So let’s keep following the story.

Well, David was angry after the first incestuous rape. Now, with murder between his sons, he is distraught.

We now have a complete breakdown in the relationship between David and Absalom.

Well, we now see another response to messy situations - ignoring it.

We’re told that for three years Absalom was in Geshur and didn’t see his son.

Ignoring problem

Now this is something I think we can all be tempted to do. Put the problem far away and pretend it’s not there.

You see this quite a bit in families where relationship breakdowns occur. Maybe it’s even happened in your family.

But as we’ll see in this story, and I suspect you’ll recognise happen in your own life, ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away, it just delays things.

Reconciliation

And so we see a new plan formed. This time by the army chief, Joab.

He sends in an actress with a fabricated story - a story designed to evoke a response in David - and it works. The story is about two sons who have a fight and one dies, but then people want the surviving son to be killed, but this would mean the mother loses both sons.

Curiously, David recognises Joab’s hand in this ladies story, but he agrees anyway and we get a half-hearted attempt at reconciliation.

I say half-hearted because it’s actually not reconciliation at all - they don’t even see each other, David rather has Absalom move nearby. They may be physically closer, but they aren’t reconciled.

In fact, we’re told in chapter 14 verse 28 that Absalom went for two years having moved to Jerusalem without seeing the kings face.

Finally, as we get to the end of chapter 14, we at least get something that resembles reconciliation.

The king summons Absalom. He bows down. And we start to see David’s grace come back. The last sentence of chapter 14 says: “And the king kissed Absalom”.

But acts of reconciliation can be deceptive.

In fact, this is something we often see in when people attempt racial reconciliation. A symbolic gesture can be made - sometimes even quite genuine acts at that. But reconciliation is a long process, not a simple single act.

Despite Absalom’s name meaning father of peace, he’s still not at peace with what’s going on.

Absalom takes control

Absalom is still not happy. He’s not happy with his Dad.

The situation is still a mess.

We’ve seen a few different ways to try and deal with a mess. We’ve tried revenge. We’ve tried ignoring it.

Now, Absalom’s going to try something different - taking control.

So how do you take control?

Well, it helps if you have a show of strength. For Absalom, this involves a chariot and horses with fifty men running ahead of him.

It also involves political control. And political control means winning the hearts and mind of the public. Something Absalom does by stationing himself at the city gate and doing what politician do on the public walking in and out.

And it works for Absalom.

In our situation, we might not get the chariot and horses - although that would be pretty cool if we could! - but we can try to position ourselves in a way that people will think well of us. Win people over to our way of thinking. Show our superior knowledge and our ‘street smarts’.

If you look at chapter 15 verse 7, you’ll see that Absalom keeps this behaviour up for four years - which is a pretty solid effort if you ask me.

So let’s track the story and see how this strategy works out for Absalom, because, to be honest, I think this is often the strategy where we often think - right, now I’m making headway into my mess.

Absalom made king

Well, again we find another little sneaky plot which is hatched and executed.

It starts with Absalom making a request of his father, King David, which sounds all right and proper. His request is to go to Hebron to fulfil a vow and worship the Lord.

Well, David answers him, and as it turns out, this will actually be the last time David says anything to Absalom, at least as far as it’s recorded in the Bible.

David says “Go in peace”. Literally, “Go in shalom”.

With these words, we’ll actually see the real difference between how Absalom deals with the mess and how David does.

Well, Absalom’s done his ground work. He sends secret messengers and conspires himself to be king. He has enough people on his side now that he can make it work.

Significantly, Absalom gets a real scoop when he picks up Ahithophel, David’s trusted counsellor, for his side.

Now there is a little detail which is easily missed, but will shed light on Ahithophel. If you were paying really close attention to my message last week, I actually even mentioned his name, although you’ll be forgiven if you’ve forgotten as it was just a passing mention.

Last week I mentioned that Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam, and that we know from another part of the Bible that there was an Eliam who was the son of Ahithophel. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba.

So while we could argue that this whole sordid affair is completely separate from the events I spoke about last week, we can see now how last weeks mess is becoming connected to this weeks mess.

David flees

Well, David can see what is happening, and he flees. Interestingly, it’s worth noting the significant contingent that has stayed with David. They all leave Jerusalem together.

Now, a curious little parallel which is actually quite significant but I’ll just mention it now, we see David making a path that Jesus will closely follow on the night before Jesus is betrayed.

They cross the Kidron Valley, and then go up the Mount of Olives. David has been betrayed by Ahithophel. Jesus by Judas. There’s an interesting parallel between them as well, particularly as we’ll see very shortly that Ahithophel ends his life by hanging himself very shortly.

David’s attitude

Well, I’m going to come back to an assessment of Absalom’s strategy of taking control. But I want to shift gears and look at how David responds to the mess.

Now remember, David hasn’t been perfect in all of this. When I looked at the response of ignoring the problem, David was just as guilty as Absalom, perhaps more so.

But following David’s act of reconciliation towards Absalom, while Absalom might not have changed, David certainly does seem to make quite a change.

Kindness

As David is fleeing from Jerusalem, we see him meet a few people. He meets Ziba, who we met a few weeks ago when we looked at the story of Mephibosheth. Now what goes on here is part of a larger narrative that doesn’t concern us now, but for the time being, let me just highlight the fact that David shows kindness.

Accepting

He then comes across Shimei who obviously is no fan of David, and so hurls lots of abuse. David’s men have a solution - get rid of him - but here we actually see something really remarkable which we really need to take note of.

David actually starts to recognise that much of the mess that is happening is a result of his own foolishness. He stops acts of lashing out against this man. He accepts the situation.

Sometimes we can be so concerned about sorting out our mess. What if sometimes we just accept, you know what?, there is a mess, lets just accept it for what it is. I do know that it can be hard to take this attitude.

Absalom’s end

Well let’s go back to Absalom now, because we’re nearing his end.

Well, Ahithophel is a smart man, and he’s cleverly working against David now.

Firstly he advises Absalom to pitch a tent on the roof of the palace and sleep with all of his father’s concubines.

It is here we see the Lord pronouncement to David being fulfilled. David slept with Bathsheba, the grand daughter of Ahithophel, in private. Absalom will sleep with David’s concubines in public.

Ahithophel will then devise a very smart tactic that would most likely see the end of David. I say most likely because the plot gets frustrated by someone called Hushai who is secretly working for David and offers an alternate plan which Absalom accepts.

Curiously, this is actually where Absalom’s pride in his ability to bring control to the situation falls apart. The part of the alternate plan that appeals to him, is that Absalom will take control. They say pride comes before the fall. And that’s exactly what we see here.

Absalom chooses to take Hushai’s plan over Ahithophel plan, something which becomes the reason that Ahithophel takes his own life.

There’s actually quite a bit of the story that I’m skipping over, but the bottom line is that Absalom’s arrogance will put himself in a situation where he will be killed.

A little fact I failed to mention earlier but was in the narrative, was that Absalom took great pride in his appearance and in particular his very large amount of hair.

Somehow, and we’re not told exactly how, but Absalom becomes suspended in a tree, with his hair caught up in it.

David’s kindness

But let me just quickly backtrack while we leave Absalom hanging in the tree.

David had remained hidden from the action during all of this time, but David is very clear to his men - he does not want Absalom to be hurt in the process.

Now this is something quite weird - a bit reminiscent of when David showed kindness to King Saul when all King Saul wanted to do was kill him.

But it boils down to love. David knows love because God has showed David extrordinary love.

Now showing love is not something that comes easy when you are in the middle of dealing with a mess. But it is something that God calls us to.

Well, let’s come back to Absalom in the tree. Despite David’s very explicit words, Joab deliberately ignores them and kills the hanging Absalom with his javelin.

Eventually when David finds out, we see that completely undeserved love come out - he is distraught.

Conclusion

So what do we make of all of this?

This was an extraordinary large mess which was made worse and worse by poor decisions.

We’ve seen a number of different tactics by the various players.

We looked at revenge - something which might give someone some immediate relief, but really just exacerbates the mess.

We looked at ignoring the problem - might seem to work for a time, but the mess still exists.

And we looked at taking control - something that often feels the right way to go, but what actually happens is that it becomes pride which just precedes the fall.

There is a better way.

David was not perfect, but this man who has been gifted by God to see differently, can take a very different approach.

We see kindness - it’s a gentle approach that listens and acts accordingly.

We see acceptance - recognising that you’re not completely innocent in all of this and that we just need to let things play out.

And we see love - the undeserved love. The attitude that recognises that even though someone doesn’t deserve it, I’m going to love them anyway.

These alternate strategies seem so counterintutive. They go against the grain of our every instinct. But it’s the way we get through. It might reduce the mess. It might not. But it puts us in a place where we can allow God to get us through it.

It boils down to a choice really. We can try to put ourselves forward as the solution. Or we can allow God to take control.

It should really be a no-brainer.

So let me pray...