Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Analytical
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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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.
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