Proper 9B. July 4, 2021
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10. Look, we are your bone and flesh. [Take us in].
2 Corinthians 12:2-10. My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.
Mark 6:1-13. And he was amazed at their unbelief.
O Dreamer of Freedom, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Sometimes people at Emmanuel wonder what a lesson like the one from 2 Samuel has to do with the Gospel (or anything else in the service). It’s a great question that often comes from experiencing a lifetime of lectionary reading selections that used to fit neatly together, in which Christians appropriated the First Testament to serve the Second Testament. That has changed somewhat with the Episcopal Church’s use of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Fewer than twenty years ago the Episcopal Church, gathered at the General Conventions of 2003 and 2006, decided that beginning in Advent 2007, we would depart from the Episcopal Lectionary, in which the First Testament reading propped up the Gospel reading from the Second Testament. We agreed to use the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for Sunday worship services in concert with other denominations of Christianity. In the RCL, there is an optional track of readings from relatively large and consecutive portions of the books of the First Testament, like Samuel. Not all Episcopal parishes opt for this track, but we do at Emmanuel. The result is that we are hearing passages of the Bible that, until recently, have not traditionally been read on Sundays in the Episcopal Church, like today’s reading, for example.
In my view, this improves our Biblical literacy and fosters better relations among Jews and Christians. Thinking about all this made me want to preach about Samuel’s account of David’s incredible rise from shepherd bandit to mighty king and to wonder aloud with you about what these stories from more than 3000 miles away and 3000 years ago might have to do with us here and now on Independence Day in the United States and three days following the Feast Day of The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. Yes, those are the some of the important things swirling around in my head.
The context of today’s reading from Second Samuel is that 7 ½ years after David had been anointed king for the southern realm of Judah, the tribes of the northern region came together to beg him to put them under his rule as well. Now he had been both divinely ordained and also chosen by the people. This part is about how David came to occupy the place named Jerusalem, which is understood to mean the City of Peace, and which became known as the City of David. Ironically, and not coincidentally, occupying the City of Peace gave David a great military advantage. David became greater and greater, the story goes, because the Holy One, the God of Hosts – elohey tzabaot, literally the God of the armies – was with him.
Perhaps you noticed that there are three verses missing in our lectionary portion. I’m hoping that if you noticed, you wondered what they say. Well, I’m going to tell you. They are not nice, and that is surely why they have been left out. Verses 6-8 read: “The king [that’s David] and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, ‘You will not come in here, even the blind and the lame will turn you back’ … Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, which is now the City of David. David had said on that day, ‘Whoever would strike down the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, those whom David hates. Therefore it is said ‘The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.’”
It’s an ugly scene of battle taunts and residual cruelty. Scholars debate what it really means, but nobody thinks it’s good. Lest anyone jump to the faulty conclusion that this is evidence of “OT bad, NT good,” I want to tell you that even when the story was re-told in the book of Chronicles, written some time after Samuel, the chronicler omitted this part of the story.[1] And the Hebrew prophets addressed the wrongful exclusion of people who were blind or lame.[2] Jeremiah testifies to God’s concern for bringing the exiles home to Jerusalem, explicitly including those who are blind or lame. Isaiah does one better in articulating God’s promise that the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the lame shall leap like a deer.[3] The prophets assert God’s gifts to all people and desire for inclusion, protection, and healing for any who are vulnerable. So this story of David conquering Jerusalem is an unscrubbed example of the highest expression of the ideal king, who also has considerable character flaws. I am very glad about it because the story is about God’s enduring faithfulness and love, no matter what.
David was the unlikely victor over the giant Goliath. He was also the handsome eighth son of an undistinguished family, a poet and musician, compassionate shepherd, faithful steward, lover of Jonathan, creative and courageous in battle, who repeatedly showed considerable restraint in sparing Saul’s life even as Saul sought to kill David. Besides, he could throw a party and dance like nobody’s business! At the same time, David was a ruthless warrior, a greedy adulterer, an unrepentant murderer, quite unable to see the consequences of his actions, and quite limited in his ability to walk upright before God.
Frederick Buechner writes this about King David:
He didn’t have to talk up the bright future and high hopes because he was himself the future at its brightest, and there were no hopes higher than the ones his people had in him….[and yet] He had feet of clay like the rest of us if not more so – self-serving and deceitful, lustful and vain – but on the basis of [his] danc[ing] alone, you can see why it was David more than anybody else that Israel lost her heart to and why, when Jesus of Nazareth came riding into Jerusalem on his flea-bitten mule a thousand years later, it was as the Son of David that they hailed him.[4]
It is good for us to know that within the Bible are many intramural inconsistencies and disagreements. It is dangerous to try to eliminate the discrepancies, to quiet the dissenting or unpleasant voices, or to pretend that this extraordinarily complex collection of stories is somehow not as complex as human history itself. In our foundational fables – whether they are our religious stories or nationalistic stories – we do well to acknowledge the ambiguities and admit the shadow sides. Holding the tension of differences, acknowledging the ambiguities, and confessing the shadow sides of our stories creates room for hope for both healing and for peace, for reparations and reconciliation. Everyone is cheated when we over-simplify the stories which tell us about just who and Whose we are. When we fail to admit the faults of our founders, our leaders, and our own faults, when we fail to recognize our own vulnerability and the vulnerability of others, how can we ever fulfill our moral obligation to live in the shalom of God?
It’s good for us to know that God can do great things with flawed characters, because we are all flawed characters. It’s good for us to know that King David was fully human; and, for that matter, it’s good for us to know that Jesus, Son of David, was fully human, with good days and bad days, mixed motives and unintended consequences, learning and growing as he went. The historical fixation on worshiping a Jesus without flaws is profoundly damaging. It’s good for us to know that each of us is better than the worst thing we’ve ever done. The testimonies of Scripture are about God’s enduring love and dreams for our freedom, no matter where we have been or what we have done or left undone. It is good to remember that, in the end, we will not be judged by our economic, military, or even intellectual might, but on how we care for those who are most vulnerable.
Good to remember on our Independence Day holiday that all were not free then and all are still not free. It’s good to remember that the War of Independence made some white people very wealthy, that the United States economy was largely built on the backs of enslaved peoples and on the land of indigenous peoples, and that people who called themselves Christians contorted the message of Jesus Christ to aid and abet the thefts of life and labor and land, and that we still do.
Remember that the Declaration of Independence’s aspirations have not yet been achieved. Remember that the vision of Jerusalem, the City of Peace, has not yet been achieved, and it is not confined or limited to a particular geographical location. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: may they prosper who love her![5] Listen to the first poem from Pauli Murray’s book Dark Testament.[6]
Freedom is a dream.
Haunting as amber wine
Or worlds remembered out of time
Not Eden’s gate, but freedom
Lures us down a trail of skulls
Where men forever crush the dreamers
Never the dream.
I was an Israelite walking a sea bottom,
I was a Negro slave following the North Star,
I was an immigrant huddled in ship’s belly,
I was a Mormon searching for a temple,
I was a refuge clogging roads to nowhere –
Always the dream was the same –
Always the dream was freedom.
- 1 Chronicles 11:4-9, which was written a century or two after Samuel.
- Jeremiah 31:8.
- Isaiah 35:5-6.
- Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who (San Francisco: Harper, 1979), pp. 26-27.
- Psalm 122.
- Pauli Murray, Dark Testament and Other Poems (New York: Liveright, 1970).