The Winds of Change: How The Mighty Have Fallen
Sermon text for May 4, 2008:
II Samuel 1:1, 17-27
The winds of change blew hot over the land of Israel, changing the social and political landscape and shaping the people’s lives. Soon, there would be a change of power and Israel would enter into a golden age that will always be remembered as its finest hour, but first there was tragedy.
The armies of Israel and the Philistines were locked in their perpetual state of war. King Saul is in the thick of the battle as is his son, Jonathan. The Philistine army caught up with Saul and Jonathan on Mt. Gilboa. Jonathan was killed by the Philistines, and Saul, already mortally wounded, fell on his own sword so that his enemies would not have the satisfaction of killing him.
And so the winds of change began to blow on David, who was not a part of Saul’s army. Earlier, Saul, in a fit of insanity, declared David persona non grata and tried to pin him to a wall with his spear. So David kept his distance from the King. He only heard of Israel’s defeat and the death of Saul and Jonathan when a messenger brought him word. He carried Saul’s crown and amulet as proof that he was dead. We might think that David would be overjoyed with Saul’s death, but he wasn’t.
Instead of rejoicing, David fell into deep and prolonged grief. While Saul was David’s enemy, he was still the anointed one of God and if for no other reason than that, he deserved honor. David was once a part of Saul’s household and knew the King intimately. He was able to separate his paranoia from the more healthy aspects of his personality. Saul’s meanness and treachery were not as important as his contributions to the nation. And so David set aside his own succession to the throne and led the nation in a time of mourning.
In the poem we read this morning, David describes Saul and Jonathan as the “Glory of Israel” and laments, “How the mighty have fallen.” David asks the nation to remember Saul and Jonathan as the mighty warriors they were. He provides word pictures of Saul’s sword drawing the blood of his enemies, while Jonathan’s arrows pierce his enemy’s fat.
Saul and Jonathan take on almost epic proportions as they are described as beloved and lovely standing together in life and in death. How the mighty have fallen.
David’s grief is not only public, it is also very private, for Jonathan was closer to David than any one else in the world. He was so close that David says that his love was more pleasant to him even than the love of his wife. David’s private sorrow was expressed in a very public way. His ability to grieve allowed the nation to grieve and ultimately to heal.
I wonder about our ability to grieve either publicly or privately. We are from tough stock and to some, prolonged grieving seems like weakness. We are supposed to suck it up, get tough, and move on. The only problem with that is that it doesn’t work. If we do not take time to grieve, our grief will make us sick. I remember visiting a woman in a psychiatric hospital. All during our conversation she continued to weep. Because of her breakdown she could no longer pretend to be tough. She was mourning the death of her father who died many years before. “I didn’t have time to grieve after he died” she told me. “I had a lot of responsibilities then so I just kept on going.” But grief unexpressed found a way to stop her many years later. Unfortunately some of us refuse to grieve because it seems like weakness or even a lack of faith.
If we can’t grieve personally, it becomes even harder to grieve openly and corporately. I wonder if you have found a constructive way to grieve the losses you have endured as a congregation. Did someone tell you when pastors left under a cloud, and friends left the church, that you simply had to get tough and get on with business? I wonder. My suspicion is that you are still grieving.
I also wonder if some of the ills we see in our nation are the result of not having someone like David to help us mourn the loss of the American dream, or our supposed invulnerability to foreign attack.
Some years ago my family and I went to Washington D.C. I have been to D.C. many times and am always thrilled to stand in the shrines memorializing great America leaders. But I was caught completely by surprise at the Viet Nam War Memorial. I had never seen it before and as we walked down the rows of names of the dead I discovered tears running down my cheeks. I remembered the nightly body counts, the hurt soldiers returning home to an unwelcoming nation. As I cried, I realized that there was no one to help us mourn for the dead or for the living who were still wounded. Instead we moved on, glad to put an unpopular war behind us. How the mighty have fallen.
I wish to God that America had a David who could lead us in grief, who could call us to remember the slain and the wounded, and feel our sorrow in a constructive way. Then perhaps like Israel under a new King, we might move into a golden era of our own.
Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock
II Samuel 1:1, 17-27
The winds of change blew hot over the land of Israel, changing the social and political landscape and shaping the people’s lives. Soon, there would be a change of power and Israel would enter into a golden age that will always be remembered as its finest hour, but first there was tragedy.
The armies of Israel and the Philistines were locked in their perpetual state of war. King Saul is in the thick of the battle as is his son, Jonathan. The Philistine army caught up with Saul and Jonathan on Mt. Gilboa. Jonathan was killed by the Philistines, and Saul, already mortally wounded, fell on his own sword so that his enemies would not have the satisfaction of killing him.
And so the winds of change began to blow on David, who was not a part of Saul’s army. Earlier, Saul, in a fit of insanity, declared David persona non grata and tried to pin him to a wall with his spear. So David kept his distance from the King. He only heard of Israel’s defeat and the death of Saul and Jonathan when a messenger brought him word. He carried Saul’s crown and amulet as proof that he was dead. We might think that David would be overjoyed with Saul’s death, but he wasn’t.
Instead of rejoicing, David fell into deep and prolonged grief. While Saul was David’s enemy, he was still the anointed one of God and if for no other reason than that, he deserved honor. David was once a part of Saul’s household and knew the King intimately. He was able to separate his paranoia from the more healthy aspects of his personality. Saul’s meanness and treachery were not as important as his contributions to the nation. And so David set aside his own succession to the throne and led the nation in a time of mourning.
In the poem we read this morning, David describes Saul and Jonathan as the “Glory of Israel” and laments, “How the mighty have fallen.” David asks the nation to remember Saul and Jonathan as the mighty warriors they were. He provides word pictures of Saul’s sword drawing the blood of his enemies, while Jonathan’s arrows pierce his enemy’s fat.
Saul and Jonathan take on almost epic proportions as they are described as beloved and lovely standing together in life and in death. How the mighty have fallen.
David’s grief is not only public, it is also very private, for Jonathan was closer to David than any one else in the world. He was so close that David says that his love was more pleasant to him even than the love of his wife. David’s private sorrow was expressed in a very public way. His ability to grieve allowed the nation to grieve and ultimately to heal.
I wonder about our ability to grieve either publicly or privately. We are from tough stock and to some, prolonged grieving seems like weakness. We are supposed to suck it up, get tough, and move on. The only problem with that is that it doesn’t work. If we do not take time to grieve, our grief will make us sick. I remember visiting a woman in a psychiatric hospital. All during our conversation she continued to weep. Because of her breakdown she could no longer pretend to be tough. She was mourning the death of her father who died many years before. “I didn’t have time to grieve after he died” she told me. “I had a lot of responsibilities then so I just kept on going.” But grief unexpressed found a way to stop her many years later. Unfortunately some of us refuse to grieve because it seems like weakness or even a lack of faith.
If we can’t grieve personally, it becomes even harder to grieve openly and corporately. I wonder if you have found a constructive way to grieve the losses you have endured as a congregation. Did someone tell you when pastors left under a cloud, and friends left the church, that you simply had to get tough and get on with business? I wonder. My suspicion is that you are still grieving.
I also wonder if some of the ills we see in our nation are the result of not having someone like David to help us mourn the loss of the American dream, or our supposed invulnerability to foreign attack.
Some years ago my family and I went to Washington D.C. I have been to D.C. many times and am always thrilled to stand in the shrines memorializing great America leaders. But I was caught completely by surprise at the Viet Nam War Memorial. I had never seen it before and as we walked down the rows of names of the dead I discovered tears running down my cheeks. I remembered the nightly body counts, the hurt soldiers returning home to an unwelcoming nation. As I cried, I realized that there was no one to help us mourn for the dead or for the living who were still wounded. Instead we moved on, glad to put an unpopular war behind us. How the mighty have fallen.
I wish to God that America had a David who could lead us in grief, who could call us to remember the slain and the wounded, and feel our sorrow in a constructive way. Then perhaps like Israel under a new King, we might move into a golden era of our own.
Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock
posted by Dwight Blackstock | 6:21 AM
1 Comments:
Very good for an interim to provide the opportunity to a congregation to grieve. You might have done a bit more about the grieving process as you understand it so they could recognize where they are in the process. However, more importantly, I liked the placement of their story in the story of the bible and the locating of our national story in the biblical narrative. That gives hope that we can as a nation mature through the painful loss. We will do better if we do not deny the grief its due.
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