O Absalom! O Tamar! Oh David!

A sermon by Lanny Peters

Pastor, Oakhurst Baptist Church

August 13, 2006

2 Samuel 13: 1- 33 with references to Chapters 13-18

There is a technique used in literature, as well as in film, where the climactic scene comes at the very beginning. Then, we are taken back in time so we can understand what led up to the scene we just experienced. We must do that today if we are to understand this dramatic moment from our lectionary text, which ends with King David weeping inconsolably, and very alone, over the death of his son, Absalom.

If this were a movie, the flashback that might be shown first would be Absalom as a young man. An earlier text tells us, “In all Israel, there was not a man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the top of his head to the sole of his feet there was no blemish in him.” And his hair was so thick and beautiful that he rarely cut it. When he did cut his hair, they would actually weigh it and every one would be amazed at how much it weighed. Though admired for his handsome looks in the royal court, Absalom was not David’s favorite son. That role went to Amnon, because he was David’s first-born son, and thereby, heir to the throne. David had seven sons by seven different wives so Amnon and Absalom also had different mothers. Absalom had a sister with the same mother whose name was Tamar. Their mother had been a princess and Tamar was also known for her beauty. Things got complicated when Amnon fell in love with her.

It says that, “Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her.” With the help of a crafty cousin, he devised a scheme. Pretending to be ill, he asked his father, King David, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight, so that I might eat from her hand.” This might have made David suspicious but without questioning, he sent word to Tamar to go and cook for her ill brother Amnon. She does just that, preparing cakes just as he requested. But when she set the food before him, he refused to eat. Like some other Bible stories, this one should come with a PG rating.

Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the chamber, so that I may eat from your hand.” So Tamar took the cakes she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her, and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister.”  She answered him, “No, my brother, do not force me; for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do anything so vile! As for me, where could I carry my shame? And as for you, you would be as one of the scoundrels in Israel. Now therefore, I beg you, speak to the king; for he will not withhold me from you.”

As we see, Tamar tries to calmly reason with her brother, to point out the horrible consequences of his request for both of them. She even suggests that he talk to their father who might even permit their sexual relationship. This speaks volumes about her impression of old Dad, probably based on David’s own history of lust and illicit affairs. She points out that such a vile thing is not done in Israel; that is, unless their father the king okays it.

“But Amnon would not listen to her; and being stronger than she was, he forced her and lay with her.” The Hebrew word used here for this act of force is also translated as oppress and humiliate, which “reflects more than an act of sexual exploitation. The rape is a power act of the strong against the weak.” (Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: First and Second Samuel  p. 287)

Then we see evidence of a strange psychological phenomenon that those who study sexual violence tell us is often true. As soon as it was over, we are told, “Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, ‘Get up and get out.’”     What Amnon thought was love is quickly gone after his sexual desire is satisfied. He has no desire for further intimacy; he just wants her gone. It is the same craziness and evil we see today in men who rape and then murder women. 

Just as Tamar had resisted him before, she does so now. “No!” She said to him. “Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.” Again, he refused to listen to her and called his personal servant who at his instruction threw her out and bolted the door behind her.

If you recall the story of David and Bathsheba from two weeks ago, this is a case of “like father, like son. ” For here is David’s oldest son, heir apparent to the throne, abusing his power for evil, just as his father had once done. The way he treated her, Amnon must have expected Tamar to keep his wrong hidden from public view, as David had tried so hard to do with his affair with Bathsheba. But Tamar refuses to cooperate in the cover-up. She rips up her richly ornamented robe, a symbol that identified her as the virgin daughter of the king. She puts ashes on her head, a sign of death, and goes out, weeping for her lost innocence. This public gesture of humiliation comes quickly to the attention of her brother Absalom.

But Absalom stops her, saying “Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.” It is an insensitive, even cruel thing to say, as if it were possible to so easily put such a thing away. Again, there are modern day parallels to the way women who have been sexually abused are pressured to keep silent.

In his tone, it is clear that Absalom will take action. You would expect that her father might be the one to do something. “When King David heard all these things, he became very angry, but he would not punish his son Amnon, for he loved him, for he was his firstborn.”

What craziness! Was David “so compromised by his own past action that he can do nothing?” (Brueggemann)  Or did he value daughters so much less than his sons? Did he not see that doing nothing about this could only lead to trouble? We are told, “Absalom took Tamar into his home, but she remained a desolate woman. Absalom refused to speak a word, good or bad, to Amnon, but he hated Amnon because he had raped his Sister Tamar.”

Two years pass. Then one day when Absalom has finished the huge job of shearing all the sheep, he proposes a feast to celebrate. David is invited, but busy with things at court and does not wish to go himself. At Absalom’s urging, reluctantly, David agrees to allow all his children to attend. Perhaps this will help put all this mess behind them, he might have thought. Absalom prepares a king’s feast. Amnon is delighted his brother is speaking to him again, and before long is drinking and in high spirits. Then Absalom orders his men to attack and kill Amnon, which they dutifully do.

Then there is pandemonium. Fearing for their lives, Amnon’s brothers flea but a report goes back to David that all his sons have been killed by Absalom. He is devastated. As he is wailing in grief, news comes that only Amnon is dead and David’s other sons have not been harmed. He experiences some relief but still has lost his firstborn and heir to the throne. Fearing David’s wrath, Absalom flees to the far-off home of his maternal grandfather.

Well, David has managed to create one crazy family and he has a real mess on his hands. He does not pursue Absalom but he does banish him from his kingdom. For three years, there was no contact. Then Joab, the king’s general and closest confidant, realizes how much the king missed Absalom. He knew the king was a proud, stubborn person, so he comes up with a scheme that involves recruiting a wise woman who goes to David with a make-believe story about her two sons. In a dramatic and convincing way, she tells a story about her sons, one of which killed the other and is now in exile. She pretends she has come to seek David’s help in getting her son home for she realizes that a son who is a murderer is still a son. She says, “Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead God finds a way to bring the banished home.” David realizes that the story also rings true for him, even as he figures out it was a ruse and that Joab was behind it all.

Without saying anything about the woman and her story, the king calls Joab and says, “Very well, I will do it. Go, bring back the young man Absalom.” Note that he does not say my son Absalom. In an act of stubbornness or to save face, David makes a decision that will lead to more trouble. He says that Absalom can come home to his own city and his own house, but he would not see him face to face. David’s faithful general Joab cuts ties with Absalom as well until two years later when Absalom sets fire to Joab’s fields to get his attention. Joab goes to Absalom to find out what in the world he did that for and Absalom is somehow able to persuade him to arrange a face-to-face meeting with his father. If this were a movie, the music should be grand for this scene as these two handsome men, father and son, finally embrace again after all those years.

I should add that the one who disappears from the story, avenged but never healed is Tamar. In a way, Absalom used her all over again. It turns out that he had much more in mind than avenging her rape; he had his sights set on his dead brother’s right to the throne. Absalom slowly builds himself an entourage of chariots and fine horses. Soon he has fifty men running ahead of him everywhere he goes, so his every movement begins to seem like a royal procession.

Then he began taking note of his father’s political vulnerabilities. King David had a poor judicial system. Absalom began talking like a politician, saying that if he were in charge of the justice system, he would reform it. His good looks and friendly ways, his public presence on the streets as his father stayed hidden away in his palace, all served him well. He began making friends with everyone who came to the city. Finally, we are told that he “stole the hearts of the men of Jerusalem.” After four years back from exile, he believed himself to be so popular that he could now be king. Pretending he was going on a pilgrimage to worship, out in the countryside he organized a coup to overthrow his father and make himself king.

Absalom quickly gains the loyalty of enough troops that David has to flee his own capital. There is an account of a man who follows along cursing David and his troops as they leave the city. He not only curses them, but he throws dirt and stones at them. He tells David that all this is happening to him because of the blood that he has shed himself.

One of the soldiers says, “Why would this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut his head off.” But David refuses. “Leave him alone, let him curse for who knows, maybe God has sent me this message. And if not, maybe God will feel sorry for me for all this cursing I am getting.”

It is a wonderful, funny story in the midst of a tense tale. It is a reminder of what made David such a great man in spite of all his flaws. As he was able to do when confronted by Nathan, he is able to look at himself honestly. It’s a wonderful line: Leave him alone, let him curse for who knows, maybe God has sent me this message. He is admitting that perhaps all this is the result of my own violent ways. And if not, maybe God will feel sorry for me for all this cursing I am getting.

There are several chapters detailing the maneuverings of David and Absalom. Throughout it all, David is praying to God for help but he is also thinking, planning, and scheming. He uses priests for spies. There is a trusted aide who pretends to defect to Absalom, gains his trust, and deceives him. Meanwhile, David is quickly forging alliances with kings from neighboring countries as he awaits word from his intelligence sources. Absalom has greatly underestimated his father’s military savvy. The old man is not washed up yet. This brings us to the point in the story that we heard read today.

            Frederick Buechner recaps that story this way:

On the eve of the crucial battle, David was a wreck. If he was afraid he might lose his throne, he was even more afraid he might lose Absalom. The boy was the thorn in his flesh, but he was also the apple of his eye, and before the fighting started, he told all the chiefs of staff till they were sick of hearing it that if Absalom fell into their clutches, they must promise to go easy on him for his father’s sake. Remembering what had happened to his hay field, old Joab kept his fingers crossed, and when he found Absalom caught in the braches of an oak tree by his beautiful hair, he ran him though without blinking an eye. When they broke the news to David, it broke his heart, just as simple as that, and he cried out in words that have echoed down the centuries ever since. “Oh my son, Absalom, my son, my son. Would I have died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son.”

He meant it of course. If he could have done the boy’s dying for him, he would have done it. If he could have paid the price for the boy’s betrayal of him, he would have paid it. If he could have given his own life to make the boy alive again, he would have given it. But even a king cannot do things like that. As later history was to prove, it takes a God. Peculiar treasures: A Biblical Who’s’ Who, pp. 5-6.

This story has captured the imagination of artists, filmmakers and writers over the years. Two of the most well known uses of this story are William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom and one of my favorite novels of all time, South African Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country. A famous quote from that book echoes today’s story, “This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. ... Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end.”

There are countless other stories found in novels and movies about this universal theme of families divided by favoritism and violence and hatred. Walter Brueggemann says, “The impact of this literature, so ancient and so contemporary, is that it tells us, like every great drama or novel, how in fact it is with us. Because we are so prone to self-deception, mostly we do not experience our own situation honestly or directly. That is why we need artistic portrayal to see ourselves up close.” (p. 266)

One of the most sacred things I do as a pastor is listen to people’s stories. One of the ways we design our membership classes is to make space for telling faith stories. Inevitably, these also turn out to be family stories. Many of them contain dynamics not all that different from David’s family.

This ancient story was preserved as a sacred text not as court gossip, but as Holy Scripture because it is a story about the mess we humans can make of our lives. And for some of us, the messes we have survived. We realize that what we have in common is something of the same inner hurt, anguish, conflict, and ambiguity that we see in David’s family.

“Yes, below the reality that we might want to publicly project is a dimension of our reality in which we are utterly human in our hurt, our hate, and our hope.” (Brueggemann) Indeed, many of us sitting here have tales to tell that rival old King David’s. I suspect that it is only a few, if any at all, who have lives free of some sort of craziness and tragedy. The narrator of this tale wants us to know that none of us need to sit in judgment, for these stories are meant to remind us of the bond we share simply by being human.

            In some ways, David’s story is a classic tale of a father who was incredibly successful in his public life, rising from a shepherd boy to become the most powerful ruler in his time. He was not only beloved by his people but would be remembered as Israel’s greatest king. But as successful as he was in his public life, he seemed to make a mess of his family life.

But in the midst of all this he never lost his capacity for love. It is perhaps the defining moment of David’s life when he hears the news of Absalom’s death. He now has borne again the cost of his actions, and has lost yet another son. It is David’s own modeling of grasping, arrogant power that Absalom has imitated. If we are honest, “We recognize in David’s grief our own grief over many losses we have experienced not simply as victims but as perpetrators. How much greater the grief when we have helped to bring its cause. It is the despair of our soul coupled with the grief of our heart.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume II, P. 1342

Now all through this story of a family coming unraveled, there is a character who is central to the story but who is barely mentioned. It is God. But just as David refuses to stop loving Absalom, God also refuses to stop loving David. David, for all his faults, never forgets that. David understood the old woman well when she said, “Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead God finds a way to bring the banished home.”

Wayne Grinstead’s wonderful and original arrangement that the choir sang after the scripture has it just right. The tune of “Amazing Grace” is a perfect connection with this sad tale. Among the Psalms attributed to David, there are several that are his own version of “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

David’s story, Absalom’s story, Tamar’s story, your story and my story, each serve to point us toward our God, the one who knows us better than anyone else, and still loves us more than we can ever imagine. Therein, in whatever mess we make of things, lies our hope.