This weekend's sermon will benefit from some preparation. We'll be reading a small portion (II Samuel 15: 7-13, click to read) of a much larger story (II Samuel 13-15), and while I'll offer a concise recap of the entire story, you might find the whole narrative compelling. Let me warn you, however, to open the pages only after the kids have gone to bed; the events are so tawdry.
If you don't have time to read all three chapters of II Samuel, perhaps this brief meditation will help.
"All Israel found [Absalom's] derring-do irresistible, of course, and when he finally led a revolt against his father, a lot of them joined him. 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 a thorn in his flesh, but he was also the apple of his eye, and before the fighting started, he told 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 [which Absalom had torched], old Joab kept his fingers crossed, and when he found Absalom caught in the branches of an oak tree by his beautiful hair, he ran him through 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: 'O my son, Absalom, my son, my son. Would that I had 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 can't do things like that. As later history was to prove, it takes a God." Frederick Buechner's Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who (Harper & Row, 1979, pp. 5-6)
If you've ever struggled with loss, your own or another's (and who hasn't?) and wondered where God is in the midst of seemingly hopeless circumstances, this weekend's worship may help. We won't provide easy answers or pat formulas, but we will take seriously the sometimes hidden work of God that can lead us through - and eventually out of - whatever wilderness in which we find ourselves.
Even better, we'll watch a bit of "The Godfather" to help us do so (no, I'm not kidding!).
Come, and bring a friend.
