Sermon given by the Rev. Bernadette Hartsough
August 8, 2021
I want to start today by reading the beginning of today’s collect, “Grant us Lord we pray the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will…”
The spirit to think and do always those things that are right. This collect is appropriately paired to go with the reading from Second Samuel and for today’s reading from Ephesians. The opening line from the letter to the Ephesians today bids us to speak the truth. We are to speak the truth and encourage others to speak the truth. That is what it means to live marked with the seal of God. We love what God loves. Truth and justice are a part of who God is. We as followers of God promote truth and justice.
In Second Samuel, we see what happens when justice is not done. Today’s reading by itself is confusing and obscure. To understand this scene, we need to go back a few chapters. So here is a short recap.
First you need to know a few characters.Tamar, Absalom, and Amnon were siblings. They were children of King David.
Absalom was King David’s third son. Tamar was King David’s beautiful daughter. Amnon was King David’s oldest son and heir to the throne. Joab was their cousin.
Amnon lusted for Tamar. Pretending that he was ill, Amnon asked his father King David if Tamar could care for him. King David sent Tamar to Amnon. Amnon forced Tamar to have sex with him even though Tamar objected and pleaded with him. After he forced her, Tamar begged him to marry her since she was no longer a virgin. Amnon refused and sent her away. Tamar’s life was now ruined. She couldn’t be married to someone else. King David heard what had happened and was angry, but he did nothing about it. Absalom heard of this and had Amnon killed.
Absalom was banished into the wilderness but eventually through the help of his cousin Joab, he was restored to his place in the kingdom. As questions to the succession of the throne of King David arose, Absalom organized a revolt. He successfully took Jerusalem and parts of the southern kingdom from his father, King David. For some time, this worked. King David and his supporters pursued Absalom. Absalom’s cousin Joab, who had him restored to his place in the kingdom, was a supporter of King David. Joab pursued Absalom and in today’s reading, Absalom dies.
The story of these characters is a story of unresolved problems. Problems that remained hidden and were not addressed. The unaddressed problems escalated and had dire consequences. These problems could have been resolved by truth telling.
In Second Samuel, the main problem is that the voice of Tamar was not heard. She spoke up and was ignored. The truth of her situation was not heard. Her father, the king did not make amends for her. Justice as defined as treating all with fairness, protection, and care was not done. To treat someone with justice, we promote truth telling. We seek to hear the truth from those whose voices are not heard. As we hear their truth, justice is done. At times, truth telling is confused with your point of view. When I speak of truth telling I am speaking of telling the facts of what happened; the words spoken and the actions taken.
In 1,000 BCE, women and slaves had no voice. This is apparent today in the story of Tamar. Tamar was not heard by her brother Amnon or by the king, but she was heard by her brother Absalom. He heard her and was furious that restitution was not made. He needed justice to be done. He needed her rape to be avenged. His unresolved anger festered. He took the matter into his own hands. This conflict was a consequence of evading the truth and of not dealing with a problem.
When thinking about King David’s family, we may ask, why didn’t King David address Tamar’s situation? Was it his guilt over his own sin with Bathsheba?
Was it because he was too busy? Was he ashamed? It is hard to think of our beloved King David, a man after God’s own heart, as someone who turned the other way when his daughter was raped. Someone anointed by God-marked by God. Did he lose sight of Yahweh, a God of justice and truth? I don’t know but I know that David was human. The Bible gives us many viewpoints and at times these viewpoints seem to conflict. These viewpoints give us a fuller, more complete picture of the people of God.
Unfortunately, Absalom’s anger did not bring restitution to Tamar. His anger spread and caused a broken family to fracture even more. Many people live with anger for many reasons. They are victims that don’t feel heard. They are people who lost something or someone and are grieving and angry for what they lost. Many people become angry when change occurs. They want to hold onto a habit or rhythm of life that they think they have control over. Our control over life, death, and change is limited but we can learn how to control how we react to situations.
Teachers are taught to go over the rules with children on the first day of class. When I taught young children, I had two rules; Be nice and do the right thing. I believe that even young children know the right thing to do.
It is not always easy. The stories of Tamar, Amnon, Absalom and David are a vivid reminder of the consequences of hiding the truth and not doing the right thing.
For us doing the right thing may be speaking up for the voiceless, exposing something that is hidden or any number of other things. The point is to do the right thing.
As I started, I want to close with the opening collect; Grant to us Lord we pray, the spirit to think and do those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen