WHO’S IN CHARGE?

August 8, 2021
11^th Sunday after Pentecost
2Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35-51
Elder Alan Willadsen

April 8, 1981.  I was driving a full Wabash College 15-passenger van to Cincinnati.  It was the opening day of the baseball season.  The fifteen of us were heading to the Queen City to attend the American Society of University Composers convention where a college faculty member’s opera was being performed off-campus for the first time—not to watch Tom Seaver pitch.

Fred Hadley, a chemistry professor who did not have a driver’s license, was riding shotgun.  Eastbound on I-74, somewhere between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, Fred and I were carrying on a conversation and I thought I was moving with traffic.  A west-bound Indiana state trooper thought I was moving faster than other vehicles.  He crossed through the median, did a U-turn, sped up, got behind me, and flipped on his lights. First time for me to be pulled over.  I eased to a stop on the right shoulder and said to the never-licensed professor, “What do I do?”

Meanwhile, twelve of the thirteen other students were really helpful, respectful, and quiet.  The exception was Will.  Will had been partaking of some sort of then-illegal (maybe still illegal) substance prior to leaving Crawfordsville.  From the back seat, Will (bouncing up and down) said, “I’ll talk to him.  Let me talk to him.”  Fred was able to get Will under control.  A couple of other students (who had been pulled over before) advised me to stay put in the vehicle, cooperate with the officer, do whatever he says, and remember, in this situation, the man with the gun is in charge.

That experience came to mind in reflecting on this week’s scripture passages.  Who is in charge?  Who obeys?  What are the consequences of obedience or disobedience?  Those questions are not just relevant to these passages but to our lives today.

Today’s Hebrew scripture passage starts with the narrator reporting, “The king gave orders to. . .” his three generals.  Pretty clear who’s in charge on the battlefield, isn’t it?  On the battlefield, the general is in charge.

Not only did the king issue a command, but it was issued in such a way “all the troops heard.”  Kings.  Battles.  Win.  Vanquish.  Conquer.  Right?  Yet, this battle was different.  The opponent was the king’s own son, heir to the throne, leader of a coup against his father.  As Walter Brueggemann wrote, “David does not go berserk, but he yearns powerfully against his obvious best interest as the king.”[1]  It must have been quite an internal conflict as David urged his generals to

• “deal gently” (in war?)
• “for my sake” (not for the sake of his son? not for the sake of the kingdom?)
• “with the young man Absalom” (who we all know is the king’s son)

On the advice of his generals, who feared for the king’s life, David was not on the battlefield, though the elements appeared to claim more victims than the actual battle.  In spite of David’s guidance, heard by all the soldiers, Joab made sure Absalom did not live to challenge his father any longer.  Did they “deal gently” with the prince?  I imagine being suspended in the air from a tree by one’s hair is painful.  Maybe being run through by the sword was gentle, compared to the mid-hair suspension.  For some people, the anguish and darkness of depression can be so severe even death by suicide is gentler than the pain of living.

Joab the general does not believe gentleness and war can go hand in hand.  As a general, he takes charge on the battlefield.  “To Joab, death is a death is a death.  The death of Uriah, as foreseen by Nathan (12:10) [we read about last week] has now overtaken David in his own family.  Joab is the instrument in both cases, for to him both deaths serve his king.”[2]  Joab yielded to the temptation to take charge in this scene.

Who’s in charge here?  The king?  His generals?  “The outcome of the battle does not depend simply on human planning but on the dark, hidden work of Yahweh. . . The narrative affirms that the hidden resolve of God and the reality of human power and pathos are deeply and inescapably intertwined.  David wants ‘the young man’ handled gently (18:5), but at the same time God has already ‘ordained’ the shape of the battle (17:14).”[3]

We can hear the depths of David’s anguish in both the end of this passage and the opening of today’s Psalm 130: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! . . . O Absalom, my son, my son!”  “O Lord—the bottom has fallen out of my life!  Master, hear my cry for help!”  When we reach the bottom, when we despair, we can do little but cry out about the source of our turmoil, turn to our creator, and admit, affirm, and confess God is in charge.

In our culture, it is difficult to find anyone who will respect us when we suffer.  Even we ourselves are reluctant to “bother” someone when we are going through life’s challenges.  “[T]here is an American myth that denies suffering and the sense of pain.  It acts as if they should not be, and hence it devalues the experience of suffering.  But this myth denies our encounter with reality.”[4]  Bad things do happen to good people.

“Hoping does not mean doing nothing.  It is not fatalistic resignation.  It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions.”[5]  We believe God remains in charge.  Scripture confirms such suffering is a part of life and affirms the hope that with God’s arrival comes steadfast everlasting love.

Everlasting love.  Everlasting life.  Bread for the life of the world.  Gifts Jesus provides and speaks of through John’s Gospel.  After having fed the multitude, the mass of people is dumbfounded this child of members of their community actually believes he has come from heaven.  They grumble.  They start to complain and whine.  Or maybe they’re just hangry again, soon after eating that earthly bread.

And who is this guy to actually make such bold claims?  They want a military messiah, not a carpenter’s son.  Or are these the Jewish leaders, upset about someone else having a direct line to God—someone who doesn’t adhere to their understanding of being in charge of the chosen people?  Jesus took charge to feed the throngs and he takes charge of how we relate to God.  As people who have all we need, do we forget easily to see the signs of God’s control in our lives?

Paul preached unity—one body, one Spirit, one Lord—in his letter to the church in Ephesus.  Part of the call to unity required some behavior modification—you may recall last week we talked about leading lives worthy of our call to serve the risen Christ.  In this week’s passage, he gets specific, challenging the church to give up some specific practices, ones we are familiar with to this day.  It is SO tempting to continue bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, isn’t it?  That’s fun, right?  It’s certainly easier.

When we continue those practices, we “make room for the devil.”  We allow someone other than the Holy Spirit of God to be in charge of our lives.  Paul does not spell out what happens when we don’t yield to the Holy Spirit.  Instead, he encourages us and says there are new rules for living the new life in Christ.  These changes lead to kindness and forgiveness as we imitate God.  We live in sacrificial love following Christ’s model. Thomas Merton put it this way:  “Our job is to love others whether or not they are worthy.  That is not our business, and in fact, it is nobody’s business.  What we are asked to do is to love.”

This congregation understands how to live differently.  In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a story about separating those who care for others from those who do not.  What strikes me when I think of Matthew 25 in light of this passage from Ephesians is that life is not just about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving drink the thirsty, visiting the sick, welcoming the stranger, and visiting the prisoner.  It is about living differently; in such a way we recognize the needs in this broken world and seek to meet them.  Once we acknowledge who’s in charge, we live differently.

Oh—and by the way—I went back to the patrol car while the officer checked out my license and story.  He then gave me just a written warning for doing 67 in a 55.

Amen and Amen.

Elder Alan Willadsen, 2021, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org | 309.673.8501

[1] Brueggemann, Walter.  First and Second Samuel: Interpretation.  Amazon Kindle Version, loc 5881.

[2] Brueggemann, Walter.  First and Second Samuel: Interpretation.  Amazon Kindle Version, loc 5948.

[3] Brueggemann, Walter.  First and Second Samuel: Interpretation.  Amazon Kindle Version, loc 5910.

[4] Peterson, Eugene.  A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.  Downers Grove:  InterVarsity Press, 2000.  p.138.

[5] Ibid., p. 145

“As a newcomer to Westminster,  I’ve found it to be a most welcoming fellowship.  I look forward to going to services and events and find the warmth of the congregation to be most helpful to a newcomer to the entire area.  I find sermons challenging … music beautiful and well prepared … and a dignity in the worship that is all too lacking in most Protestant congregations.  Mix this with an open atmosphere where it is OK to question and still be seen as a good Christian, and I know I’ve found one important ‘home’ in Central Illinois.”