April 16

Two Major Calamities - 2 Samuel 21:1-14, 24:1-25; 1 Chronicles 21:1-30, 22:1-9; Psalms 30

I wrestle with the concept of collective responsibility verses the individual's responsibility and the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the whole.  It's a hard thing to understand, especially given our culture.  We're all about the individual.  We grossly overpay our CEOs.  We celebrate being your own person, independence and personal freedom.  We cheer individual achievement and being first.  

But just because this is our national point-of-view, doesn't mean it is the proper way to view life.  It seems we always justify our way of life as being correct because its so successful.  Maybe that's why our country is struggling with economic hard times - to help us put life in proper perspective.

So, for our culture, especially, the idea that a mother would give up all five of her sons to pay for another individual's mistakes is incomprehensible.  I mourn for Merab, the daughter of Saul, whose five sons die to atone for their grandfather's sins.  What did she think?  How did she struggle with this?  What was her life like after this moment?  Did she still believe in God when her sons deaths were necessary to apease Him?  I wonder.

Individual sacrifice for the good of all.  Merab was powerless to stop the sacrifice.  But God was not.  The all-powerful Creator of the Universe could have stopped His only sons death.  How much harder was it, having the power, He did not use it and allowed His son to die?  How much harder was it knowing His son was sinless and was dying for people so full of sin?

We are all about our rights and justice and fairness.  Jesus is all about sacrificing all of the above.

My post last year on this date. 

April 15

Absalom's Rebellion (Continued) - 2 Samuel 19:5-43, 20:1-26

I Googled an image for the word killer and this is what came up first out of 20.8 million images.  Hmmm, seemingly innocent but a ruthless killer.  Pretty apt description of Joab.  "Run away!"

 

"David replied, 'What do  you and I have in common, you sons of Zeruiah?  This day you have become my adversaries!" 2 Sam. 19:22

Has David finally figured out than aligning himself with the Zeruiah boys - Joab and Abishai - might not be in his best interest?  You think?  Joab has already killed Abner and Absalom when David had asked in both cases that they live.  In this reading, Joab will kill Amasa.  Maybe he's working his way through the alphabet?  It doesn't seem to matter to Joab that he's related to Amasa.  He even uses a bit of treachery to kill him.  He greets him as a friend and then, when Amasa's guard is down, Joab stabs him in the stomach with a dagger.  This after David has forgiven Amasa for being in league with Absalom.  Joab is a killer.  And hard to replace as commander of the Army since he has this nasty habit of killing any potential replacement.

Why does David tolerate this?  Does Joab hold the Uriah thing over his head?  Is David afraid of him?  In the beginning, maybe David felt like he needed this ruthless instrument of death - the Zeruiah boys.  But its hard to wield such a violent weapon.  Their response to any question is simply:  "kill."  

My post last year on this date.

April 14

Absalom's Rebellion (Continued) - 2 Samuel 16:15-23, 17:1-29, 18:1-33, 19:1-4

"...the army of Israel was defeated by David's men, and the casualties that day were great -- twenty thousand men.  The battle spread out over the whole countryside, and the forest claimed more lives that day than the sword." 2 Sam. 18:7-8

A curious verse.  What does it mean?  Is it, as some suggest, that more died escaping into the forests and falling into pits and bogs or riding fatally into trees like Absalom or being attacked by wild animals?  Why not simply the miraculous?  In my imagination I see the trees themselves claiming the lives of those who sought to escape the sword.  Trees acting as God's tall, silent soldiers.  Like Ents or Burnham Wood or Mirkwood or the Wizard of Oz evil apple tree.  The fleeing soldiers are swallowed up by the dark woods.  Branches and roots entwine and strangle the crazed troops racing through the trees.  Why not that?  

Why not something supernatural and miraculous as an explanation of "the forest claimed more lives that day than the sword" rather than something within nature that God uses to accomplish His purpose - a wild animal or pit that fall in to.  We want miracles to have some tie to natural laws we can make sense of and count on.  It reminds me of the way we pray for healing by praying for the physician rather than to ask God to simply heal the person.

Why won't the purely miraculous do for us?

Lord knows.

My post last year on this date.

April 13

Absalom's Rebellion (Continued) - 2 Samuel 14:25-33, 15:1-37, 16:1-14; Psalms 3

A tree sculpture called Mephibosheth. Alluding to the meaning behind the work, the artist refers to how "In an act of grace, the crippled offspring of an old adversary is allowed to feed at the table of the mighty king." The sculpture is available for $2,800.

I can't imagine a son plotting against me. Hating me so much he wants me dead. Knowing his hate would be far more painful than anything he could actually do to me.

What does David feel when his son Absalom and Saul's heir Mephibosheth, whom he has protected, rise up against him? Does he see God's hand? Does he feel the guilt? Does he decide that what has befallen him is just in the wake of his sin against Uriah? How whole-hearted is his will to survive? Does he feel like his brightest days are behind him? That he, like Saul, will fall because of sin in his life? The only ones loyal to him is his earliest band of friends he made when he escaped Israel into Gath and Philistine country. They ride with him. David doesn't even seek to fight back against Shimei's curses and stones hurled against him. Has he given up?

And what does God feel when his children hate him? Lord knows.

My post last year on this date.

April 12

Today is Easter 2009 - HE IS RISEN!

Absalom's Rebellion - 2 Samuel 12:24-25, 5:13-16; 1 Chronicles 3:4-9, 14:3-7; 2 Samuel 13:1-39; 14:1-24

In Hebrew, pansies are called "amnon vetamar."  Because they are named for the biblical characters Amnon and Tamar.  Do you really want to name a flower after a a dysfunctional sibling relationship that results in rape?  Someone needs to rethink this.

Amnon and Tamar - yet another Not-Ready-for-the-Flannel-Board story.  I think I'm going to have to design a special icon to designate them.  There are a lot of them in the Bible.  What does that say?  And what does it say that we tend not to spend time with them?  Do they embarrass us?  Do we think ourselves above them?  Do they test our faith?

The story of Amnon and Tamar speaks to our notion of what love is, then and now.  Amnon loves his half sister Tamar.  Thankfully one of his cousins has a plan for luring her to Amnons bed.  Thanks, cuz.  What kind of family is this?

So Amnon takes his cousin Jonadab's advice and tricks Tamar into being alone with him in his bedroom.  Amnon then attempts to force Tamar to have sex.  The text suggests she would have agreed to marry him to avoid this evil, but Amnon must have her now.  And he rapes her.

Then the writer of 2 Samuel pens a curious passage:

"Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred.  In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her." 2 Sam. 13:15

How can love so quickly turn to hate?  But, in fact, Amnon never loved her.  His love was for himself.  True love would have sought his sister's best interest and not his own.  Once the passion of the moment is over realty sets in.  Shame and guilt convict Amnon.  He doesn't hate himself for what he's done, he hates Tamar.  

David's son didn't love Tamar any more than David truly loved Bathsheba.  David didn't think of Bathsheba's best interest.  Can you imagine how the people, how David's other wives, how his attendants whispered about David and Bathsheba's marriage and her previous husband's murder.  Oh, it was talked about...Amnon surely heard.  And now, the sins of the father visit the son.  And not just one son...Absalom will also follow in his father's footsteps.

My post last year on this date.

April 11

Period of Wars (Continued) - 2 Samuel 12:18-23, 12:26-31; 1 Chronicles 20:1-3; 2 Samuel 8:2-14; 1 Chronicles 18:2-13, 11:10-47; 2 Samuel 23:8-39

It's a little bit like I'm reading Beowulf or Tolkien when I come to the passage about David's Mighty Men, the Chiefs and the revered and mysterious Three.  Their military exploits and prowess at killing is recorded with simple honesty.  In some ways it's a disturbing mix of machismo, medieval lore and Marvel comic book.  We'd like to overlay our modern sensibilities to biblical times.  But you really can't.  It was a different time and, in many ways, God winks more at our ignorance, insensitivity and violence today than He did in David's day.  It's just nowadays when He winks we call it grace.

It's hard for me to reconcile the David of Psalms with David the conqueror of the Moabites, whom he measured out with a length of chord to determine who would live and who would die.  What are we suppose to take from that?  It seems so random and such a disregard for life.  And we prize life so highly, don't we?

Well, at least, we prize our lives.

I speak in general, but wouldn't we kill someone to live unencumbered and free?  Kill so we can be free of responsibility, even write laws so that we avoid guilt.  But some guilt even the law can't absolve us of.  You say, "No, we wouldn't kill so indiscriminately."  This is a country the imprisons Michael Vick for killing dogs (and well we should) but frees a woman wife who shot her minister husband in the back and killed him.  A country that mourns the loss of every American soldier that dies in Iraq and keeps a public record of that number in the newspapers (and well we should) but I'm still looking for the place we keep a running tally of the unborn who die each day.

Sorry, if you know me, you know why that's an issue for me.  Lord knows.

My post last year on this date.

April 11

Sometimes It's Hard to See God in the Storm

A little bit of a departure from the daily blogging routine here.  But I want to begin by thank the many people who contacted us yesterday when they heard about the tornado that touched down in Murfreesboro, TN, near our home.  We're fine and our house sustained minimal damage.  More than 100 others were less fortunate.  I've linked to a YouTube video that perhaps best summarizes in picture and lyrics my feelings in the wake of this storm.  My prayers go out to the family of those who lost their lives, to the many who were injured and to the many more whose lives where change in the path of the storm.

Here's the video:  April 10, 2009 Murfreesboro, TN Tornado Tribute