NOT FOR 1,000 PIECES OF SILVER
II Samuel 18:5-33

It had been like one of those huge chain/reaction accidents like the one that happened a few months ago in Interstate 68. One can after another coming over the hill in the fog, and colliding with those who had wrecked moments earlier. One event after another, a chain reaction, and if you don't know when it is safe to move, when it will be over... It was kind of like one of those only slower. Of course, people say auto accidents appear to happen in slow motion when you are in the car, but the action taking place in the story we are concerned with is truly happening more slowly - but when you look back at it - across thousands of years of history - it looks BANG BANG BANG one right after another.

I don't know when the first collision between David and Absalom occurred. David had too many wives and too many kids. I can't imagine he was close to all of them, maybe any of them. I am sure they had to compete - for his attention, for his affection, for a place in the pecking order, for a place in his will. All that must have made these kids of David pretty aggressive and probably not much fun for David to be with. David probably often displeased them. They probably drove him nuts. These are some of the little scrapes which were the beginning of this huge pile-up.

The first major collision we know of between David and Absalom was when Absalom's half-brother Amnon falls in love with Absalom's full sister Tamar, and Amnon and a cousin hatch a plot to get Amnon and Tamar alone. And Amnon rapes Tamar, then throws her out and her brother Absalom is incensed. BANG. David hears about it. But does nothing to discipline Amnon, David's oldest. BANG. Two years pass, still nothing. Absalom kills Amnon. BANG. David is furious, and Absalom flees for three years. BANG. Joab intercedes for Absalom and David lets Absalom come back. But for two years David didn't invite Absalom over... BANG. A slight.

Absalom wanted Joab to intercede again. Joab ignored him. Absalom sets his barley field on fire. BANG. Joab helps finally and David forgives Absalom. Then, Absalom goes about making favorable judgment, currying friendship with aggrieved people, building a constituency. BANG. Absalom mounts a revolution. BANG. David flees.

There have also been some unrelated rubber-necking accidents. Years earlier, David had made peace with Saul's general Abner. David decreed no one shall harm Abner. Joab killed him. BANG. It is unrelated, but it fits in.

I will now read only the first part of II Samuel 18:5-15.

The king ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying,
"Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom."
And all the people heard when the king gave orders to all the commanders concerning Absalom.
So the army went out into the field against Israel;
and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim.
The men of Israel were defeated there
by the servants of David,
and the slaughter there was great on that day,
twenty thousand men.

The battle spread over the face of all the country;
and the forest claimed more victims that day than the sword.
Absalom happened to meet the servants of David.
Absalom was riding on his mule,
and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak.
His head caught fast in the oak,
and he was left hanging between heaven and earth,
while the mule that was under him went on.

A man saw it, and told Joab,
"I saw Absalom hanging in an oak."
Joab said to the man who told him,
"What, you saw him!
Why then did you not strike him there to the ground?
I would have been glad to give you ten pieces of silver and a belt."
But the man said to Joab,
"Even if I felt in my hand the weight of a thousand pieces of silver,
I would not raise my hand against the king's son;
for in our hearing the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, saying:
For my sake protect the young man Absalom!

And the colliding goes on long after David returns to Jerusalem, but he mourns Absalom. Joab shames him by saying you are not supporting the troops. There also is the revolt of Sheba. BANG. Solomon finally succeeds his father and has Joab killed. BANG.

It would appear that we live in a political world governed by Newtonian Physics, particularly Newton's third law of motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Although in the political world there is greater opportunity for disproportionality. We have action and reaction, and they are opposite but seldom judged to be equal. So reaction begets reaction, begets chain reaction as it is here, as it is in the Middle East, as it relates to 9/11 with Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordanian Embassy most recently. Action - Reaction: it is our way, it is our fate, chain reaction accidents caused by others stupidity, errors, aggressive behavior. Of course, if I am not aggressive, everyone will get ahead of me. They must be stopped. This quote from the Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz speaks of losing ethical values -

"The hierarchy of ethical values is easily overturned and its ranks reassembled. A German, a model son, husband, loving father of a family, will torment a subhuman, a Jew or Soviet soldier, because he is obsessed with his vision of duty and justice, which commands him to cleanse Europe of similar vermin. The fact that a characteristic dose of sadism is added to the mix still does not undermine my example. A purely bestial sadism, naked and plain, occurs much more rarely than motivated sadism, equipped with all the arguments needed to make it into a noble and positive inclination. Jews and Bolsheviks are responsible for the war, they are subhumans, they are filthy, they belong to the lowest race, which is incapable of culture - rationalizations like these come to the aid os sadism, the beast that slumbers in every man, when it feels like going on a rampage with impunity - with impunity which is to say, on the margins of the ethically ordered rest of his life, leaving him clean hands that can stroke a child's head or light the candles on the tree on Christmas Eve. (To Begin Where I Am, p. 197)

How can we stop it, put away from you all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and wrangling, and slander, together with all malice. Isn't that what Abraham Lincoln spoke of in his second inaugural address: with malice toward none, with charity for all... And our modern day Joabs - Cheyney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz - cry out: Lincoln was assassinated, it's suicide, as one after another. BANG. BANG. BANG.

The collisions continue and live in love, as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God... Sounds like Romans 12: Present yourselves, a living sacrifice. So may we live, so may the world live and know the love of God in Christ in us. Amen.