RLC Proper 14, August 9, 2009

St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia

The Rev. Haywood Spangler, Ph.D.

2 Samuel 18:5-3, 31-33; John 6:35,41-51

Absalom caught in a tree by his mule does not ever seem to have struck any great artist as a worthwhile biblical subject. No frescos, or oils, or wood cuts or etchings, antique or contemporary seem to depict this scene. The scene itself is something we might more likely associate with things that are meant to be funny - parodies of wild-west films or the cartoons about the pompous dupes Wiley Coyote and Daffy Duck.

Of course, the scene is only a moment of comic relief in a tragic story – David asks that his son Absalom be spared – the son has recently initiated a civil war against the father - and the message somehow does not get through. It might seem that the father-son relationship is the point in this passage. Or, more specifically, what we know of Jesus and his Father in the New Testament may lead us to read all stories about fathers and sons in the Old Testament as somehow specifically about those filial relationships. Stores with fathers and sons must be specifically about those sorts of relationships, and must somehow foreshadow or inform what we say about Jesus the Son and God the Father.

However, I would like to suggest that the father-son relationship is not the main theological point of the Old Testament passage. The story of Absalom, read with this morning’s passage from John’s gospel has to do with the nature of God’s promises or God’s assurance. Or, more specifically, the lessons highlight the fact that there is sometimes a gap between what we are looking for from God, or religion, and what God actually offers. We may be looking for a measure of reliability, or predictability or stability in our lives. And, that is not necessarily what God promises. What God promises us is a developing relationship with God, the end of which is to be less ourselves, and more one with God.

How did I get from the story of Absalom to a point about God promises? Because, the story about Absalom is part of a larger story about God’s promise to Absalom’s father David. God promises David a dynasty. But, David starts taking that promise for granted. As we heard in the Old Testament passage last week, David assumes he has secured God’s blessing and starts to act in ways we would label immoral – David seduces another man’s wife, gets her pregnant, and then conspires to have the other man killed. God removes the blessing – the result being that David’s own family falls apart. His son Absalom tries to over though him, and is killed.

A point of this entire story is that God will not be taken for granted. David cannot stop following God, assuming that he is free to act however he wants, blessings assured. Or, put a more contemporary way, David seems to have expected from God’s promise the reliability and predictability and stability we would associate with a trust fund that always generates a substantial return; God offers a dynamic relationship requiring continual attention and respect from David.

The Jews listening to Jesus in John gospel story seem to have an expectation similar to David’s. They expect the messiah to bring bread from heaven, as did Moses. If Jesus is the messiah, he will produce this bread from heaven. But, they are also expecting better bread. The bread Moses produced only got the Israelites through the desert. John’s Jews expect bread that will take away all need permanently. And, when Jesus says “I am the bread,” they are confused. Jesus is clearly not bread. He is just a local carpenter’s son.

The fact that they do not understand what he is talking about highlights the fact that they have a misunderstanding of what God is promising. They are expecting the reliability, predictability and stability of an ongoing, life-giving, material gift from heaven. They, too, seem to be looking, in so many words, for substantial interest from a divine trust fund. What Jesus offers is a dynamic relationship to God through himself. Jesus offers a spiritual communion with God outside time.

If we are honest with ourselves, I think we have to say that we are sometimes like David; sometimes like John’s Jewish crowed. We are expecting God to provide the security of a trust fund. And, if the lessons show us something about ourselves, they also show us something about God. God, as in these stories, is not offering us trust-fund reliability. God if offering us something better, although perhaps harder recognize as better in the midst of the pursuit of trust-fund reliability. God is offering to bring us into communion with himself, which is to make us better than we are now. By pursuing that communion, we may come to see that what we think we need now – a trust-fund-like guarantee of security in this life – is not that necessary.