King David’s third son, Absalom, was not the type of Old Testament character you would go to for informing your sexual ethics, your style of leadership, or what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Absalom was known for his love of pomp and royal processions. He was apparently charming and was also very interested in power.
Absalom began to think that he would be a better king than his father, David. His charm won the hearts of the people of Israel. So, with many people behind him, Absalom declared himself king over his father and started a revolt. A battle broke out, and that brings us to our scripture for today, which we heard chunks of, but not the whole story.
The battle took place in the Ephraim woods. David’s military power began defeating Absalom’s armies. As Absalom was fleeing on his mule, his long locks of hair got caught in a tree, and he was left dangling from the tree limbs by his hair.
One of David’s men, Joab, found him. Joab had been told explicitly by David not to kill Absalom. But Absalom had a poor history with Joab. Absalom had once set Joab’s barley field on fire, and in the past, Absalom also gave someone else a promotion instead of Joab. So Joab stabbed Absalom in the heart.
However, everyone was scared to bring this news back to David. David, in the past, had killed people who brought him bad news.
So, of course, they sent a Cushite, a foreigner, to break the news to David. All of these “powerful men” were unable to take responsibility for their decisions, so they sent a marginalized Cushite.
When David got word that his son, Absalom—the revolter who conspired against him—had died, he cried out:
“O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!”
One of the most devastating lines in the Bible. A moment of pure grief. The death of King David’s son.
When I shared this story with Trusty in the office this week, she thought it sounded like something straight out of Game of Thrones.
There is lots of drama. There is revolting and usurping happening within one’s family. A son, Absalom, seeking to overthrow his father David. There is revenge being sought out by Joab. There are petty wars being fought, at the cost of an apparently disposable military. There is even someone who gets caught in the trees by their hair.
It is a story that does not end well. Where on one hand, David was able to maintain control over Israel – which I guess is a good thing? Maybe? David is stuck between his desire to maintain power and the love that he has for his son. A love that is not reciprocated by Absalom.
Perhaps David should have just stepped aside for a younger president… I mean king.
In the end, David’s desire to maintain power is done at the cost of his son’s life.
The story of Absalom is a “prodigal son story” – son who revolts from his father. Only, unlike Jesus’ parable, the son is not able to overcome his troubling ways and return to his father’s open arms. It is instead a tragedy.
“O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you.”
Knowing many of the stories that are in this congregation, I know there are several of you that know this deep grief of losing a son. Or a daughter. Those of you know the words, “If only I had died instead of you, my son.”
Losing a child, I imagine, puts one into a type of grief that upends your life in a way that is irreversible. You don’t go back to the previous normal. You are a changed person.
In his 1987 book, “A Lament for a Son,” Nicholas Wolter-storff reflects on the death of his son, who died in a tragic mountaineer accident in the alps. In his book, Wolterstorff reflects on the initial shock of losing his son, and the season of disorientation and sorrow that came with a sudden loss like that. He writes about how the suffering and pain, while it changes, never truly disappears.
Similarly to King David, Wolterstorff laments when he writes
“Gone from the face of the earth. I wait for a group of students to cross the street. He is not there. I go to a play at the college. He is not there. I see a young man in blue jeans. He is not there. Eric is gone. All the rich substance of his reality has vanished from my world. The world is empty. The world is empty.”
It is interesting to me that both David and Wolterstorff repeat their words of grief over and over again. David wails, “Oh my son, oh my son.” Wolterstorff wails, “The world is empty, the world is empty.” It’s like lamenting demands repetition as we try to wrap our hearts around the loss that we just experienced.
Losses like these do not make “common sense.” One can try to logic and reason their way through them, but when you lose something that precious you are left staring at the void that is left. The world is turned upside down. One’s faith may no longer make sense. As Wolterstorff writes, “The world is empty.”
While I have not experienced this level of loss, I want to share a story of my own experience of staring into the void after witnessing tragedy, and the spiritual and emotional experience that it took me through.
In the summer of 2014, I moved to Pittsburgh to do service with a program called PULSE. I was fresh out of college, had a biology degree and had an interest in finding a volunteer opportunity that was oriented towards ecological restoration of some sort. I was paired with the non-profit Friends of the Riverfront. My job was to coordinate the maintenance of the walking and biking trail system throughout the whole city. I planned “stewardship events” where local companies would send their employees on their “volunteer days” or clean up events where concerned citizens would come and clean up the trail and do native plant and tree plantings. It was a wonderful year of driving a pick-up truck around the city and planting hundreds of trees.
One of the trail clean up events that I coordinated towards the end of my service year had a twist. At this point in the year, I had my routine down. I knew the 29 miles of trails like the back of my hand. After 50-some stewardship events, I knew where trees were planted and their species, which sections of the trail needed more attention, and could spot when things seemed out of place.
On this day, I arrived at the site of the clean up. with a pick-up full of gardening tools, wheelbarrows, snacks, coolers, gloves, fluorescent vests, and trash bags. Volunteers arrived and I called them around and explained the tasks of the day. It was generally really satisfying. You got to quickly see a trail go from a little trashed and overgrown, to a natural sanctuary.
As we got started, I decided to quickly scout out a sitting area off the side of the trail that sometimes homeless folks inhabit, just to see if anyone was there before I sent volunteers.
Today there were no tents or trashed campsites, but I spotted a person lying on a large rock. I thought I better go see what’s up and warn him that we have volunteers coming through the area. But when I got to him, I knew something was wrong. His face was purple and pale. It was not good. I quickly ran to the volunteers and asked if there was a nurse or physician or EMT in the group. A woman raised her hand and she quickly followed me to the man on the rock. I called 911 and as we waited, we took turns doing CPR on the man. I placed my lips on his cold discolored lips and tried to blow life back into him. I violently pressed my hands into his chest, trying to start a heartbeat. Nothing. The EMTs came and tried to revive him for a while.
I went back to the volunteers and sent them home. It was all too much for me. I was shaking. I went over to the edge of the Allegany river, leaned against trail railing and cried.
This man died all by himself, in some shrubby edgewoods, on a rock. His actual experience, I know nothing about. It could have been peaceful. Who knows. But it was not peaceful for me. I saw for the first time the potential loneliness of death. I never imagined my life ending in an invasive invested section of public trails, with no one to hold my hand.
I wrote this poem that week.
My dear friend your face is in the dirt
I stand here wondering if it hurt
Wondering if you felt all of the pain
And more, That is still here now
I am not sure of your name
And if you had friends
I hope you did
I hope you knew someone who loved you
I hope that you felt held by God in those last moments
That’s how I want to feel
Standing here wondering if it hurt
I am not sure if God was there.
And what I can’t get over,
A part of witnessing this pain,
makes me want to love
Love your mangled and fragile existences
All of your purple faces
Love all of your cold hands
I want to love them all
So then they, please oh please, aren’t alone in the
dirt
Was he by himself? Did he reach out his hand and no one was there to grab it. Was God there? Did God reach out to him? Comfort him. Lead him to whatever the next stage is?
Or was there no comfort at all. Only loneliness. Emptiness. Void.
I had not seriously considered what those final moments would be like. I think I imagined being surrounded by loved ones. The total isolation of this man shattered that image. God was absent as I stared into this abyss. I felt dread and existential grief.
There was another feeling that was inside me too. It was as if the only thing I could do to combat the absolute grief was love. I was surprised by that feeling. I wanted a connection. I wanted to care for others so that they would not have to experience a lonely death in the woods. Not unlike the death of our biblical character, Absalom, in a tree.
When considering our own deaths many of us hold existential dread of no longer existing on earth. We wonder what it will feel like to die? What will happen afterward? We have fears about the process, the potential suffering, and the unknowns. We wonder about leaving people behind and the situations we place them in by no longer being there. We wonder about the grief friends and family experience, in our passing.
Death takes from us. And he takes and he takes and he takes.
Wolterstorff goes on to grapple with his faith in light of the death of his son. Can God be good if God allows such things to happen? He feels anger and confusion towards God. But instead of doubling down and saying, well its all part of God’s plan and someday we will understand, Wolterstorff instead speaks of the mysterious presence of God in Suffering. That God is not distant and detached from human suffering, but intimately involved in the pain of the world, providing bits of comfort amidst the pain that lingers.
As a result, suffering to Wolterstorff is mysterious – that there are no easy answers or explanations.
We in our congregation have our own stories. We each have our own thoughts and ideas. We consult science, scripture, our tradition, poetry, the arts in general, to try to figure out what it will be like and what will happen. We use stories to try to work through our experiences of suffering and death. Like the story of David and Absalom.
Amidst all of his searching, what was important to Wolterstorff in his book, was community and compassion. It was “grief share” and support from others that provided comfort and healing. Sharing and support happens in the community. And in the context of Christianity, within Christ Body, the Church
The body of Christ, is not a place of answers, but a chance to listen and have compassion for one another, not unlike what Jesus did for so many. Compassion for each other in our grief, in our uncertainty, and in our loneliness.
We don’t know with certainty what happens after we die, or what dying is like. Again, our tradition can be helpful in helping us navigate these hard questions, but faith does not give us certainty, or it wouldn’t be faith. Faith and uncertainty are two sides of the same coin. You can not live with one without the other. With faith then, deep down, there is always a bit of unknown. Always a bit of uneasiness.
To be uneasy by yourself is sometimes what we need. But to share in your uneasiness, your grief, your feelings and thoughts around death, is a chance to comfort one another by listening and letting them know they are not alone!
Our faith and uneasiness can bring us together. The uncertainty and the anxiety that comes with faith can hold the body of Christ together, because it brings us together. We need each other to get through it.
When we take the risk and gather around those feelings of uneasiness or when we allow others to grieve with us, compassion can emerge from the void. The love of Christ can erupt from the emptiness.
It is the unexpected feeling of love that I felt for this man I found on the ground in the woods. It is the love that I hope King David felt as he grieved over Absalom.
Earlier this year, I preached on the gathering God. An image of the Holy Spirit as one who gathers us around. Gathers us around our pain. Gathers us around our Joys. Gathers us around our doubts. Gathers us around our hopes.
When the holy one gathers us around “death” this afternoon, may the spirit bring us listening ears and open minds to one another. May hope and love of Christ surprise us, not with easy truths, but with compassionate and caring hearts