Beulah UMC & Oak Grove UMC
During these Summer Sundays, our appointed Old Testament lectionary readings focus on the life of David, one of the most fascinating figures in the entire bible.
David was known as a man after God’s own heart. He did amazing things for God and for the people of God, but he also experienced many challenges and valleys along the way. We can learn a lot from the life of David.
Here’s a little context to set the stage of where we are so far with our “Life of David” sermon series this summer. Saul, who in our scripture reading this morning was killed in battle has been serving as Israel’s first king.
Saul got off to a good start in his reign as king. He is introduced to us as someone who was very king-like. He was tall, strong, and not someone who was looking for personal power.
Saul was out searching for one of his father’s donkeys one day when God chose him to be the first King of Israel. Saul had a natural ability to lead, was a mighty warrior leading the Israelites to victory over the Ammonites, and the spirit of the Lord was with him.
So far so good, right? Well, things begin to unravel for Saul. His demise begins when he disobeys clear instructions from the Lord and those instructions were to not go to battle against the Philistines until the prophet, Samuel arrived to offer a sacrifice to God. Saul was impatient.
Even though Saul continues to lead the Israelites in battle, he again disregards the Lord’s clear instructions to not spare the life of the enemy king. Because of his disobedience, an evil spirit is set loose to torment Saul and unknown to him, God chooses a new king whose name is David.
Just when you think things can’t get any worse for Saul, he begins to sink into insanity and paranoia. He seeks to kill David and chases him all over Judah.
While Saul is leading the Israelites in battle with the Philistines on Mt. Gilboa, they overtook Saul and his sons, one of whom is Jonathan, David’s best friend. And there on the battlefield, they were both killed. Knowing that he was surrounded, Saul actually fell on his own sword. Israel’s first king is now dead.
When David receives the news of Saul’s death, the man who had tried to kill him, you’d think that he would have rejoiced or felt relieved. But it’s the opposite. David grieves, not just for his best friend Jonathan who had been killed, but for his enemy, Saul as well.
Today’s scripture reading is the grief or the lament that David expressed in light of this tragic news. It’s actually a poem or a funeral dirge if you will, to help David express his deepest anguish over what had just happened.
In his deep grief, David shared what has become a famous line, “How the mighty have fallen.”
Grieving over Jonathan, we can understand, but why on earth would David have been heartbroken over the news of Saul’s death, the man who had tried to kill him numerous times. For all of Saul’s bad qualities, poor decisions, and paranoia, Saul was still the King of Israel which in and of itself, commanded respect.
And even though Saul had a tragic ending on the battlefield, he was a mighty warrior whose bravery at least saved Israel from total defeat at the hands of the Israelites. And because of Saul, Israel was able to move a little closer to freedom from foreign enemies and have a more stable empire.
These stories that we find in the bible remind us of how complicated and messy life can be sometimes. This is one of the reasons why people are drawn to the bible because like these biblical characters, our lives can be complicated and messy as well. Even David, who we put on a pedestal and revere, will have his moral failings which will lead to negative consequences for himself and in turn, for the people he was leading. We’ll get to that a little later this summer.
For now, we learn how important it is to allow ourselves to grieve. Grieving is what helps us to express our feelings so that we can receive God’s healing love as we move into the future. When we don’t give ourselves time to grieve, we end up separating ourselves from the the Lord who can make all things new.
What grief is the Lord calling you to express? What recent grief or loss have you been experiencing?
Several years ago, I was having a conversation with a friend and this person could detect some kind of sadness inside me. I forget what kind of loss I might have been experiencing in that moment, but this person said to me, “You’re grieving, aren’t you?”
I paused for a moment, thought about it, and then said, “I think you’re right. I am grieving.”
And just by naming this sadness that was inside of me gave me the freedom I needed to process that sense of loss that I was experiencing. That little observation didn’t do anything to replace my sense of loss, but it did lead me to become more self-aware of what had been troubling my soul.
Giving ourselves and others the permission to grieve is such a freeing experience because this is what can lead to healing and wholeness. Sometimes, I think it’s good to be reminded that it’s OK to grieve. It’s OK to not be OK.
We’re human beings. We’re not robots. As humans, we experience grief and loss in our lives which is important for us to acknowledge and process.
Out of all of the stories about David, perhaps this is one of the most important of all of them. David teaches us about the importance of allowing ourselves to grieve.
When we don’t allow ourselves to grieve, we can make it more difficult in allowing God to bring healing and comfort. No wonder that there are several psalms that are known as psalms of lament, psalms that express the psalmist’s grief.
There are a total of 150 psalms and of those psalms, 59 of them are psalms that express some type of grief or loss. 59 of them! This is why the psalms are so important for us in our faith journey. They often help us to express what is sometimes too difficult for us to express, our deepest thoughts and emotions.
Our lives include times of joy and celebration but also seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering, and death. These experiences can evoke feelings of loss, sadness, grief, frustration, hopelessness, and anger.
Penny and I watched all six seasons of The Crown that was on Netflix. It’s the series about Queen Elizabeth from the time she became Queen of England to the ending of her long reign on the throne. In the last season of the series, there’s an episode that focuses on William following the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana.
In dealing with his grief, William becomes more and more angry toward his father, Prince Charles for her death. Charles does his best to console his son but their relationship only becomes more strained.
William’s grandfather, Prince Phillip who is aware of William’s anger and his troubled relationship with his father, decides to meet with his grandson to talk about why he has been so angry.
William shares how he’s angry at his father because he feels that he is the one responsible for the divorce. And then he says how he’s also angry at the British press for how they have now latched onto him even more since his mother’s death.
And then, Phillip says something that seems really off topic. He tells William that he sometimes has back pain. And then he says that the reason he sometimes gets back pain is because that is indicating that he’s dealing with some unresolved guilt, resentment, or anger in his life.
And this leads Phillip to say to William that maybe William’s anger and resentment isn’t really about his father but about the pressure that William was now feeling about trying to live up to the popularity of his mother.
Phillip then offers William this thought: Sometimes, when we don’t allow ourselves to grieve, we end up taking out our anger and resentment on others even though it’s not really their fault.
In that grandfather/grandson conversation, Phillip was able to help William name what was really troubling his soul which then led William to be reconciled to his father.
That very moving episode reminded me of just how important it is for us to help each other to grieve when we experience a loss in our lives. This is what some people refer to as a good grief.
I have a retired United Methodist pastor friend who has worked for hospice. He was telling me that his ministry with persons who are experiencing grief is to encourage them to be aware of their feelings and their sense of loss.
He said that he also encourages them to seek out a small group of people they trust where they can share their honest feelings and how they’re doing. And then he said, the third thing that is really helpful is to be able to share their feelings of grief and loss with God.
He said that if someone can do all three, that can help that person to receiving God’s comfort and healing.
I think that this is the important thing that we can learn from David today. David teaches us the importance of allowing ourselves to grieve. While grieving does not bring back the past or erase the pain or hurt in our hearts, it can lead us to embrace the new future that God has in mind for us.
Whatever your loss might be, know that the God of Israel, the God of David is here for you to comfort and console you and to give you a future with hope.
