William H. Willimon - "A Tragic Family" (August 10, 1997)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | Frederick Buechner says of today's first lesson, | 0:11 |
from the start, Absalom had strikes against him. | 0:20 | |
For one thing, he was much too handsome for his own good. | 0:25 | |
And Absalom's special pride was such a magnificent head | 0:30 | |
of hair that once a year, when he had his hair trimmed, | 0:34 | |
the trimmings alone tipped the scales at 3 1/2 pounds. | 0:40 | |
For another thing, his father, King David, | 0:45 | |
was always either spoiling him rotten | 0:49 | |
or reading him the riot act. | 0:54 | |
And this did not promote stability of character in Absalom. | 0:56 | |
Absalom murdered his lecherous brother Amnon | 1:02 | |
for fooling around with their sister Tamar. | 1:05 | |
And when the old war horse Joab wouldn't help him | 1:09 | |
patch things up with King David afterwards, | 1:13 | |
he set fire to his hayfield. | 1:16 | |
All Israel found Absalom's derring-do | 1:19 | |
irresistible, of course. | 1:23 | |
And when Absalom eventually led a revolt | 1:26 | |
against his own father, a lot of them joined in. | 1:30 | |
On the eve of the crucial battle, David was a wreck. | 1:35 | |
David was afraid that he might lose his throne, | 1:39 | |
but he was even more afraid | 1:42 | |
that he might lose his son Absalom. | 1:46 | |
The boy was the thorn in his flesh, | 1:49 | |
but he was also the apple of his eye. | 1:54 | |
And before the fighting started, | 1:57 | |
David told the chiefs of staff till they were sick | 1:59 | |
of hearing that if Absalom fell into their clutches, | 2:03 | |
they must promise to go easy on him for his father's sake. | 2:08 | |
Remembering what had happened to his hayfield, | 2:12 | |
when old Joab heard this, he kept his fingers crossed. | 2:16 | |
And when Joab found Absalom caught in the branches | 2:20 | |
of an oak tree by his legendarily beautiful hair, | 2:24 | |
he ran him through without blinking an eye. | 2:30 | |
When they broke the news to King David, it broke his heart, | 2:35 | |
just as simple as that. | 2:40 | |
And David cried out in words that have echoed | 2:43 | |
down through the centuries. | 2:46 | |
"Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom. | 2:49 | |
"Would that I had died instead of you, | 2:57 | |
"oh Absalom, my son, my son." | 3:02 | |
Poet Randall Jarrell speaks of the dark, uneasy world | 3:11 | |
of family life, where the greatest can fail. | 3:17 | |
Was he speaking of this Sunday's Old Testament lesson? | 3:25 | |
The death of Absalom and David's moving lament? | 3:30 | |
It does seem that in the area of family life, | 3:34 | |
sometimes it does seem the greatest people | 3:37 | |
make the worst messes of it. | 3:39 | |
Oh my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom. | 3:42 | |
David's anguished lament echoes down the ages. | 3:46 | |
Would that I would have died instead of you. | 3:51 | |
Oh Absalom, my son, my son. | 3:54 | |
We haven't heard King David weep like that. | 3:59 | |
This is quite a contrast | 4:03 | |
with earlier scenes of David's life. | 4:05 | |
You remember when we first met King David? | 4:09 | |
Yeah. | 4:11 | |
Young man David with the whole world at his feet | 4:12 | |
standing over the body of the giant Goliath. | 4:17 | |
Brash boy David, who you know when you first meet him, | 4:21 | |
he's going to be, one day, king. | 4:25 | |
But years ago, the prophet Nathan told David, | 4:31 | |
"A sword will never depart from your house." | 4:35 | |
And it was true. | 4:42 | |
It was true. | 4:44 | |
Though David's son Absalom was the next | 4:45 | |
in line for the throne, Absalom couldn't wait. | 4:47 | |
Absalom plotted against his own father, | 4:51 | |
forcing David to flee Jerusalem for his life. | 4:54 | |
But now Absalom is dead. | 4:59 | |
"Absalom, Absalom," cries King David. | 5:02 | |
His wail echoes down the centuries. | 5:07 | |
In every other family tragedy. | 5:12 | |
In every parent full of regret. | 5:16 | |
For what might have been but is not. | 5:20 | |
In every parent whose love and whose dreams, and sacrifice | 5:25 | |
have been squandered or rejected by an ungrateful child. | 5:32 | |
Or in the lament of every child | 5:38 | |
whose parents' dreams don't fit those of the child. | 5:42 | |
Alan Paton brilliantly reworked the Absalom story | 5:48 | |
in his 1948 South African novel Cry, the Beloved Country. | 5:52 | |
In Cry, the Beloved Country, Stephen Kumalo, | 5:59 | |
a black pastor, has a wayward son who's named Absalom. | 6:02 | |
Absalom rejects his family. | 6:09 | |
He eventually is led into a life of crime. | 6:13 | |
He commits a murder and he hangs because of his crime. | 6:17 | |
And in his attempt to find some redemption for his tragedy, | 6:22 | |
Kumalo meets and befriends James Jarvis, | 6:27 | |
the white man whose son | 6:32 | |
has been killed by Absalom's violence. | 6:33 | |
The two fathers meet | 6:36 | |
and they find comfort through one another | 6:38 | |
in their mutual grief because of their sons. | 6:41 | |
Like Stephen Kumalo, how many parents | 6:47 | |
down through the ages have had to keep on | 6:51 | |
and go on living even when they did not want to | 6:53 | |
after the death of a child? | 6:58 | |
How many parents have had to take life | 7:03 | |
and work to find some means of redemption | 7:06 | |
after a child's death or after a child's horrible mistake? | 7:10 | |
Napoleon said, "All celebrated people | 7:16 | |
"tend to lose dignity when they are viewed at close range." | 7:21 | |
And when you view, as the Bible does, | 7:31 | |
a great man like King David at close range, | 7:34 | |
he really does have feet of clay. | 7:38 | |
Particularly when you see David at home with his family. | 7:41 | |
David. | 7:47 | |
David, who could make an empire | 7:49 | |
but couldn't manage his own kids. | 7:53 | |
And yet that is probably the aspect of the King David story | 7:58 | |
that endears him most to us, those of us who are parents. | 8:02 | |
A few years ago when the House of Windsor | 8:07 | |
was having its problems with the separation | 8:10 | |
of Charles and Lady Di, a British commentator, | 8:14 | |
when questioned by an American inquirer said, | 8:18 | |
"But you don't understand, | 8:23 | |
"far from diminishing Queen Elizabeth's stature | 8:24 | |
"among the British public," he said, | 8:27 | |
"the sight of the queen having the same troubles | 8:29 | |
"in her family that all of us have got in ours | 8:32 | |
"has really endeared her to all of us. | 8:35 | |
"It's her finest moment." | 8:38 | |
Recently, I heard a comedian say much the same | 8:42 | |
in explaining why he had voted for President Clinton | 8:46 | |
in the last election. | 8:49 | |
He said, "Look, this man has got problems like real people. | 8:51 | |
"He doesn't have presidential problems. | 8:55 | |
"He's got problems in his marriage and problems with money | 8:57 | |
"and problems with lawyers. | 9:01 | |
"Those are real people's problems, that's why I love him." | 9:02 | |
And I'm often amazed, you know, | 9:09 | |
when you read the biography of some famous person, | 9:10 | |
some great person who's known fame and fortune, | 9:15 | |
how that person invariably has also known great tragedy. | 9:19 | |
And usually at home. | 9:26 | |
Reading the biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, | 9:29 | |
I came to appreciate how much pain this great | 9:32 | |
and noble woman had had in her own life. | 9:35 | |
Her marriage came unraveled early. | 9:38 | |
Yet, she and Franklin Roosevelt picked up the pieces | 9:41 | |
and they held their heads up high and they continued. | 9:48 | |
But that didn't mean that the pain did not stop for Eleanor. | 9:52 | |
Until the day that she died, Eleanor Roosevelt | 9:56 | |
was filled with great regret, resentment, | 9:59 | |
over the way Franklin had dealt | 10:03 | |
with her when she was a naive young woman. | 10:05 | |
And we would like for stories, | 10:12 | |
like the story of Eleanor and Franklin, | 10:14 | |
we would like for them to have a happy ending, | 10:17 | |
to come to some kind of good resolution. | 10:21 | |
But in life, there's rarely a final act in the play | 10:26 | |
where everything is pulled together | 10:30 | |
and the bad are identified and punished | 10:33 | |
and the good are rewarded and everything is set right | 10:37 | |
and justice is done. | 10:40 | |
This past week, I was with a pastor | 10:43 | |
in a little southern town and he had been | 10:45 | |
to a funeral, he had conducted a funeral one afternoon | 10:47 | |
and he came back from the funeral | 10:52 | |
and he had told about the tensions at the funeral home | 10:53 | |
the night before the funeral. | 10:56 | |
And he had told about the conflict in the family | 10:58 | |
that you could feel standing out there at the cemetery. | 11:01 | |
And he said, "The main thing you do at funerals | 11:05 | |
"is you don't deal so much in some | 11:08 | |
"of these families with grief, | 11:11 | |
"what you deal with is regret." | 11:13 | |
Just lots of family regret | 11:17 | |
because it isn't over out there at the cemetery, | 11:22 | |
it's just a whole lot of regret in the average family. | 11:27 | |
In real life, in real families, | 11:33 | |
rarely do stories have a kind of satisfying conclusion. | 11:37 | |
And in the Bible, David wanted to preserve his kingdom. | 11:44 | |
He wanted to pass it down to his children. | 11:49 | |
A kingdom in which David had brought power | 11:53 | |
and prominence to Israel. | 11:55 | |
But the cost of preserving his rule was higher | 11:58 | |
than even David imagined. | 12:01 | |
The death of his son. | 12:04 | |
When David wails and says that he wishes | 12:08 | |
that he had died rather than Absalom, I believe him. | 12:10 | |
He's telling the truth. | 12:15 | |
But he can't. | 12:18 | |
Parents, like David, wish that they could stand in | 12:21 | |
for their children. | 12:27 | |
They wish that they could stand up there | 12:28 | |
and take some of the blows which life often offers. | 12:30 | |
You wish you could do it for your children | 12:35 | |
so they wouldn't have to stumble and fall and... | 12:38 | |
But only they can live their lives. | 12:43 | |
Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale said, | 12:49 | |
"What's gone is gone, and what's past help | 12:52 | |
"should be past grief." | 12:58 | |
But it isn't, 'cause how can one stop grieving | 13:01 | |
for one that is so deeply beloved as a child? | 13:05 | |
Even the most wayward of children. | 13:09 | |
So, I'm saying that this story of David and Absalom's death | 13:14 | |
ends in regret, lots of regret. | 13:18 | |
With a father crying out into the night in grief | 13:23 | |
over his son, over the sad state of his family, | 13:26 | |
over the high cost of fulfilling royal responsibility. | 13:30 | |
I don't think there's a lesson here | 13:35 | |
for us to learn this morning. | 13:37 | |
I don't think there's some moral example for us to follow, | 13:40 | |
someone we're supposed to emulate. | 13:44 | |
The writer of this tale does not offer this story | 13:48 | |
for our little moralistic lessons. | 13:51 | |
Rather, I think we're supposed | 13:56 | |
to see ourselves in this story. | 13:59 | |
In any family, even the best of them, | 14:04 | |
maybe particularly the best of them, | 14:08 | |
there's a lot of regret. | 14:11 | |
Things don't work out for the best. | 14:14 | |
Children disappoint. | 14:17 | |
Parents do not act mature | 14:20 | |
and loving and balanced as they ought. | 14:22 | |
A man said to me the other day | 14:27 | |
that he remembers being here at Duke | 14:29 | |
and when the president welcomed him to Duke, | 14:31 | |
President Few welcomed him to Duke, welcoming them here | 14:34 | |
to the university, telling them they had | 14:38 | |
some great years ahead of them as students, | 14:40 | |
and then he said, "I'll always remember one | 14:42 | |
"of the most stunning things, | 14:43 | |
"it's virtually the only thing I remember | 14:44 | |
"from my four years there as an undergraduate, | 14:46 | |
"President Few ended his sermon and he says, | 14:50 | |
"I just want you remember one thing, your parents | 14:52 | |
"probably did the best they could with you, okay?" | 14:58 | |
For all the sad words of tongue or pen, | 15:08 | |
the saddest are these, it might have been. | 15:11 | |
And you come to church, I know, | 15:18 | |
you come to church expecting to get things explained. | 15:20 | |
And wanting to get things fixed. | 15:24 | |
But know there are times when you come to church for help | 15:29 | |
in what to do with a tragedy when things can't be fixed, | 15:36 | |
'cause there's a lot of life like that. | 15:42 | |
And that's why I'm glad this story is in the Bible. | 15:46 | |
With all of its envy and violence | 15:50 | |
and ineptitude and blood and regret, | 15:52 | |
I'm glad it's there, because this story lets us know | 15:55 | |
that unhappiness and tragedy, regret, | 16:00 | |
that's part of loving and living in a family. | 16:03 | |
It was true for King David, | 16:07 | |
it is true at your house and my house. | 16:09 | |
We're in a mess. | 16:13 | |
Particularly in family, there is regret | 16:16 | |
and things don't turn out as they were planned | 16:20 | |
and we can't get everything together. | 16:23 | |
We can't make it work out all right. | 16:26 | |
And if we are hurt and hurt in our families, | 16:30 | |
how much more must God be hurting | 16:36 | |
for the faults and the foibles of God's whole human family? | 16:39 | |
As I heard an old preacher say when we sung a hymn | 16:47 | |
one morning, "To be near to the heart of God," | 16:50 | |
as we'd been singing, "to be near to the heart | 16:53 | |
"of God is to be near to a heart that is breaking." | 16:56 | |
What's to become of David's troubled family? | 17:05 | |
What's to become of God's troubled family? | 17:09 | |
A cross. | 17:14 | |
A cross is raised outside the capital city. | 17:15 | |
Upon it hangs a beloved son, | 17:19 | |
a son who hangs there not because of rebellion | 17:23 | |
against his father, but rather because of our rebellion. | 17:27 | |
The father gives everything for his kingdom. | 17:33 | |
Even now giving his only son. | 17:37 | |
That cross, it doesn't set everything right. | 17:42 | |
The cross does not erase the seriousness | 17:48 | |
of the evil we commit. | 17:51 | |
But rather, the cross forgives and makes possible | 17:54 | |
for life to continue, despite the mess, | 17:58 | |
the regret, and the tragedy. | 18:04 | |
David said, "I would've given my own life to spare my son." | 18:07 | |
But even kings can't do that. | 18:15 | |
No, it takes a God to do that. | 18:19 | |
At Calvary, outside the city of David, on a cross. | 18:22 | |
God's whole tragic human family got gathered, | 18:30 | |
embraced, forgiven, saved, by a father | 18:35 | |
who, still in regret and grief, manages to love us even yet. | 18:42 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund