David's Coronation Transcript

The Importance of Reconciliation and Forgiveness

We did another jump. That is the theme of this lectionary year, of these large swaths of story that we just aren't covering as we cover significant, big events through the year. But what I want you to know, from what happened in the story of Ruth to now, is about two centuries, 200 years, the time of the judges, where there were people raised up in particular times to address a particular concern, and usually, that was at times of where military strength was needed, where war was setting in, where those outsiders, were trying to conquer the tribes of Israel, and then a judge would come up, some men, some women would come up, would conquer the enemies, would reignite a passion for God, for God's people, and then they would continue. It would work out for a while, and then, eventually, a judge would be needed. And that's the general tone of the book of judges that covers forward. And then we hear now that the people of God told God that they needed a king, someone to unite them, a king over them, and God to appoint one. And we know from the story that God initially did not want to. God said you don't need a king. Focus your eyes on me, so focus your energy on me, focus your your your lives on my commands, and everything will work out for you. And the people again said, no, we need a king. And I imagine God saying fine, I will give you a king, but it won't go well for you. That's a paraphrase, but it's roughly what happened. 

And so God appointed a man through the tribal elders, electing a man named Saul, and for a time Saul was a good king. But then Saul, at one point, decided he was going to focus on the things that kings generally focus on, which is why God warned the people that it would not go well. He wanted security, he wanted peace, he wanted power, he wanted light, and he wanted well. And so he starts accumulating on the, focusing on these things, taking his eyes off God's commandments, and that's when his reign goes downhill. Saul eventually dies not at the hands of David, but Saul does die and the kingdom becomes somewhat divided. 

You have the northern kingdom of Israel, which is Saul's territory and Saul's son, and then eventually another takes off, Saul's reign in the north. You have David, who was already anointed to be God's next king of Israel. And he was rolling, rolling from the south and Hebron. And so we have this division. Finally, the next in line from Saul's line in the north comes to an end. David's might is recognized, and David, the tribes of Israel, especially the ones from the north, come to David and say remember, we are your people, we are of the same bone, we are the same flesh, and we recognize that you are the king of Israel, the one anointed by God. And David, whether passionately or shrewdly or a little mixture of both, makes a covenant with them. They eventually decide that David decides that Jerusalem will be the seat of power, that it is not what will not be in the kingdom of the north. It will not be in the south head of Hebron but in this middle place of Jerusalem. And so we have these conflicts starting to form before this point. 

We have these divisions over who is the rightful heir of the kingdom of Israel, of the throne. Does it fall through Saul, or does it go to David? These divisions were manifest in disagreements, some fighting, and some betrayal. I mean, if you want to read about political intrigue and murder and assassination and these things. You don't have to go far. You need to read these parts of the Bible in 1st and 2nd Samuel and Kings David. Sorry, David, it's all right, though I think that it's great. We will get you a little比較 in the sort of doctrine we are trying to portray, and if you want to answer that, read Chronicle. 

But we have these people that were divided, and we see them wanting to come together, be reconciled, and move forward together. Because that's what we're talking about when we talk about reconciliation. We can't have forgiveness without reconciliation. Where the things that we have done and the laws that we have broken, the ways that we have hurt other people, it's not enough to say that I'm sorry. It's not enough to say I'm sorry, and then everything is hunky dory. You know this because there is division in our lives today between family members. There is brokenness, hurt, and pain, and forgiveness and reconciliation are desperately needed. 

And we know that those who have hurt us just came up to us and flippantly said I'm sorry, we know in our hearts it just wouldn't be enough to rebuild the relationship that's been broken Outside of our families. We see neighbors arguing with neighbors, and we see in our political system those who, oh, we see disagreements abound to the point where we start testing the other as the enemy instead of a fellow American. We start criticizing and dehumanizing. We go to international conflict, and we don't have to go far to see that the pains of the past and the hurts of the past will not be solved by a simple I'm sorry. What's deeply needed is reconciliation, a rebuilding of reckoning and rebuilding, and this is at the heart of what God has done for us, what Christ has done for us through His death and resurrection. We have not only been forgiven but we are reconciled with God. We've been. What has been separated, what has been broken, what has been terminated, what has been thought beyond repair has been repaired in Christ and through Christ. And we model that. We live that out in seeking reconciliation with those we have hurt and those who have hurt us. I want you to know that I am explicitly talking from a Christian perspective. 

We cannot force upon others this idea of reconciliation and forgiveness. We cannot look at an outside group who are not bound by this understanding of what God did through Christ and say this is what you must do. We can only tell one another this is what we should do as those who follow Christ. And it is hard work, and it is almost impossible at times because of the pains that have been wrought against us and that we have committed. Sometimes, we don't recognize the depth of the hurt we may have because we can see something similar to pain, maybe a slight to someone, or we made an offhanded comment. We think, oh, it was just a joke, but we don't know what's going on inside that other person that received it, and we don't know how much they're hurting, and so we can't say, well, I just meant it as a joke, I'm sorry. We have to go from their perspective. We have to experience their pain and work in reconciliation from there. 

The first step for us is to recognize that those we are arguing with, those we are fighting with, those we disagree with, and those we need to reconcile with have a shared story, just as the tribal leaders who came to David for reconciliation. They said we are a bone of your bone. We are the same flesh. Now, they were not only invoking the fact that they were of the same people, of the same tribes, of the same genealogy, but they were going back even further in that language; you may have heard me misread the passage as I was reading it pointing to this and pointing to the language used it goes all the way back to the beginning of this story of Adam and Eve, where Adam proclaims this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. They weren't just going back to their common ancestry of Jacob. They were returning to their common humanity and saying we have a history. Because of that history, we want to work this out. We want to repair what has been broken. 

This challenging path of reconciliation sometimes starts with returning to those shared stories. This happens in our families. It happens among our friends where relationships have been broken and vented about finding that common ground. It's from understanding what has come before. Sometimes, that's shared stories, shared memories of college days or growing up as kids, of siblings. By doing that, we begin recognizing that while we are now broken, we have not always been that. It has only sometimes been the case. From that, you can say what was once before can be had again. 

The other step in forgiveness and reconciliation is that sense of empathy and understanding of what the other has gone through. We cannot rebuild what is broken without first stepping into the shoes to genuinely try to feel what another person has felt. We see that in today's story, where the tribal leaders who came to David say I now recognize, we now understand that you are the anointed king. We now see it from your perspective that you were chosen, in this case, chosen by God, and you were anointed and set as king. They had to make that step. You can read this in a way that they were just being politically expedient. They were buttering David up so that things would happen well. In terms of how we want to read it and how we can read it, we can see it as a proper understanding. 

Suppose we want what has been broken, the relationships that have been broken. In that case, if we want to see reconciliation and new birth and new growth in those relationships, we need to move forward in that sense of empathy of, say, I see now what I did to you, and if we have been harmed, helping another, see what they have done to us, because reconciliation is hard, under the wrong conditions, it's downright impossible. It doesn't seem like it should work because saying I'm sorry does not cover it, and the work required to rebuild what was broken is extensive. And so sometimes we say, I don't have time for that, I don't want to go about it, I am too tired, I'm too hurt, I'm done. But imagine if God had done that to us. Imagine if God had looked at our sin, looked at everything that we've done wrong, all the ways that we have broken His command and turned away from Him, even after confessing Him as Lord and Savior, because we are still in need of His grace after we do so. What if each time we have hurt God, when we have said you are not enough, and had said to Him well, I'm done with it, I've had enough, there is nothing I can do, there's nothing I want to do, I'm tired of all of this, and I give up, we would be indeed lost, we would have no hope. 

Living in Reconciliation and Faith

Yet our God of infinite love, of infinite mercy, and that God that seeks out reconciliation, that is constantly tearing down the boundaries that we build up, always tearing down the very things that we think we need to define who is loved and who is not, who is welcome and who is not, who's sin is too great to be beyond reconciliation and who's isn't. Our God is tearing down those walls because, at one point, we were on the other side of that wall that somebody else built, and he said no, what once was broken can be mended. And he gave us a Son, Jesus Christ, to do just that. And so we use the example of Christ. We have used the reconciliation that God offers us, that we have to not only say I'm sorry, but turn away from the things that we have done, turn towards God to understand, and then do the work of reconciliation, of rebuilding on our part. We do that by seeking after what God wants for us. We do that through seeking God's guidance in our daily lives. We do that by trying to understand more about who God is and what God wants of us, reading the scripture, and conversing with God in prayer. These are the things that God has made available to us so that we might be reconciled with him, grow more in love with him, and be less likely to turn away again. 

When we do that, we start to approach the world differently. When we gather as God's reconciled people, we should be living differently. We should be approaching life situations differently. We should be speaking to one another differently. How we live and act should appear different from those who are not Christian, not so that we can lord it over them and tell them how they should act, but so they might see hope, forgiveness, and reconciliation in our actions and then desire it for themselves. If we want our faith to be lived out in such a way, then we've got to do a couple of things. We've got to recognize that we are not God's protectors. We don't build up the boundaries, we don't build up the divisions, we don't define who is in and who is out, who should be reconciled and who shouldn't, because God needs our protection. 

In today's story, the Ark of the Covenant is where God is said to rest, that thin place on earth where the divine, human, or the natural world are at their closest, pulling it along on a cart. They needed to be pulling it around in the proper way. And in front of that Ark or around that Ark were 30,000 soldiers proclaiming might and bringing the Ark back. And this Ark that had been moved around all of the towns of the Philistines, bringing plagues wherever it went. And then eventually, the Philistines put that Ark on a card, with a dumpty, with no driver, and they said if it ends up where it's supposed to go, it's from God. If it doesn't, at least it's out of our hands. Because everywhere that Ark went was causing problems, bigs, golden hemorrhoids, there's a lot of things going on in these stories. Again, you should read some of these things. 

The Ark did not need protection. God's presence did not need to be protected. And here, as this procession was going, this military procession of 35,000 soldiers, of David, of Uzzah, and Uzzah thinks that he has to protect the Ark and keep it from falling, so he puts up his hand to stop it. And now that's instinctual, and we don't want to think of God as putting to death a man who instinctually went to touch this thing and said this holy thing. But if we think about everything the Ark had gone through, everything that had touched it, everyone who had tried to control it, and going back to its rightful place on the back of a donkey, without any procession. 

It becomes silly to think that God needed his protection, likewise for us. We don't do what we do because God needs our protection. We seek out reconciliation, we seek out forgiveness, we seek a better way and live a better way because we need to defend God, but because we are moved by God, because we see, as soon as David recognized that he was not the one in charge, he was not the one that needed to protect God to make sure that the Ark didn't get stolen again, as soon as he realized so that it wasn't a thing of fear. Still, it was something to be treated with respect, and he tried again. 

Living as God's People of Reconciliation

Now, it's a little excessive that you slaughter a calf every six steps. It's a long walk from where it was to where it's going. He met a lot of animals, but he approached them with respect and reverence and recognized that God was in charge Of David's reign. Whenever he got into trouble, whenever the people of God got into trouble, whenever anything happened, it was that switch that had happened no longer viewing God as the one in control, the one to be revered. Still, the one to be controlled or the one to be ignored, things went downhill. 

So if we, if we want to be God's people, if we want to be Christians in this world and have a Christian voice proclaiming the good news, proclaiming that reconciliation and rebuilding are possible, we've got to recognize that we're not doing it because we control God. We're not doing it because we need to protect God. After all, we revere God and place him first, and when we do that, I can guarantee that God will bless us, and when we don't, unfortunately, all bets are up. This is my hope for us, this is my desire for us as a church is how do we be God's people of reconciliation, with a voice inspired by the scriptures, inspired by how we understand that God is at work in the world, and then use that voice and live from that place and have it guide our actions and guide our thoughts and guide how we exist in this world, so that there is another voice crying out in the wilderness, where there are already voices of division, of hatred, pain, and suffering, where voices are calling for more violence, voices are calling for sustained suffering, voices of I am me and I am good, and you are evil, and you are the enemy. What the world desperately needs now, as a people who have claimed that act of reconciliation for themselves, claim that voice and speak from it into a desperately and painfully divided world. Will everyone listen? Probably not. Will it make a difference? I have faith that that voice needs to be heard, and when it is heard by the right people under the right circumstances, it will, and it can make a difference. I know that because it has made a difference between you and me and those I know who follow Christ. We can find historical examples where that voice has made a difference as we embark on the rest of our service. 

Eventually, when we leave and depart from this place, and you gather around the tables drinking coffee, eating pastries from yesterday's service for Barbara Stockler, or the fruit or anything like that, talk about those places where you've experienced reconciliation, where you've experienced true forgiveness and rebuilding, where you've offered it up to someone else. And you really want to get into debt. In that case, if you really want to get vulnerable, to work on this voice and understanding, talk to one another about those places that you're not there yet, you're not ready for forgiveness, you're not ready to offer it, you're not ready to take the steps that are required to receive it, and that you're just resting in that brokenness because it's easy. And in doing so and having those conversations, we learn, grow, and proclaim who we are as the reconciled people of God, and where we're not there yet, this is how the body of Christ indeed grows, amen.