2 Samuel 5.1-5, 9-10
Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron, and said, “Look, we are your bone and flesh. For some time, while Saul was king over us, it was you who led out Israel and brought it in. The Lord said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel.” So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. At Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months; and at Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty-three years. David occupied the stronghold, and named it the city of David. David built the city all around from the Millo inward. And David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.
Early in the morning on the 4th of July, a young woman and a group of friends made their way to Liberty Island where the Statue of Liberty looks out across the waters. Like countless people gathering to celebrate Independence Day, they looked like everybody else ready to enjoy the day. However, upon arrival, they quickly unfurled a banner over a railing near the base of the statue that said, “Abolish ICE!” and they boosted the young woman up onto the statue.
For nearly three hours she made her way around the statue while police attempted to bring her down. Whenever they got close she shouted out her intention, “I will stay here until all the children are released!”
But after three hours of evasion, the police eventually arrested her, and brought her down off of Lady Liberty.
A spokesperson for the protestors said the demonstration was thematically charged by the belief that Lady Liberty weeps over how the country is treating children and families at the border.
The main protestor, the young woman, was eventually identified and taken in to custody. She clearly violated a number of state and federal laws, and will be prosecuted in the not too distant future.
So what will be the cost of her victory? Prison? Steep financial fines?
And was she even victorious? What was she hoping to accomplish?
All the tribes of Israel came together to speak with David. Echoing the profound words of their first ancestor “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” they said, “Look, we are your bone and flesh. Saul was once king but you are the one who led Israel.” And they anointed David king. He was thirty years old.
After thirty years of serving the Lord, from striking down Goliath, to attending the needs of the mad king, to lamenting over his death, David finally became the king.
When you imagine David, what do you picture? Do you see the little shepherd boy with curly hair running through the fields? Do you think of David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant with nothing but a loincloth? Do you see the humble king walking among the people of God?
David is the de facto king figure of scripture. From this point forward he, even more than Moses, is the archetype for what it means to lead God’s people. Solomon will ask God to make him a leader like his father David, the prophets will remember the faithful times of David’s reign when looking out at idolatry. Even during the days of Jesus, the people of God will look for a new David to lead the revolt against the imperial power of Rome.
And we might like the version of David often handed to us: the Goliath killer, the lute player, the psalm scribers, the king who united Israel. But it all came with a cost.
Every great victory leaves a loser in the ditch, and David is no exception.
I’ve brought this up before, but it’s helpful to know that someone like me does not pick the scriptures we use on Sunday morning at random. Years ago a group of ecumenical Christians compiled a three-year cycle of four readings for every Sunday called the revised common lectionary. It was designed to bring congregations through the great narrative of scripture without being constrained by the choice of the preacher.
Depending on the season we might spend weeks going through one of Paul’s letters, or we can jump around the psalter, or just follow the narrative of Jesus’ life from the gospel. Regardless of what we hear in church, it was almost always decided for us.
Today is no exception.
The Lectionary says that the Old Testament reading today should be 2 Samuel 5.1-5, 9-10. It’s a brilliant little vignette in David’s rise to the throne of Israel. But notice: there are three verses missing.
Why?
Sometimes verses are omitted because we are brought to the conclusion of a story without being weighed down by superfluous details. Sometimes the narrative is interrupted and it makes logical sense to jump from one place to another.
But sometimes the lectionary omits verses because they are difficult to handle, they make people like you and me uncomfortable, and we don’t know what to do with them.
I don’t often ask you to do this, but I would like all of us to pick up a pew bible and turn to 2 Samuel 5 (OT page 218). We read earlier that all of the elders joined together, and they anointed David king. We read about how David was thirty years old when he began to reign. We read about how long he ruled. But before we jump to verse 9, where we learn he occupied Jerusalem, let’s read about what he had to do to achieve that victory…
6 – The king and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, “You will not come in here, even the blind and the lame will turn you back” – thinking, “David cannot come in here.”
7 – Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion, which is now the city of David.
8 – David had said on that day, “Whoever would strike down the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, those who David hates.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”
The Lectionary, which thousands of churches follow, omits those three verses. And those three verses completely change the emotional impact of the story. Because without those three verses all we learn about is David becoming king. And with the three verses, we learn what kind of king David would be.
Victory comes with a cost.
David sent his warriors on a surprise attack into the city through the water shaft. However, they would not only sneak through to shock the enemy combatants, but David also ordered the massacre of the blind and the lame.
And after the carnage, they occupied the stronghold and named the place the city of David. A great and decisive victory for the people of God, one in which even the blind and lame were left bloodied in the streets.
Scripture is no joke my friends. In this crazy and bewildering assortment of poetry, prose, and pragmatism, we discover the incredible mountaintop moments of God’s glory, and the deep valleys of humanity’s shame.
It is said that the winners write the history books, and this is true. Where might we find the details from the Jebusites perspective? Where can we read about the plight of the blind and lame left to die in the city of David?
We can’t, because they lost.
And yet when we look back on the life of David, we know and remember that his first act as king from taking the city of Jerusalem and uniting the people called Israel. But if we follow the lectionary, we lose sight of how far he was willing to go to do so.
On Wednesday morning my family and I piled up our supplies in our Radio Flyer wagon and we made our way down to our neighborhood’s 4th of July parade. We sat in the limited shade with great anticipation as we heard the sirens and marching bands in the distance. And for more than an hour we cheered and celebrated as all sorts of people from the community walked past us in celebration of our country’s independence.
Hours later, we gathered with neighbors for a backyard barbeque and watched as our children splashed around in a kiddie pool. We exchanged stories of 4th of Julys past, and offered thoughts about future celebrations.
In the evening, I rocked my son to sleep with the faint smell of gunpowder wafting up from his hair, still holding on to the firework displays in our front yard, and the distant pops of fireworks echoed in his room.
It was a great day, one for which I am grateful. I love living in this place we call the United States, for the freedoms I experience to worship the God I love, and to gather with people like you to do so.
But throughout the sea of red, white, and blue, between hot dogs and hamburgers, surrounding the bright colors in the sky was the constant and ringing reminder: What price did we pay for this?
Or, better put, what price did others pay for this?
This country, and our love of it, flirts very closely with what Jesus called idolatry. When the country we live in becomes more important than the God who created us, when the lights in the sky on the 4th of July shine brighter than the bread and cup on this table, when we care more about what’s happening in Washington DC than what’s happening in our local community, then we have a problem.
And part of the problem is that, like David, we forget the tremendous cost of our victory.
We don’t take the time to repent for the millions of lives that have been taken in order for us to form a more perfect union. We ignore the stories and plights of the native peoples from whom we stole this land. We dismiss the broken systems of racial inequality that are still very much manifest in ways that began when black and brown bodies were stolen and forced into slave labor. We overlook how women were, and still are, mistreated and disrespected for no reason other than their difference in genitalia.
What we have here, it’s pretty good. Better than most places in the world, if not the best. But it all came with a cost.
People matter. Regardless of whether they are blind or lame, native or immigrant, black or white, male or female, people matter.
And for David, some people didn’t matter.
David occupied the city Jerusalem with the bodies of his own people, by showing up in flesh and blood and bone – By sneaking through the water shaft to kill the blind and the lame.
Centuries ago, this country was occupied with bodies by those who showed up in flesh and blood and bone – By stealing land from those who were here before, by breaking the bones of those forced to work the land, by belittling those who bore the next generations in their wombs.
David occupied Jerusalem with violence, with the threats against the blood and bones of others. So too, America is occupied with violence, with threat against the blood and the bones of others.
That same violence was present in the city of Jerusalem centuries after David stormed through the city, when the gathered people shouted the name of a different shepherd boy, though this time they demanded for him to be crucified on a cross. With every hammer and nail through his bones and flesh, echoes of the past, present, and future rang for everyone to hear. With his cross hanging high in the sky, all of the bodies whose blood rolled through the streets of Jerusalem, and every broken body that would pave the way for this country were also held high for all to see.
In Jesus we discover the true victory, a triumph that came at the cost of God’s own life. At this meal, in this bread and cup, we find the peace of Jesus that occupies us when we feast. In these pews, in the space between us filled by the Spirit, we experience the beginning of a new reality in which victory is defined not by violence, but by grace.
David is a far more complex character than we ever give him credit for, and America is far more complicit with the violence and brokenness of the world than we often remember, but that does not mean that both of them should be dismissed or broken down. We can still rejoice in the shepherd boy who united Israel, and we can still celebrate the country in which we live. But we cannot forget the cost of their victories, nor can we forget the blood that has been spilled in both of their names.
Because in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection we encounter the end of sacrifices, the end of violence as a means by which we change the world. Jesus has already changed the world, Jesus occupied our place on the cross, and God is with us. Amen.
think and let think 