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Sunday July 2, 2006 - Proper 8, Year B

When I looked at the lectionary this week
and discovered
what the Old Testament reading was
I have to admit
that for a moment,
I groaned.

Because what begins as a passionate, grief filled lament
by David
over the deaths of Saul and Jonathan
ends up with a line
that is at the very least
ambiguous.

David cries,
"I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
greatly beloved were you to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women."

There is, once again, a fair bit of furor going in the Episcopal church and in the Anglican Communion
about sexuality.
Texts from Leviticus and Romans are quoted
in the arguments against same-sex relationships or gay clergy;
but on the other side,
this final line of David's lament is quoted
as evidence that there were in fact same-sex relationships between some of the heroes of our faith.

David and Jonathan had an incredibly close friendship. It was so close, that Jonathan risked his life for David; it was so close that Jonathan risked his relationship with his family for David; it was so close that Jonathan risked his own right to inherit his father's crown for David.
On the other hand, David was married — multiple times.
It might be
that David and Jonathan were just incredibly good friends — the sort of friendship forged by sharing life and death situations. It might be that their relationship was something more. We simply cannot tell.
Love comes in all shapes and sizes, and what sort of love this is — there is not enough information in the biblical text. It wasn't the sort of thing
the writers of our Bible were interested in pinning down. And so we just don't know.

You see, we tend to come with our own expectations, our own worldviews, when we read Scripture. We bring questions from our lives in 2006. But three thousand or so years ago, life was different. The questions were different.

And so, whether we like it or not, we can't expect Scripture to answer all the questions of the twenty-first century. Scripture doesn't really answer questions about the relationship between the church and the modern state. It doesn't really answer questions about the ethics of various medical procedures. It doesn't really answer our questions about the environment. Because they aren't the questions that people were interested in back then, or not at least in the way we are. There might be general principles that we can apply in each case, but there are no easy answers.
And so, when we read scripture, we need to be careful that we are not reading our own viewpoints
into the hearts and minds of the people of God.

On the other hand
some things never change. And it is those things that never change
that make scripture alive to us.
When we listen carefully to the words that echo down the generations, sometimes we find
that they speak
directly
to us.

Bringing questions from the twenty-first century
to a text that dates back to the first century or even earlier
isn't terribly helpful,
but that doesn't let us off the hook
when we
actually go and read the scriptural text for ourselves. Because while it may not answer the questions that we
want to ask
it may ask us a whole lot of questions
that we'd rather not answer,
it might take us places
that we'd rather not go.

And I think that's the case with our Old Testament reading today.
You see, where it's leading us, the questions it demands of us
are no less difficult, no less contentious
than the ones we might want to bring to it.
It might in fact not be a text
that answers our questions about sexuality.
But I suspect
that this might be a text
that demands even more of us.

What we have
is a few words of lament
at the sudden, horrible death
of someone
David loved,
that sudden, horrible death
in war.

David laments, he laments his dearest friend Jonathan.
He laments the death of Jonathan's father, King Saul.
He laments the deaths of those in the army,
the defeat of his country,
the whole horrible mess
that is war.

On NPR this week
I heard an interview
with a nineteen year old woman
Katrina Gionet (jhee-on-ette).
She met a young soldier; four months later they got married, and a week after that
she and her grandmother drove him to the airport
where he was shipped out to Iraq.
And then one day,
not long before he was due home,
came the visit she dreaded,
a knock at the door
and the news
that he had been killed
by a roadside bomb.
The day after she heard
three cards arrived from him.
She has opened the first two;
the third one, she explains, her voice shaking,
she has left sealed,
waiting until the time is right
to read the last letter she will ever receive
from her husband.

It was a story
that brings home
all the horror of war.
It doesn't matter
if you think the war in Iraq is right or wrong,
justified or not. Sometimes
it seems
like war is the only option, the best of a bunch
of bad choices. But it's always a terrible thing.
It always means destruction, even when it is opening the way
for new life, even when
it's the prelude
to hope.
It tears families apart, nations apart, worlds apart.

I will never forget watching Ken Burn's documentary series
The Civil War.
It didn't matter
which side you sympathized with;
150 years later,
those early photographs
of bodies
document without emotion
the ugly reality,
young men killed by young men,
sometimes
not even knowing
what they
And if you visit Gettysberg
the scars still show on the landscape
and the ghosts of the fallen
bleed behind the trees.

One of the dangers of patriotism
is that sometimes
in our pride in our country
we forget to grieve.
We remember the glory,
the heroism,
the success,
and we forget
too easily
what it cost.

David's words
at the beginning of the second book of Samuel
invite us to grieve.
Because what we have here
is words of lament
for a country, a nation, a generation
cut down in war.
And it's a lament
that he ordered
to be taught to the people.
"How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the battle!"
We need, we need
to remember what the cost is
of justice, the cost of mercy.

And it's only when we remember, when we grieve
that we can turn again
and face reality.

At the end of this service
we will sing
"America the beautiful."
And in the second verse
we will remember those
whose service
cost them their lives.
"O beautiful for heroes proved
in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved,
and mercy more than life!"
We grieve.
And then we admit our failure.
We confess — probably not what we normally think of when we sing this hymn. But we confess our failure, our imperfection,
when we sing "God mend thine every flaw."
And then in the final verse
we turn to healing, to grace, to a future
where every tear will be wiped away
and there will be
no war.

We grieve,
we confess
we hope.
David's lament
gives us voice.

But our grief, and David's grief
is not just about war. It's not just national.
It's personal.
He has lost
his mentor, Saul, the one who brought him to court and trained him,
the one who became threatened by David's giftedness and eventually became his enemy,
David lost
someone who was both friend and enemy, someone that he could only have ever thought of
with mixed
emotions.
David lost him
and he grieved.

And David lost Jonathan,
the one who perhaps knew him better
than any one else.
He lost his buddy, his partner, his friend.
David lost him
and he grieved.

Sometimes
we don't do so well at grieving.
Someone dies, and we go into shock.
We go through the funeral in a daze,
and then ten days, ten months, ten years later,
we wake up one day
and realize the one we loved is gone, truly gone,
and we have a hole inside us that can never be filled.
Sometimes
our society doesn't help us.
People comfort us
with well meaning words.
"Your bearing up so well."
"God welcomes another angel in heaven."

On NPR again this week
there was a story
of the funerals
of kids killed in inner city Detroit.
Kids go from the church
to the mall
and get dog tags
engraved with the name of their dead friends,
showing them off
at the graveside.
It's a coping mechanism, some say,
but death has become a block party
complete with beer and hot dogs.

We have a funeral; we talk about our loved one's passing,
we tell stories about how wonderful they were.
But deep inside
the emotions are churning.
Sometimes we're trying to deal
with the fact that our love is tinged with frustration,
sometimes sadness is just overwhelming us,
sometimes there is even fear and hurt mixed in with our love.
We've learned too well
not to let our emotions out,
not to shout and scream and cry,
not to do anything
socially unacceptable.

Grief
is human.
And maybe we need to return to those age old practices
of tearing our clothes and wearing black
and letting everyone know
that we
are in mourning.
Because sometimes
when we don't get to do our grieving,
it haunts us,
and
we never quite manage
to live again.

David's words of grief,
they remind us
that our grief
is never too much
for God to handle,
our rage, our fear, our sadness,
our hopelessness.

And then, though we didn't read it today,
then David turned from his grief
and turned
toward the future.
And God blessed him.

A lament
for Saul and Jonathan. A lament
for the people of Israel.
It might not have answered our questions,
but it questions us.
Do we have the courage to grieve?
And are we willing
to open ourselves to that grief
and allow it to purge us
and turn back
to life and mercy, and love?

A prayer from the service of Compline in our Book of Common Prayer:
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2005