Lessons on Dying and Grieving From David 2 Samuel 18: 4-14, 31-33, chapter 19: 1-8
This fall our church is putting on a series of presentations called “Death Matters,” dealing with different aspects of dying and grieving. This past Thursday Ted and I led a session on the Spiritual and practical aspects of the journey of death and grieving.
I did my final preparation for that presentation at the same time as I was preparing for this sermon, and as I so, I realized there were many connections between that topic and the reading for today. I didn't come up with the idea until it was too late for the bulletin, but basically I want to talk about lessons on dying and grieving from the life of David.
At our session Thursday evening, we talked about how in our society, over the past fifty years or so, we have developed the tendency to hide from death, to deny it, to sanitize it. When someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness, we tend to say, oh sure you'll beat it! I know someone who had something similar who is fine and so on. Instead of acknowledging that someone is dying, we deny it, we pretend it isn't happening. When I was in Harrington Harbour, my first charge, there was a man who was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer. I was there with him and his family when the nurse practitioner told him, there was nothing that could be done for him.
So I did as I had been trained, I talked to him about the fact that he was dying. He seemed okay with it, but his family was furious. It sas talked about in the whole village, how dare the minister tell Dad he was dying? Who did she think she was and where did she get her information? All I could think was, I got my information from same place as you, the nurse practitioner. She was pretty clear, Ben was dying. But equally clear was the fact that his family wasn't ready to accept that, so I had to change my approach. I Apologized to the family for the misunderstanding, I was allowed back to visit and talk with them, and as Ben's condition worsened, I tried to gently lead to them to acknowledge that he wasn't getting better.
We see a similar denial happening with David in this story, although it isn't around illness. Absalom is David's eldest son and David adores him. Absalom has done some terrible things. He murdered one of his brothers – that's a whole other story, he repented and was forgiven by David and welcomed home. Then he promptly began to undermine David's power by lying to people and telling them David didn't listen to them or care about them the way he did, and that he, Absalom, would be a far better king Eventually Absalom led an open armed rebellion against David, pushing him out of Jerusalem and then taking David's concubines and sleeping with them, clearly against their will, all of which went against all sorts of norms and laws.
Now, after months of conflict, destruction and chaos, David's army is poised to defeat Absalom's army and take back the country. And yet what does David say to the army as it departs? “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.” Talk about denial. “The young man Absalom,” has just led an armed rebellion against his father, caused the death of untold numbers of people, raped his father's concubines and destroyed much of the land. Deal gently with him? You can only imagine how the soldiers rolled their eyes. Yet David was completely sincere. For him Absalom was still his little boy, needing to be protected. David loved him unconditionally.
Unfortunately for David, Joab, his trusty general, sees things differently. When Joab learns that Absalom has been found, hanging from a tree by hair was so proud of, Joab doesn't hesitate. He cuts through the waffling protests of the soldier who found Absalom and thrusts three spears into Absalom's heart. It seems so brutal to us. Why does the Bible give us details like that? We have to keep remembering, this is a totally different culture, where violence was normal and this was seen as an act of strength and decisiveness on Joab's part. Which stood in contrast to David's denial.
And yet Bible never says that David is wrong to want to save his son. David's grief upon learning that Absalom has been killed is described with heartfelt passion and sincerity- “Oh my son Absalom, my son, my son, I wish I had died instead of you, oh Absalom, my son.” Somehow the Bible balances the brutal reality of the situation, Absalom is a traitor who has destroyed his country and by their reckoning deserves to die, with David's heartfelt and understandable grief.
There's a lesson for us there. Of course it's understandable that we deny death when we first learn that it is approaching, that we fight it and push it away, and God understands that. But eventually we have to let go of our denial, accept the reality of our situation, and trust that God will guide us through. Once reality hits, like David, we grieve. That's the crying part of Kum by ya, as I talked about with the children. We have to grieve, or we will go crazy, we'll make ourselves ill.
We may not be like David, who wept and tore his clothes, but we have to grieve in ways that are authentic to us, we have to cry and be angry and maybe punch a few pillows, whatever it takes to express the deep sense of sadness and loss, of despair and anger within us. Just imagine how deep David's sadness and despair was. He had lost his son. No parent ever expects that their child will die before them. On top of that, he had to wonder what his role was in that death. Absalom was dead because had rebelled against David, what had David done to contribute to that? Had he been too firm? Too weak? Too absent? We can only imagine the questions that spun themselves in his mind as he wept.
But the problem is, David isn't just a grieving father, he is also king, king of an army that had just won great victory. Yet his soldiers stole into city after their great victory, wondering if they should be ashamed. They had saved their king and their nation, but their king did nothing but grieve. After several days, Joab, that stubborn general, has had enough. He goes to David and says, “what do you think you're doing? Your behaviour is bringing shame to your officers, your soldiers, your children and your people. It's like we all mean nothing, as if you wish Absalom was alive and we were all dead. Get up, go out and speak to your people. If you don't, you won't have a country left to lead.” Harsh words, but necessary. David can't stay in his room and grieve for weeks on end. He has a country to govern.
And sometimes that happens to us too. Grief is different for each person. For some, it's like grief takes over and we can hardly function. And while it's very important to express our grief, it can't take over our lives, or it turns into debilitating depression. After my dad died, my mom said she realized she had to focus on doing one thing each day, sometimes something as simple as getting the garbage cans to the end of her long driveway or getting the mail. Some days it was a struggle, but she knew that if she didn't, she would lose herself completely in her grief. On the other hand, some people become so busy, they have no time for grief. They have to do the paperwork, fix the house, deal with the family.
And while all those things are legitimate, if we are focusing on them so that we don't have to acknowledge the pain of our loss, then it isn't healthy either. In that case, we might want to learn from David's honest expression of his pain and loss. And in all situations of loss and grief, we can learn from David's faith. The reason he can cry so open heartedly, then turn around and govern his country is because he is always totally honest with God and trusts God to be with him. He knows that God's unconditional love for him is far greater than his unconditional love for Absalom. It is beyond anything he can imagine. And that gives him the confidence to feel what he needs to feel and to keep on living fully, no matter how great his grief.
At some point in our lives we all lose someone we love and walk that path of death and grieving. When you do, I hope that you can follow in the steps of David, to face denial, to cry, trust God's unconditional love to lead you and even carry you through, so that you can embrace life fully again.