John Mark Jones - "The Fall of the House of David" (August 13, 2000)

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-	Let us pray.	0:27
	O Lord, may the words of my mouth	0:35
	and the meditations of all of our hearts	0:37
	be acceptable in Your sight, for truly You are	0:41
	our strength and our redeemer, amen.	0:46
	I am 42 years old.	0:58
	I have a daughter who is 10 years old.	1:04
	Not long after we moved to Bishopville,	1:09
	a little more than three years ago,	1:11
	I was talking with a good friend of mine	1:12
	who was also my age, he has three daughters.	1:14
	They are 16, 11,	1:21
	and six years old.	1:26
	We were remarking the	1:30
	rate at which our daughters were growing.	1:35
	Our children grow so quickly, they shoot up before our eyes	1:40
	and we hardly recognize that time has passed.	1:44
	As the conversation continued, one of us,	1:50
	I don't remember which one, one of us	1:53
	wondered aloud what kind of young men	1:56
	our daughters would be attracted to.	2:01
	And then Bob said, "You know, it's quite possible	2:07
	"that our daughters will fall in love	2:10
	"with young men who are like their fathers."	2:13
	And when Bob said that, we both winced.	2:21
	(audience laughs)	2:26
	Neither one of us said anything,	2:31
	but the thought was something like "Oh God,	2:32
	"I hope our daughters fall in love with men	2:38
	"who are better than their fathers."	2:41
	Now that is not to say that Bob and I	2:46
	think poorly of ourselves or of each other,	2:48
	it is to say, however, that we know ourselves.	2:53
	And we remember with some embarrassment	2:58
	what we were like as adolescents.	3:02
	Heaven forbid our daughters should fall	3:07
	in love with maniacs, which is	3:09
	an apt description of us as teenagers.	3:14
	Fathers of daughters spend a great deal of time	3:19
	repenting of the sins of their youth.	3:22
	I don't know what it's like for fathers of sons.	3:26
	But this is the way it is for fathers	3:31
	who live with a household of women.	3:33
	Interestingly enough, I revisited this topic of conversation	3:38
	several weeks ago with my daughter, Spencer,	3:43
	who said to me, as we were driving,	3:46
	"You know, Dad, in a few years,	3:50
	"when I'm in high school and I date someone,	3:52
	"I'll bet that boy will be like you."	3:55
	And I thought, "So help me God.	3:59
	(audience laughs)	4:03
	"I'll kill him."
	It's probably not any easier for fathers of sons.	4:11
	The greater truth, surely, is that we all want	4:16
	the best for our children.	4:19
	We often wish, futilely, that they will not	4:23
	make the mistakes that we have made.	4:27
	We hope that somehow they will be	4:30
	of sounder character than we have been.	4:33
	Mainly, we want them to be safe and happy.	4:37
	And we want them to know that we love them very much.	4:43
	Well these are some of the thoughts I have	4:48
	every time I read the story of David.	4:51
	I doubt you know anyone whose family history	4:56
	is as tragic as David's was.	5:00
	The fall of the house of David begins several chapters	5:04
	before the text we read this morning.	5:07
	You know the story.	5:11
	David takes the wife of Uriah,	5:15
	she conceives.	5:19
	David tries to cover his sin by murdering Uriah,	5:22
	he has him placed at the forefront of battle,	5:28
	where Uriah is killed.	5:32
	And then David tries to cover his sin once more	5:36
	by taking Uriah's widow into his home	5:39
	and making her his wife.	5:44
	The problem, of course, is that the king's duplicity	5:48
	is not unnoticed by God.	5:53
	So God sends to David the prophet Nathan,	5:57
	and Nathan bears the news that the first child	6:01
	born to Bathsheba will die.	6:05
	Then, the prophet says to the king,	6:12
	"Oh, don't worry ol' boy.	6:14
	"The Lord has covered your sin,	6:20
	you shall not die."	6:24
	of course, you and I know that statement is misleading.	6:29
	It is almost a lie, and we're not sure	6:34
	who has spoken the lie,	6:39
	Nathan or God,	6:42
	but one of them has certainly	6:46
	given voice to a great lie.	6:48
	For any parent will tell you, any parent	6:54
	who has lost a child will tell you,	6:58
	that with the loss of a child,	7:02
	something in the parent does die.	7:04
	So a more appropriate word from Nathan to David	7:10
	would have been, "David, you are dying already,	7:13
	"and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."	7:17
	And the tragedy is that no matter how often	7:25
	you summon the specter of death,	7:28
	it will not come when you desire it.	7:33
	The child does die.	7:40
	And when the child was alive, David fasted	7:44
	and wept, pleading with God to spare the child's life,	7:46
	but after the child is gone, David ceases his fasting	7:51
	and weeping and he says to the people of the court,	7:56
	"While my son was alive, there was yet hope.	8:01
	"But now that he is gone, my fasting and weeping	8:06
	"are to no avail, I cannot bring him back.	8:11
	"He will not return to me, but I shall go to him."	8:17
	I shall go to him.	8:25
	Sounds like a death wish to me.	8:30
	I would guess that David wants to die.	8:34
	Any parent would gladly give his or her own life	8:39
	in exchange for the life of the child.	8:44
	I'm reminded of the remark made by the narrator	8:50
	in the movie about Stevie Smith,	8:52
	the English poet who attempted suicide.	8:55
	The narrator says, "Death, that sweet and gentle friend,	8:59
	"failed to respond to her summons,	9:03
	life continued."	9:07
	Sometimes life is harder than death.	9:13
	Surely it was for David after the loss of his son.	9:17
	Our text for the morning has us with David,	9:27
	several years after the death of his first son.	9:30
	Now he loses another son,	9:34
	the stunningly handsome Absalom,	9:38
	who has attempted a coup.	9:43
	He wants to seize his father's crown	9:46
	and be king of Israel.	9:50
	But those who are loyal to David kill Absalom.	9:52
	And when news of his son's death reaches David,	9:58
	David cries out	10:01
	"Oh my son, Absalom, my son, my son!	10:05
	"Would I had died instead of you,	10:11
	"oh Absalom, my son, my son."	10:14
	I don't know what all is in that wretched cry,	10:21
	I would guess a great deal of regret,	10:26
	perhaps David is lamenting his failures as a father.	10:29
	Most of us fathers do, from time to time,	10:34
	lament our failures.	10:37
	Perhaps there is in that cry some rage toward God.	10:41
	Inevitably, we put to God the hard questions	10:46
	that cannot be answered, "God, why this?"	10:49
	"Why did it have to happen this way?"	10:56
	"Why could I not have been the one to die,	11:01
	"my child's life spared?"	11:03
	Even if answers to these questions never do come,	11:08
	they surely do not come the minute we address them to God.	11:12
	So anger toward God is a very common response	11:18
	to insufferable tragedy.	11:22
	I don't know how David endured.	11:28
	My guess is that after this loss,	11:32
	David was a shell of the man he once was.	11:35
	I do know that his pain would cripple me,	11:41
	and I do not know that I would survive.	11:43
	But,	11:50
	you know	11:52
	the story of David does not end with tragedy.	11:55
	It certainly includes tragedy, and a great deal of it.	12:00
	But his story is larger than that.	12:06
	For David's story has much to say	12:11
	about the presence of God, and about how that holy presence	12:13
	works mysteriously in our shattered lives.	12:18
	That little statement that Nathan makes to David,	12:24
	that little statement that is almost a lie,	12:27
	either from God or from Nathan,	12:30
	"Oh David, the Lord has covered your sin,	12:34
	"you shall not die," well death is hardly	12:35
	the worst that David will endure.	12:41
	The fact is, he did do some dying	12:44
	when his sons lost their lives.	12:46
	Nevertheless, that little statement does say something	12:52
	to us about the way God is involved in our lives.	12:55
	Even after we have been broken by sorrow.	13:02
	How do we live in the face of inconsolable grief?	13:09
	How do we carry on when life is too much for us?	13:15
	Well, I do not have a neat formula	13:22
	that will make your life easy,	13:24
	nor do I have simple words	13:29
	that will make you easy with life's misfortunes.	13:32
	I would not dare tell you simply to pray to God	13:37
	and that God will make all things right for you,	13:41
	because that is a lie.	13:45
	God will not make all things right for you,	13:48
	or for me, or for anyone else.	13:54
	But I will tell you that somehow,	14:03
	in ways I neither understand	14:07
	nor can explain adequately,	14:11
	God does make God's presence known to us	14:14
	in time of grief.	14:21
	And somehow, God's presence sees us	14:25
	through our darkest hours.	14:29
	God does not remove all the pain,	14:33
	ever,	14:38
	and please do not believe the lie	14:41
	that time will heal all of your wounds.	14:43
	Time will not.	14:46
	Time is neither a friend nor a healing agent.	14:50
	But in ways that are as mysterious to you as they are to me,	14:59
	God does give us to know joy and trust,	15:05
	fulfillment and blessing,	15:09
	in the moment of our most insufferable,	15:15
	abject pain.	15:19
	The day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated,	15:24
	a reporter interviewed Patrick Moynihan,	15:29
	and he said to Moynihan, "How shall we carry on?"	15:34
	"What will become of our country?	15:41
	"What will happen to us?"	15:45
	Moynihan paused for a moment,	15:50
	and then he responded,	15:54
	"We shall laugh again,	15:58
	but we shall never be young again."	16:02
	Well, that is how it is for people	16:10
	like David, like you,	16:11
	like me.	16:17
	That is how it is for all of us	16:20
	whose lives have been taken	16:25
	by pain.	16:30
	We shall laugh again, but we shall never be young again.	16:33
	For people of faith, both the laughter	16:41
	and the wisdom wrought by pain are informed	16:45
	by our faith that God is present.	16:48
	Perhaps not present in all the ways that we desire,	16:54
	but present nonetheless	16:59
	and present enough.	17:02
	Friends, I do wonder about my role as a father.	17:10
	I lament mistakes I have made	17:15
	and somehow, I'm lamenting the mistakes I'm yet to make.	17:22
	This story does that to me.	17:27
	But something else happens to me when I read this story,	17:32
	and it is rather strange.	17:35
	I read this story, and I realize just how precarious life is	17:40
	and how little control we have over it.	17:45
	We all would like to avoid the mistakes that David made,	17:50
	we won't, and even if we did it wouldn't matter.	17:56
	Our lives are not guaranteed.	18:02
	You live long enough, and you are going to be crippled	18:07
	by tragedy, I promise you that.	18:09
	What then?	18:14
	Well, about all we can do is to live with as much integrity	18:18
	and strength as we can muster,	18:21
	and then trust that God will see us through	18:24
	those unbearable difficulties.	18:26
	That also means that we put our children's lives	18:31
	in the hands of God, knowing we can do	18:33
	so little to protect them, knowing also	18:36
	that God can do so little to protect them,	18:41
	but trusting that God will reveal God's self to them	18:48
	and that will be enough.	18:54
	John Stapleton, retired minister	18:59
	in the South Carolina Annual Conference	19:01
	of the United Methodist Church,	19:04
	and one of the great preachers in America,	19:05
	recently told me the story of his three and a half year old	19:10
	grandson, John Luke,	19:14
	who fancies himself a stage actor.	19:17
	One day not long ago, right after the Easter season,	19:22
	three and a half year old John Luke came running	19:26
	into the den and he said to his grandmother	19:28
	and to his brother, "All right, Grandma, you're God."	19:30
	To his brother he said, "You, you're one of the disciples."	19:36
	And then he said, "I am Jesus,	19:43
	okay, now, I'm dying."	19:49
	And then three and a half year old John Luke,	19:57
	enacts a five minute dying scene with all the moans	19:59
	and groans you would expect from a three year old.	20:04
	Then, as he is taking his last breath,	20:11
	he falls to the floor and crawls under a chair,	20:14
	which is a make believe cave,	20:18
	and there he dies.	20:22
	And about 15 or 30 seconds later, he crawls	20:27
	out of the makeshift cave, he leaps to his feet,	20:30
	and he says, "I'm risen, I'm free,	20:35
	I'm free, I'm free!"	20:41
	And when his grandfather told the story, he wept.	20:50
	He wept because he knows that his son	20:58
	will taste death long before he draws	21:01
	his last mortal breath.	21:05
	He wept because he knows that some good piece	21:08
	of that child's wonder may be lost	21:11
	when he sees the harsh realities of life as an adult.	21:17
	He wept for love of his child, and for the recognition	21:22
	of his own inability to protect his child,	21:26
	but in the midst of all that weeping,	21:34
	he felt a slow smile creep	21:37
	across the contours of his face,	21:40
	and he thought	21:43
	"Oh my son, John Luke,	21:48
	"if you can just hold on to that story,	21:51
	"believing that life is stronger than death,	21:57
	"and that you are free, then that is enough."	22:00
	"It is enough for you, for me,	22:06
	and for us all.	22:12
	"Oh my son, John Luke,	22:15
	my son, my son,	22:20
	it is enough."	22:25

Item Info

Title:

John Mark Jones - "The Fall of the House of David" (August 13, 2000)

Description:

The life of David bears witness to the great suffering and tragedy that is an inevitable part of human life. And while the story does not offer the false hope that, if you pray hard enough, God will spare you this suffering, it does remind us that God will reveal God's self to us in our most trying hours, and that can be enough. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 00:58. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 22:28.
Key quotation: “I would not dare tell you simply to pray to God and that God will make all things right for you, because that is a lie. God will not make all things right for you, or for me, or for anyone else. But I will tell you that somehow, in ways I neither understand nor can explain adequately, God does make God’s presence known to us in time of grief. And somehow God’s presence sees us through our darkest hours.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4988331q

Date:

August 13, 2000

Speaker:

Jones, John Mark

Biblical Book:

Chapter and Verse:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1026
ref10209_8qu
uachapelsermaud
duke:321114
dcrau001670
ark:/87924/r4988331q
0048b10e-d37e-401f-b2e3-471e15162d38

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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