Transcript
One of the most pathetic, tragic figures in all of history and all of literature was King David as an old man. Physically there was little left of the man he had been in the days of his glory. His eyesight had grown weak, he was subject to chills so severe they shook his body like a leaf, and his mind began to slip now and then, as the minds of the very old and the very sick are apt to do, so that he was no longer able to keep on top of things, looking after the nation’s interest.
For example, it appears that David had given no thought to the critical problem on which the fate of Israel rested, the problem of who was to succeed him as king, until finally Bathsheba, the woman he had lusted after so powerfully he arranged the killing of her husband so that he could marry her, went to David as he lay dying and talked him into appointing their son Solomon as his successor.
So that by the time David finally died his death was not as momentous as it might have been, because in many senses he had died already, years before. The one person who was responsible for this was David’s own son, the young man named Absalom, and it’s about Absalom that I want to speak to you today.
There are two main things to know about him. The author of Second Samuel puts them this way: “Now in all Israel there was no one so much to be praised for his beauty as Absalom; from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him” (14. 25). And later, “Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel” (15. 6).
That’s the first thing to know about him: he was a child of great promise, he was prince of the realm, he was the pride of his people, and the people loved him.
The second thing to know about him is that Absalom was a very ambitious man, and when his father King David was already getting old, Absalom started a revolution and drove him out of Jerusalem. What took place then was a deadly battle in the forest of Ephraim between his army and his father’s. David gathered a mighty force about him to defeat his son and regain his throne, but on more than one occasion he called his three commanding generals to him and said, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.” But despite his plea, the generals realized that a living Absalom would mean the constant threat of civil war, and so when they got their chance they killed him, and the victory was theirs.
Of course you remember the detail about the actual way in which he died. There is a terrible and significant kind of irony about it. The battle, as I said, took place in a forest, and what happened was that as Absalom went riding through it on his mule, he was caught by a forked branch and left hanging there from a tree until the enemy found him and killed him.
So we could sum up his career by saying: Absalom was a child of great promise, the bright hope of his father and of his people. Absalom was an ambitious rebel. Absalom died a lonely and ignominious death in the darkness of a forest, hanging from a tree. And when the news of his death was brought to the king, his father David went up to a room over the fortress gate and wept and said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
I wonder if this story rings any bells in your minds. I know it does in mine. The reason is that what I recognize in Absalom is myself; and what I recognize in Absalom is you. Absalom was full of promise. And who of us, when we were young, was not full of promise?
We are also like Absalom in being ambitious. No matter how rich or strong or wise or loved we are, we want to be more so, and the length to which we’ll go for that purpose is beyond measure. Our ambition may not lead us into open rebellion against whatever stands in our way, but even more preposterously, it leads us into secret rebellion within ourselves. While half of ourselves goes forward through life under the assumption that the more we have of what we want most, the happier we’ll be, the other half of ourselves knows that that isn’t true.
As basic to man as his instinct for survival is his growing suspicion that no matter how fully he realizes the dearest ambitions of his heart, no matter how rich or strong, famous or wise he becomes, he will still not be content. Let him go to the finest university and be graduated with highest honors, let him walk through the doors that open to him and win every professional accolade, still, when he’s brushing his teeth in front of the bathroom mirror years or decades later, the face he’s seeing is pretty much the same old face that he’s washed and slept on, hidden behind or talked through, for as long as he can remember. He may be happier than he was, but there will still be something that he wants. His name is Absalom.
That brings me to the last point of resemblance between Absalom and ourselves. Like him, we’re children of promise. Like him, we’re ambitious and in rebellion within ourselves. But you remember that Absalom died an ignominious and lonely death in the darkness of a forest. And there, praise God, the resemblance ends. None of us are dead.
But you’ll understand me when I say that there are more ways than one of dying. Isn’t it true that there is a kind of death in always hoping that by the force of our own wills, by getting more and more of whatever we want, we can be happy, and always, on the other hand, finding out that no matter how much we get, there’s still the same face looking back from the bathroom mirror to remind us that there’s still something missing? Isn’t there a kind of death in the self-deception we live by? “Not the death of dying,” as Walker Percy writes, “but the living death.” And like Absalom’s, these deaths are lonely because they take place inside of ourselves—like Absalom’s there is a kind of terrible irony about these deaths because they are so obviously unnecessary, because there is so little dignity about them.
So there you are. You and I are Absalom. Absalom is sitting in church in front of me, more or less patiently waiting for Absalom to finish his sermon so Absalom can rise up and go.
And who is King David? Is there a King David? Is there any wise and loving human being to mourn us when and if we finally succeed in destroying ourselves? If our self-deceptive ambition is as deadly as I’ve suggested, and if, it were to send us our walking papers, would there be one good man left to grieve for us, saying, “Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son”?
The answer, I’m afraid, is No. Even if it were Yes, even if there were some King David to say with deepest sincerity and love, “Would I had died instead of you,” even if by some miracle we were able to hear and believe him, his words would bring small comfort since no matter how hard he wished to the contrary, we, not he, would be the ones who had died.
Now if that were the whole story, we’re left with nothing but despair. And for those who believe that the world, that all of beauty and pain and gladness and yearning, that the very hoping hearts and doubting minds of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, those creatures of such great promise, were created by the same blind chance that blows dead leaves from an autumn tree, this is the whole story. We live, we die, then we literally die, and that is that.
But your life and your hope are not the creation of chance. Your life and your hope are the creation of God. And the words of God, unlike the words of David or of any mortal, are never empty because the words of God are the acts of God. When God said “Let there be light,” of course there was light. When Jesus, instituting the Blessed Sacrament, says, “This is my body... This is my blood of the new covenant” of course it’s his body and blood. God’s words are events, are history-making. And God’s supreme historic act was physically, at a particular time and place, to enter history himself in the person of Jesus Christ, and to die for us as King David would, but could not, die for Absalom his son. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
