YEAR B (11th after Pentecost)
Lissa Wray Beal

2 Sam 18:5-9, 15, 31-33; Ps 130; Eph 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51.

Well, the writ has been dropped, and we are off on the 78-day race to election day. We groan and grumble at the length of the campaign. We talk and debate – facebook is filled with this (discussion that is more or less coherent and worthwhile). We hope for good government: a candidate. . . a party that will bolster the economy, or bring justice in areas we feel important. Perhaps a hope for new ways forward to live peaceably together in the midst of all our differences.

I suspect that if we were to poll each of us, we would each hope for different things of our government. But I also suspect we all hope for a better Canada. A better society because led by good government.

But that hope for a somewhat utopian country is also tinged. By reality. By cynicism. By the knowledge that our leaders – and the governmental systems they serve in – are hopelessly flawed. We might hope on one hand that this time the government will be all that we think it should be, while on the other hand we are realistic: we’ve seen too many politicians fall. Too many abuses within the system. Too much power wielded in ways that make us cringe.

We might long for a better world, and hope our leaders show the way. But we settle for reality: imperfect governance; imperfect govern-ors.

It might be quite depressing (although it may also be comforting to know!), but we are reminded in our OT reading this morning that this same hope – and this same imperfection – was part of even David’s rule and family. Even the king appointed by God didn’t get it right. Even the king appointed by God wasn’t a better a human than our leaders today. Perhaps he was worse.

We catch our story today with Absalom – David’s 3rd son and current next-in-line to the throne. He has been killed in battle – struck down while hanging by his beautiful hair (how’s that for black humour?) – hanging “between heaven and earth.” And David’s response of agony when the news reaches him: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

The agony is acute. And we recognize that David knows sorrow – as we have known sorrow for many reasons.

But if we take the story of David and Absalom back a few chapters, that agony takes on more layers. We see that Absalom – heir apparent – has for some time been attempting to usurp his father’s throne. Slowly, sneakily, Absalom worked (with a smile on his face) to undermine and destroy his father. He has actually taken over the capital city and David has had to flee.

But why? Many reasons are possible, but the biblical text presents one event as a precipitating factor. It is a familial reason. It stems back to Absalom’s older brother Amnon, the then-crown prince. And it stems back to Tamar, Absalom’s sister, and Amnon’s half sister. The tragedy is that Amnon connives to get Tamar alone because he lusts after her. When he does, he rapes her. Once the deed is done, he despises her and throws her out. She lives out her days in sadness in her brother Absalom’s house. And David? He does nothing to punish Amnon the crown prince.

And in the absence of David’s action, Absalom’s hatred festers. He too connives, and manages to kill Amnon in retalitation. Once his deed is done, he flees to safety. Over the next several years there is a slow rapprochement between David and his son Absalom. But it is slow, and David is a reluctant participant. And through it all, Absalom grows increasingly suspicious of his father: doubts his ability to rule justly. His anger against his father festers and he begins a slow usurpation of the peoples’ affections. He usurps key people in David’s administration and finally engages all-out warfare against his father. It is in the midst of this warfare that Absalom is killed.

And now, David’s lament: “O my son, Absalom, my son, my son!” takes on deeper tones of sorrow. Knowing the back-story, we might now hear it as tinged with regret. And perhaps realization of failed parenting. And a futile wish that somehow the clock could be turned back and all the wrongs righted.

But that can’t happen, can it?

And in David’s agony, he becomes “everyman.” For we all have been (in some way) in the place of David’s sorrow. It might have been (like David’s family) a sorrow in the midst of family dysfunction. Or it might have been a betrayal of a good friend or a spouse. Or a sickness that has come quickly and with devastating effect.

We recognize David’s sorrow because we, too, live in an imperfect world. We, too, have imperfect, flawed relationships. We perhaps have said our own lament at the events of life.

But David is an “everyman” not just because we recognize the personal sorrow of his life and the loss of his son – his enemy. We recognize in David’s situation a failed kingship. Even of this great king – chosen to be God’s representative. His rule, rather than bringing the settled peace and wholeness God envisions for his people, has plunged them into uncertainty, and economic stress, and governance diverted to things other than upholding God’s kingdom.

And we recognize this, too in the systems of our own flawed, imperfect governments.

Of course, we can console ourselves with the reminder that God was not fazed by David’s personal and family dysfunctions – God was able to still work in and through David’s life. Even worked in and through David’s rule.

But it was far less than what the people had hoped for, and far less than God’s vision of his kingdom.

And so, through the years, the people continued to hope. Longed for a king – any king! – to “get it right.” To life wholly before God and thus lead wholly in God’s ways. People still longed for the shalom of God’s kingdom. But it never came.

Until one day, a man – a man who was gaining in fame throughout the land – fed a few thousand people with loaves and fishes and had 12 baskets of food left over. The event occurred just before our gospel reading. When Jesus performed this miracle – filling bellies – the gospel tells us that the people “came by force to make him king.” They thought “here is someone who can give us what we want: food!”

But Jesus withdraws from them. He won’t submit himself to their vision of a material kingdom (as important as food can be, it is not the basis of God’s kingdom). Food can fill the belly, but it alone cannot set God’s kingdom in our midst; food alone cannot change hearts toward God, and good. Let me illustrate:

Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean, a man incarcerated for stealing bread for his starving family. After serving his term, he is paroled, but must for the rest of his life report regularly to the law. He decides to not do this and goes on the lam. One night, cold and hungry, he receives shelter from a poor village priest. The priest feeds him and offers Vanjean a bed. For the first time in a long time, Valjean retires without hunger. But in the dark of night he gets up, steals the priest’s silver, and flees. Quickly apprehended, he is returned to the priest and confronted. But the priest has pity on him and tells the law that he gave the items to Valjean. In this, he offers forgiveness – the love of Christ – to Valjean. And Valjean is changed; forever after he walks righteously, caring for others and doing good. A full belly did not change him. There was something deeper and more essential to his being that was needed. And that need was God and God’s forgiveness.

And to answer the crowd’s quest for bread, Jesus says instead, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). He’s not talking about our bellies here – for he says his bread “comes down from heaven.” It is a bread that one eats and gains “eternal life. . . [so that you ]live forever.” It is bread that. . . is not bread. Jesus says, “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

This is an odd abundance! Bread and drink that fills and satisfies. But not the stuff of flour and water. A bread of this man’s body – his own life! A bread that when eaten – when identified with and received – fills us. Fills all the hollow places. The longing places. The empty, sorrowful places. The places where life – and family – and relationships - and governments make our lives filled with sorrow. These are the places he fills so that we do not hunger. Do not thirst.

And, while Jesus fled from the crowds who wanted to make him king, he wasn’t fleeing because he wasn’t a king. He was. But not a king concerned only with the material stuff of life.

For Jesus is a king. Because he is God, and God has always been Israel’s king. But more – he is “King of the Universe” – sovereign over all creation. And what kind of kingship is God’s kingship? It is the kind that comes in abundance. In overflowing. In caring attention to the needs of his creatures – us. He’s been doing it all through history: from providing clothes for Adam and Eve, to rescuing Israel and providing manna in the wilderness, to die-ing on a cross, - giving his body – bread of life – to set us free from sin and death. To set us in eternal life which is knowing God, and the peace and fullness he brings. It is knowing the King, and living in the Kingdom – beginning here, and stretching to eternity.

King David’s son Absalom was a usurper. In the conflict between father and son, the son ended up hanging between heaven and earth. And all that came of it was sorrow.

But Jesus tells us of God, his father. And this Son is no usurper for Jesus has all the glory that is God’s for he, too, is God. There is no conflict between this Son and his Father. He and the father together planned how to rescue people and set up God’s kingdom in their hearts.

But this Son, too, hung between heaven and earth. And what came of it? What came of his body broken? Fullness of life. Shalom. God’s good and right rule in his peoples’ hearts and lives. Abundance and comfort; peace in the midst of life’s sorrows.

And in our fullness, as we have eaten this bread – this body – we go out into our world. A world that is filled with others who are hungry; others who live in the sorrow of life, and by our words and actions direct others to the One who is the bread of life. Having been welcomed ourselves, we welcome other to the banquet of the bread of life.