Welcome to the final week of our summer message series, “David for King.” Throughout this series we have been looking at the life of King David, one of the most important figures in the Old Testament. From his rise from being a poor shepherd boy from a small town, to being a military hero, to being on the run from the jealous King Saul, to David finally becoming King, throughout it all, David is described as someone after God’s own heart. From his successes, we have learned important lessons about Christian discipleship and leadership.

Last week, however, we discussed that David was not perfect. He made mistakes like the rest of us, and like the rest of us, David was a sinner. Last week we looked at one of David’s worse sins. After being lazy and shirking his responsibilities by not leading his army, David commits adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers. That was bad enough, but when he finds out that Bathsheba is now pregnant, David makes things worse by trying to cover his sin up, eventually leading him to have Bathsheba’s husband killed.

While David eventually admits his sin to God and he is forgiven, the prophet Nathan tells him that there will be two consequences from his sin. First, as we saw last week, the baby which was the result of the adultery would die. Second, that the sword would never leave his household. In other words, there is going to be fighting between David’s children.

This week we are going to look at this second consequence, which you can read about in 2 Samuel, chapters 13-18. A small caveat, this section of the Bible you could give a R-rating to. I am going to do my best to keep things PG-13, but be forewarned.

Back at the time of King David, nearly 3000 years ago, it was common for kings to have more than one wife. This was to ensure that there would be a son, an heir to the throne. I am not saying that God wanted them to have more than one wife, but they did. David had several wives, and with one of them he had his oldest son, Amnon. With another wife David had another son, Absalom and a daughter Tamar. Amnon became obsessed with his half-sister, Tamar, and not in a good way. He lusted after her.

After talking things over with a friend, Amnon launched a plan to get some alone time with Tamar. He faked being sick, and when David asked if there was anything he could do for him, Amnon asked if Tamar could make him something to eat and bring it to him. An innocent request, and when Tamar was asked to do so by her father, she happily complied. When she entered Amnon’s room, he attacked her and raped her. Then the Bible says he hated her more than he was ever attracted to her.

King David found out what Amnon did to Tamar, and you know what he did? Nothing. Unbelievable, right. As King it was his responsibility to enforce the law, but even more importantly, as a father he had a duty to protect his daughter. OK, I can see where he might feel conflicted, because both were his children, but to do nothing? Yet, this seems to have become common for David after his adultery with Bathsheba; he became passive.

Sin can bully us into inactivity, into passivity, it can bully us into not doing something because it reminds us of our past failures, our past mistakes, our past sins. This can be especially true for people in authority.

Absalom is very angry about David’s passivity, and naturally about what Amnon did to his sister. Yet he takes his time plotting his revenge. He allows two years to pass, and then throws a party for all of his brothers and sisters from David’s different wives. He makes sure that Amnon is there and then gets him drunk. Then he kills him in front of all his siblings. He then flees to a city in another country, where he lives for three years.

David wants to reconcile with Absalom, but again he fails to act. He could have sent an envoy to Absalom to tell him that he is forgiven, but he does not. Joab, David’s general and close friend sees how heartbroken David is, and encourages him to reconcile with Absalom. David feels conflicted; while he wants his son back home, as King he is expected to punish a murderer. Joab finally brokers a compromise; Absalom will return to Jerusalem, live in his own house, but he will never be allowed into the presence of King David.

For two years, Absalom lives in Jerusalem without seeing his father. The rift in their relationship has become a chasm because they never address it. Maybe they were following the old saying, “time heals all wounds,” but let me tell you, that is not true. The chasm fuels Absalom’s anger at his father.

Finally Absalom sends a letter to Joab basically saying, “hey, I want to see my father.” Joab ignores it. So he sends another letter to Joab, who ignores that one as well. Now Absalom “acts out” as the school counselors would say. He had a farm next to Joab’s farm, so he sets Joab’s field on fire. When Joab confronts him about it, Absalom says that he wants to see David.

So Joab brokers the reunion. As Scripture puts it, "Then Joab went to the king and told him and he summoned Absalom. So he came to the king and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king and the king kissed Absalom."

Yay! A happy ending, right. Wrong. Absalom resolves to do everything in his power to usurp the throne from his father. I am not going to go into details about how he does this, but basically he undermines his father and starts to gather his own forces. 

Eventually war breaks out between Absalom's forces and David’s forces. David’s army wins, and despite having issued orders that Absalom was not to be harmed, Absalom is killed – ironically by Joab, who had worked so hard to reconcile father and son.

What is the lesson to learn from all of this? It is quite simple; don’t ignore the rifts in relationships, because if you do they will become chasms. I am sure that each one of us can think of one person in our life where there is now a rift in the relationship. Because of hard feelings, we might be following the “time heals all wounds” strategy, but as I mentioned, that really does not work. It can be hard because we might need to admit our mistakes in the relationship. It might be hard because we are still hurting from the mistakes the other person made in the relationship. Most likely, it is probably both. But unless we want a want a chasm to develop, we need to try to mend that rift, and that might begin with simply saying, “I am sorry for my part. I want to fix this.” Unrepaired rifts become chasms in relationships. But healthy relationships are made up of people who are willing to lean into the relationship and repair the rifts.

Let me pray for us. Father, we give you thanks for the life of David. We thank you for his many good examples and we thank you also for what we learn from his failures. God, I pray for us, please let us not be like David, let us not get to the end of our lives or the end of someone we love lives and live with regret that we didn't work to repair the relationship. Lord, we know that relationships are messy and we're not sure what to say or what to do, and God, we just call upon your grace. We ask for your help. We ask that you would come into the mess and begin to heal the wounds and the hurts in our heart and the heart of the people we love. We thank you, God, for relationships that you're going to heal, the wounds you're going to heal, the good things you will do God as we cooperate with your grace and your power. And we make this prayer through Christ our Lord, amen.