2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27

Proper 7 (12) - Year B

Time after time the mighty have fallen. The mighty of our day will do the same, someday. But we really need a question mark, not an exclamation mark, after the assertion that "the weapons of war perished."

They were removed from the hands of the mighty. But other mighty ones arose to not only pick up the fallen weapons, but to make them more deadly. They, in turn, had their mightier weapons picked up and made even more deadly.

The weapons of war seem not to have perished. Can we say that the commitment to peace has escalated over time? It sometimes seems that we are spinning our wheels here. What will add to the traction of peace? Will our weeping? Will our participation in the spoils of violence? Will our distress over particular losses but not over the system of loss?

Where is the dirge for peace that so honors mercy by raising up the lowly and filling the hungry with good things that the proud will scatter themselves, the powerful will stumble, and the rich give themselves away?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/june2003.html

 

 

G*D created us for incorruption. When corruption goes on it is important to not give it undo weight. For instance, David's words about Saul are a generous recognition of G*D's intention for Saul and all.

It is probably true that we all do the best we can with what we think we have. Folks, even miserable folks, are doing the best they can within the options they see. A part of the progressive perspective is to urge one another to glimpse beyond our current state to see how much more we can be, that we not be limited by thought patterns or circumstance.

What is the best you can say about someone else? [No, this is not intended to be empty praise, ritual language, political cover.] To say the best about someone else also allows the best within ourselves to come out.

[ PS you are welcome to fill in the rest of the week's comments as my dearly beloved's father died yesterday and we will be attending to all that means about celebrating a life and attending to legal details. We will have opportunity to practice saying good things about a good man, sometimes more difficult than it would seem. ]

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/july2006.html

 

 

"Test your genuine love against the earnestness of others."
"If eagerness is there, your gift is acceptable."

Needs around us have hastened to make themselves known. These are givens in our lives. The options regard our response.

Are we as eager to live alongside a need, taking it to our hearts, as such needs are revealed everywhere they travel? Here is a test worthy of our lives. It is a test that is as communal in nature as it is individual. Encouraging one another to do well, even to share our insights with one another, is acceptable morality in this test.

Question: Where do abundance and need meet?
Response: _______________________

If it helps you may want to also make this an open-book test as well as a communal one.

- - -

sensitive to word and touch
we journey toward a great getting-up day
when and where
our eagerness is sufficient
for earnest need

attentive beyond death
we settle in to days no more
no more mourning
riling to despair
no more no more
holding us back

in moments of generosity
we undertake a beginning desire
little by little
through this year
according to what we have
abundance in need

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

 

My sorrow is the greatest sorrow. Had I the power, you would moan and cry out my loss.

I would probably not return the favor and attempt to see through your eyes or walk even a block in your moccasins.

These issues of loss are certainly, to use a quote of the day, opportunities for positive motivation (see reference). By synecdoche, David's grief came to be a national grief – like the Bush/Cheney response to folks attempting to terrorize with airplanes became a universalizing of personal response.

All of us would like to universalize our experience. Often we are able to do so, at least with our coterie. It is this attempt that leads us all into harm's way, preparing the universalizing mighty to fall. In just a moment longer David's lust will have the same universal nature as his sorrow and lead to more death. The danger of privilege-of-feeling moves from arena to arena. Eventually parents fall into the trap over their children and the medically impoverished can go to any extreme.

Truly my sorrow is a significant sorrow. As truly, my sorrow is only one of many. Misused it becomes constrictive for others and myself. Used well it becomes a wounding turned healing.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

 

 

Methinks David doth protest too much. How the mighty have fallen, indeed. It’s as if David hasn’t been at odds with Saul. All this mighty talk simply says is that David has done extraordinarily well to have survived against someone so mighty. Praise of Saul redounds to David’s benefit.

This dirge is neither religious (not about G*D) nor national (not about Israel). It does reflect on how courage does not keep one from their “fate”. Considering that laments usually end with some word of hope or praise, the closing words here are: “The weapons of war perished!” We are still looking for courage-in-action to do away with weapons of war, not just opportunities to protest against them.

In what is a very personal response to the loss of anointed and known leaders carries with it a word of prophecy - living with a sword, like having only a hammer when faced by a screw, turns everything into violence, into a nail. This applies to Saul falling on his sword, harakiri like, wherein violence toward others ends up being self-negation.

There might be a sense of this happening institutionally to the Christian church. After generations of power (ruling politically and militarily, enforced conversions, and the like) there is a question whether it can only be meaningful as top gun, 2,000 years of history may be no more than 3 days in Ziklag - waiting and surprised when Saul finally goes down and Godot shows up with a new identification card in another name, with another face.

- - -

For an interesting read, try the elided section in conjuction with 1 Samuel 31:4. Now try to sort through which story rings true for you today. This may be a more fruitful preaching place to tie in with the Markan passage.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/06/2-samuel-11-17-27.html