Parents and Children
Commentary
In one of the “Peanuts” cartoons, Charlie Brown sits in his father’s barber shop and describes his relationship with his dad: “My dad likes me to come down to the barber shop and wait for him. No matter how busy he is, even if the shop is full of customers, he always stops and says ‘hi’ to me. I sit here on the bench until six o’clock, when he’s through, and then we ride home together.”
He thinks for a minute, and then he goes on: “Boy! It really doesn’t take much to make my dad happy!”
It’s nice to know a parent that well. But for many of us, parents are a lot more mysterious. Some years ago, researchers at Cornell University studied family behavior across North America. They came to the conclusion that the average father spends only 37.7 seconds with each child each day. Can you believe it?
Sometimes, it seems, all we know about our parents comes from observing them from a distance. The late playwright Channing Pollack knew that. He used to tell a devastating little story about something that happened when he was a young boy. His parents took him along to a party one night at a magnificent house on a large estate. There was a little girl there about his age, and they played together till they ran out of ideas.
Then young Channing said to her, “Let’s hide behind this curtain, and maybe no one will know we’re here!”
Her answer shocked him. He never forgot it. She said, “Maybe no one will care.”
Can you imagine it? A young child says about her own parents: “Maybe no one will care.” How horrible to grow in a world like that!
Parents and children are at the center of all our lectionary readings for today. David’s son Absalom rebels against his father, steals the kingdom, and then is defeated and killed, bringing David to loud laments. Paul writes about Christians being children who imitate their heavenly father. And Jesus carries on a soul-searching dialogue with those who have tasted his miraculous multiplication of food, only to be accused of being children of the devil!
This is a day for the family of God to wrestle well with what it means to exhibit family traits!
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
No two figures stand higher or stronger in Israel’s conscious national history than Moses and David. While David had to scrabble his way up from being the runt child in his family to the minor friend on the margins of the royal family to the outlaw gang leader consorting with the enemy Philistines to the unwanted and unwelcome ruler of all Israel, his subsequent reign was largely successful and widely praised. His demise, however, was steeped in suspicion that began tied to a fascinating story which seems to be constantly repeated in political annals: an extramarital affair. Why would David do such a thing? Not just the romantic encounter itself, but the deliberately planned murder (engaging others of his trusted subordinates as willing or unwilling accomplices), the massive deceptions, the elaborate cover-ups, and even the personal delusions that kept him from seeing his own guilt.
Part of the answer has to be found in the very first verse of 2 Samuel 11 -- “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army… But David stayed in Jerusalem.” This hints at several things. First, the time of the year lent itself to surging hormones and amorous thoughts. After the months of terrestrial hibernation, the world around David was beginning to bloom, the days were getting warmer (Jerusalem sometimes gets snow in winter), both animals and plants were exercising their mating rituals, and along with them the human crowd in the palace and the capital city were showing signs of “frisky” behavior. There is good reason to celebrate Valentine’s Day in the spring, and David himself was a muscular male whose own body welcomed the virus of libido.
Second, David’s life was a runaway success. His early contestants to the throne of Israel had all been killed, defeated, or swept aside. David was at the top of the corporate ladder, with no immediate challengers in sight. His kingdom was consolidated, his enemies vanquished, his market share a supreme monopoly, his income substantial and rising, his palatial mansion finished, and his goals achieved. David was at the place in his career where “can’t” and “defeat” were no longer part of the vocabulary. What he wanted, he got. What he desired, he took. What he planned happened. No questions asked. Winning a new territory or another heart were essentially the same: get the idea and make it so.
Third, David had begun to isolate himself from the masses. He had the disease of wealthy insulation, where immediate consequences of actions cannot and need not be felt. The armies went off to war, but David stayed in Jerusalem. The workers buzzed about in their daily rituals, but he sat on the roof of his palace and surveyed the scene. Regular folks had to labor for a wage, but there was no schedule David had to keep. He could sleep or sneak or sulk or skulk or sidle or stroll at will. Adultery was at one time mainly the prerogative of the rich simply because only they had the time and means. Mass transportation, suburban domestic isolation and a culture of leisure dispensed it liberally to all classes of society. But David lived in one of those eras when “fooling around” was a natural correlation to being rich and powerful.
These things come through in Nathan’s ingenious invective against his friend and lord. Telling a story of the difference in lifestyle between the uncaring and presumptive rich man and the tenderhearted poor fellow aggravated David, as it should have. But his self-deception was so great that he did not see himself in the mirror until Nathan bashed it against his psyche.
The outcome of David’s devious treachery would be family squabbles and the disruption of the monarchy for the rest of David’s life. David and Bathsheba’s first child would die, followed by the tragic demise of several other children. David himself would limp from the throne in his old age, barely keeping the restive kingdom alive.
Most gut-wrenching among these familial conspiracies and tragedies is found in today’s lectionary reading. Absalom, David’s favored son, usurps the throne, and then is mercilessly killed.
The road to this dark chapter began in great hope and expectations. When firmly established as the king over all of Israel, David wanted to confirm Yahweh’s ultimate rule by building a Temple at the top of Jerusalem. But David was not permitted by Yahweh to build the Temple as a permanent structure to replace the portable Tabernacle of Israel’s wilderness wanderings because he was a “man of war.” His son, according to the prophecy related to him by Nathan, would be a “man of peace,” and this successor would be given the mandate to oversee the construction.
David probably pegged his hopes on Absalom, the son he loved very much. After all, the lad’s given name meant “Father of Peace.” Unfortunately, Absalom tried to rip the kingdom away from David by political maneuvering and military conquest, and actually became more bellicose than his father. His rise to power was surreptitious, strategic, and scandalous. Yet David provided little resistance, and almost abdicated, in strong measure because he had pinned his hopes on Absalom living out the divine promise of a peaceful, Temple-building son.
Absalom, however, did not hold the same religious commitments or depth as his father. In the end, David’s loyal entourage ensured Absalom’s failures and ignoble death. David, though deeply grieved, would eventually see God’s larger plan, and find old-aged comfort in another son born from the passions of his illicit relationship with Bathsheba. Solomon, whose name simply meant “Peace,” was a child-king guided by David’s advisers to establish both domestic tranquility and national pride centering around the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem.
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Appearances can be deceiving. John Wayne acted the part of a full- fledged cowboy in dozens of motion pictures. His last show, “The Shootist,” was a movie about an aging western gunslinger. But here’s what Wayne had to say about his skills with a firearm: “I couldn’t hit a wall with a six-gun, but I can twirl one. It looks good!”
Appearances can be deceiving. Still, we often trust what we see more than what we read or hear. That’s why television is so captivating. “Seeing is believing,” we say.
Sometimes appearances can change the way we think about things. Consider, for example, the report of Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a former New York cosmetic surgeon, who tells of a magazine contest to find the ugliest young woman in the United States. Cruel as such a contest may seem, the magazine editors actually hoped to change the life of this unfortunate person for the better.
Photos poured in from all over North America. The editors selected a young woman with poor features, terrible grooming, and appalling clothes as the “Ugliest Girl in America.”
For her prize, she won a plane ticket to New York City. There a team of specialists went to work on her. Dr. Maltz reshaped her nose and built up her chin. Others gave her a new hairstyle, an elaborate wardrobe of the latest fashions, and grooming instructions. In a modern Cinderella story, the “ugliest” became quite beautiful, almost overnight. Within a few months she was married.
In fact, says Dr. Maltz, her whole attitude toward life changed. Before the cosmetic transformation she had been shy and inhibited. She felt foolish and ignorant and out of place in almost any company. But once she had tasted what she could become, her personality also exploded with new possibilities. She became confident and poised, articulate and in- formed. She attracted people to herself in any crowd.
Appearances can be deceiving. But who among us would be able to say which appearance was the deceptive one -- the young woman whose photos won the “Ugliest Girl” contest, or the young woman who waltzed in beauty?
Faith is a matter of the unseen, as Paul often notes. We don’t need to see in order to believe. In fact, placing too much emphasis on seeing signs, as some cults have done, can lead people down ungodly paths.
But Paul declares here that faith also has to be a matter of appearances which somehow reveal a little of heaven on this side of the spiritual divide. That is why the behaviors of God’s people are the visible witness of God’s caring involvement with women and men in the day to day routines of life. Jesus, of course, is the greatest witness of what heaven holds. Didn’t Jesus say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”? In Jesus’ family photo album are the pictures we need in order to know and to trust and to feel and to gain strength once again.
But eventually, as we’re paging through that family album, we’ll also come to some snapshots of ourselves. There again, appearances can be deceiving. We may believe our picture deserves to win an “Ugliest Person” contest. Yet after divine surgery, there’s sure to be a marriage made in heaven!
John 6:35, 41-51
Food is a very big part of our lives. Hunger can be a time clock ticking inside, regulating the hours of our days with calculated passion. Or it can be a biologic need, demanding fuel stops on our restless race. Even more, hunger functions as a psychological drive, forcing us to crave chocolate when we lack love, or driving us to drink, drugs and sex.
But deeper than all of these things is our search for meaning beyond the drudgery and repetition of our daily activities. It is the spiritual need each person has to know that she is not alone in this gigantic and sometimes unkind maze of life.
Hunger is what the writer of Ecclesiastes means when he said that God has “set eternity in the hearts of men” (3:11). Hunger is the pilgrimage of the soul. In other words, the old adage is true: “You are what you eat.”
So life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak. And still we want more.
Then Jesus comes to us from heaven. In part, his existence among us is a message of judgment against us: since you are what you eat, take a look at what it is that you are consuming. If you eat garbage you become garbage. If you feast on pornography, you become filthy. If you think that wealth can satisfy the cravings of your soul, you will become a calculator and a penny-pincher. If the adoration of the community feeds the hunger of your psyche, you refashion yourself into a code of law and ethics, toeing the line without compassion. If another high is what it takes to get you through the stomach cramps of another day, you will shoot up or smoke up or pop some more or tease yourself with illicit sex, and end up becoming a bag of used chemicals and a bottle of cheap thrills.
You are hungry and you are what you eat. The cravings of your soul will not be stilled. A meal will reset the alarm of your biological clock. Food will keep your hungry body going. Potato chips and a soda will stop the munchies for a while. But what are you eating for your soul?
John remembers the beauty and simplicity of what Jesus told people one day: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Through the symbolic nourishment of spiritual depth and richness something satisfying begins to grow inside. Tasting the things that make heaven shine and earth blossom we begin to find the values and goals and visions and dreams of God giving shape to our lives.
Augustine knew this as he reflected on the spiritual character of our race. “Man is one of your creatures, Lord,” he said, “and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.”
What are you eating today? Tomorrow and next week those who are close to you will know whether there was any eternal nourishment in your diet.
Application
Ian Maclaren tells the story of a young woman in his book Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. She was raised in a Christian home but left it behind in search of a better life, a freer self. She finds the kind of life she thinks is free, and she gets for herself all that she’s ever desired.
But it’s never enough, and what she possesses begins to possess her. Finally, she doesn’t even know what it means to be free.
One day she decides to go home. When she gets near the cottage of her birth, she wants to turn around. Her footsteps falter. She begins to turn her body. But then the dogs in the yard catch scent of her. They haven’t forgotten her, even though it’s been so long.
Then the light comes on at the door. The door opens. All she can see is her father, bathed in the light. He calls out her name even though he can’t see her face. He calls out her name, even though he doesn’t have a reason to expect her. He calls out her name, and suddenly her feet come running to him.
Then he takes her into his arms. He sobs out blessings on her head.
Later, when she tells her neighbor of that night, she says, “It’s a pity, Margaret, that you don’t know Gaelic. That’s the best of all languages for loving. There are fifty words for ‘darling,’ and my father called me every one of them that night I came home.”
Maybe, when we renew our relationship with our father in heaven, that’s a good picture to have in mind.
He thinks for a minute, and then he goes on: “Boy! It really doesn’t take much to make my dad happy!”
It’s nice to know a parent that well. But for many of us, parents are a lot more mysterious. Some years ago, researchers at Cornell University studied family behavior across North America. They came to the conclusion that the average father spends only 37.7 seconds with each child each day. Can you believe it?
Sometimes, it seems, all we know about our parents comes from observing them from a distance. The late playwright Channing Pollack knew that. He used to tell a devastating little story about something that happened when he was a young boy. His parents took him along to a party one night at a magnificent house on a large estate. There was a little girl there about his age, and they played together till they ran out of ideas.
Then young Channing said to her, “Let’s hide behind this curtain, and maybe no one will know we’re here!”
Her answer shocked him. He never forgot it. She said, “Maybe no one will care.”
Can you imagine it? A young child says about her own parents: “Maybe no one will care.” How horrible to grow in a world like that!
Parents and children are at the center of all our lectionary readings for today. David’s son Absalom rebels against his father, steals the kingdom, and then is defeated and killed, bringing David to loud laments. Paul writes about Christians being children who imitate their heavenly father. And Jesus carries on a soul-searching dialogue with those who have tasted his miraculous multiplication of food, only to be accused of being children of the devil!
This is a day for the family of God to wrestle well with what it means to exhibit family traits!
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
No two figures stand higher or stronger in Israel’s conscious national history than Moses and David. While David had to scrabble his way up from being the runt child in his family to the minor friend on the margins of the royal family to the outlaw gang leader consorting with the enemy Philistines to the unwanted and unwelcome ruler of all Israel, his subsequent reign was largely successful and widely praised. His demise, however, was steeped in suspicion that began tied to a fascinating story which seems to be constantly repeated in political annals: an extramarital affair. Why would David do such a thing? Not just the romantic encounter itself, but the deliberately planned murder (engaging others of his trusted subordinates as willing or unwilling accomplices), the massive deceptions, the elaborate cover-ups, and even the personal delusions that kept him from seeing his own guilt.
Part of the answer has to be found in the very first verse of 2 Samuel 11 -- “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army… But David stayed in Jerusalem.” This hints at several things. First, the time of the year lent itself to surging hormones and amorous thoughts. After the months of terrestrial hibernation, the world around David was beginning to bloom, the days were getting warmer (Jerusalem sometimes gets snow in winter), both animals and plants were exercising their mating rituals, and along with them the human crowd in the palace and the capital city were showing signs of “frisky” behavior. There is good reason to celebrate Valentine’s Day in the spring, and David himself was a muscular male whose own body welcomed the virus of libido.
Second, David’s life was a runaway success. His early contestants to the throne of Israel had all been killed, defeated, or swept aside. David was at the top of the corporate ladder, with no immediate challengers in sight. His kingdom was consolidated, his enemies vanquished, his market share a supreme monopoly, his income substantial and rising, his palatial mansion finished, and his goals achieved. David was at the place in his career where “can’t” and “defeat” were no longer part of the vocabulary. What he wanted, he got. What he desired, he took. What he planned happened. No questions asked. Winning a new territory or another heart were essentially the same: get the idea and make it so.
Third, David had begun to isolate himself from the masses. He had the disease of wealthy insulation, where immediate consequences of actions cannot and need not be felt. The armies went off to war, but David stayed in Jerusalem. The workers buzzed about in their daily rituals, but he sat on the roof of his palace and surveyed the scene. Regular folks had to labor for a wage, but there was no schedule David had to keep. He could sleep or sneak or sulk or skulk or sidle or stroll at will. Adultery was at one time mainly the prerogative of the rich simply because only they had the time and means. Mass transportation, suburban domestic isolation and a culture of leisure dispensed it liberally to all classes of society. But David lived in one of those eras when “fooling around” was a natural correlation to being rich and powerful.
These things come through in Nathan’s ingenious invective against his friend and lord. Telling a story of the difference in lifestyle between the uncaring and presumptive rich man and the tenderhearted poor fellow aggravated David, as it should have. But his self-deception was so great that he did not see himself in the mirror until Nathan bashed it against his psyche.
The outcome of David’s devious treachery would be family squabbles and the disruption of the monarchy for the rest of David’s life. David and Bathsheba’s first child would die, followed by the tragic demise of several other children. David himself would limp from the throne in his old age, barely keeping the restive kingdom alive.
Most gut-wrenching among these familial conspiracies and tragedies is found in today’s lectionary reading. Absalom, David’s favored son, usurps the throne, and then is mercilessly killed.
The road to this dark chapter began in great hope and expectations. When firmly established as the king over all of Israel, David wanted to confirm Yahweh’s ultimate rule by building a Temple at the top of Jerusalem. But David was not permitted by Yahweh to build the Temple as a permanent structure to replace the portable Tabernacle of Israel’s wilderness wanderings because he was a “man of war.” His son, according to the prophecy related to him by Nathan, would be a “man of peace,” and this successor would be given the mandate to oversee the construction.
David probably pegged his hopes on Absalom, the son he loved very much. After all, the lad’s given name meant “Father of Peace.” Unfortunately, Absalom tried to rip the kingdom away from David by political maneuvering and military conquest, and actually became more bellicose than his father. His rise to power was surreptitious, strategic, and scandalous. Yet David provided little resistance, and almost abdicated, in strong measure because he had pinned his hopes on Absalom living out the divine promise of a peaceful, Temple-building son.
Absalom, however, did not hold the same religious commitments or depth as his father. In the end, David’s loyal entourage ensured Absalom’s failures and ignoble death. David, though deeply grieved, would eventually see God’s larger plan, and find old-aged comfort in another son born from the passions of his illicit relationship with Bathsheba. Solomon, whose name simply meant “Peace,” was a child-king guided by David’s advisers to establish both domestic tranquility and national pride centering around the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem.
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Appearances can be deceiving. John Wayne acted the part of a full- fledged cowboy in dozens of motion pictures. His last show, “The Shootist,” was a movie about an aging western gunslinger. But here’s what Wayne had to say about his skills with a firearm: “I couldn’t hit a wall with a six-gun, but I can twirl one. It looks good!”
Appearances can be deceiving. Still, we often trust what we see more than what we read or hear. That’s why television is so captivating. “Seeing is believing,” we say.
Sometimes appearances can change the way we think about things. Consider, for example, the report of Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a former New York cosmetic surgeon, who tells of a magazine contest to find the ugliest young woman in the United States. Cruel as such a contest may seem, the magazine editors actually hoped to change the life of this unfortunate person for the better.
Photos poured in from all over North America. The editors selected a young woman with poor features, terrible grooming, and appalling clothes as the “Ugliest Girl in America.”
For her prize, she won a plane ticket to New York City. There a team of specialists went to work on her. Dr. Maltz reshaped her nose and built up her chin. Others gave her a new hairstyle, an elaborate wardrobe of the latest fashions, and grooming instructions. In a modern Cinderella story, the “ugliest” became quite beautiful, almost overnight. Within a few months she was married.
In fact, says Dr. Maltz, her whole attitude toward life changed. Before the cosmetic transformation she had been shy and inhibited. She felt foolish and ignorant and out of place in almost any company. But once she had tasted what she could become, her personality also exploded with new possibilities. She became confident and poised, articulate and in- formed. She attracted people to herself in any crowd.
Appearances can be deceiving. But who among us would be able to say which appearance was the deceptive one -- the young woman whose photos won the “Ugliest Girl” contest, or the young woman who waltzed in beauty?
Faith is a matter of the unseen, as Paul often notes. We don’t need to see in order to believe. In fact, placing too much emphasis on seeing signs, as some cults have done, can lead people down ungodly paths.
But Paul declares here that faith also has to be a matter of appearances which somehow reveal a little of heaven on this side of the spiritual divide. That is why the behaviors of God’s people are the visible witness of God’s caring involvement with women and men in the day to day routines of life. Jesus, of course, is the greatest witness of what heaven holds. Didn’t Jesus say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”? In Jesus’ family photo album are the pictures we need in order to know and to trust and to feel and to gain strength once again.
But eventually, as we’re paging through that family album, we’ll also come to some snapshots of ourselves. There again, appearances can be deceiving. We may believe our picture deserves to win an “Ugliest Person” contest. Yet after divine surgery, there’s sure to be a marriage made in heaven!
John 6:35, 41-51
Food is a very big part of our lives. Hunger can be a time clock ticking inside, regulating the hours of our days with calculated passion. Or it can be a biologic need, demanding fuel stops on our restless race. Even more, hunger functions as a psychological drive, forcing us to crave chocolate when we lack love, or driving us to drink, drugs and sex.
But deeper than all of these things is our search for meaning beyond the drudgery and repetition of our daily activities. It is the spiritual need each person has to know that she is not alone in this gigantic and sometimes unkind maze of life.
Hunger is what the writer of Ecclesiastes means when he said that God has “set eternity in the hearts of men” (3:11). Hunger is the pilgrimage of the soul. In other words, the old adage is true: “You are what you eat.”
So life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak. And still we want more.
Then Jesus comes to us from heaven. In part, his existence among us is a message of judgment against us: since you are what you eat, take a look at what it is that you are consuming. If you eat garbage you become garbage. If you feast on pornography, you become filthy. If you think that wealth can satisfy the cravings of your soul, you will become a calculator and a penny-pincher. If the adoration of the community feeds the hunger of your psyche, you refashion yourself into a code of law and ethics, toeing the line without compassion. If another high is what it takes to get you through the stomach cramps of another day, you will shoot up or smoke up or pop some more or tease yourself with illicit sex, and end up becoming a bag of used chemicals and a bottle of cheap thrills.
You are hungry and you are what you eat. The cravings of your soul will not be stilled. A meal will reset the alarm of your biological clock. Food will keep your hungry body going. Potato chips and a soda will stop the munchies for a while. But what are you eating for your soul?
John remembers the beauty and simplicity of what Jesus told people one day: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Through the symbolic nourishment of spiritual depth and richness something satisfying begins to grow inside. Tasting the things that make heaven shine and earth blossom we begin to find the values and goals and visions and dreams of God giving shape to our lives.
Augustine knew this as he reflected on the spiritual character of our race. “Man is one of your creatures, Lord,” he said, “and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.”
What are you eating today? Tomorrow and next week those who are close to you will know whether there was any eternal nourishment in your diet.
Application
Ian Maclaren tells the story of a young woman in his book Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. She was raised in a Christian home but left it behind in search of a better life, a freer self. She finds the kind of life she thinks is free, and she gets for herself all that she’s ever desired.
But it’s never enough, and what she possesses begins to possess her. Finally, she doesn’t even know what it means to be free.
One day she decides to go home. When she gets near the cottage of her birth, she wants to turn around. Her footsteps falter. She begins to turn her body. But then the dogs in the yard catch scent of her. They haven’t forgotten her, even though it’s been so long.
Then the light comes on at the door. The door opens. All she can see is her father, bathed in the light. He calls out her name even though he can’t see her face. He calls out her name, even though he doesn’t have a reason to expect her. He calls out her name, and suddenly her feet come running to him.
Then he takes her into his arms. He sobs out blessings on her head.
Later, when she tells her neighbor of that night, she says, “It’s a pity, Margaret, that you don’t know Gaelic. That’s the best of all languages for loving. There are fifty words for ‘darling,’ and my father called me every one of them that night I came home.”
Maybe, when we renew our relationship with our father in heaven, that’s a good picture to have in mind.
