David the Gangsta

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 -- Week of Proper 11
(St. James the Apostle)

"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
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Today's Readings for the Daily Office

EITHER
the readings for Wednesday of Proper 11 (p. 976)
Psalms 119:49-72 (morning) 49, [53] (evening)
1 Samuel 25:23-44
Acts 14:19-28
Mark 4:35-41

OR
the readings for St. James Day (p. 998)
Morning Prayer: Psalm 34 // Jeremiah 16:14-21 // Mark 1:14-20
Evening Prayer: Psalm 33 // Jeremiah 26:1-15 // Matthew 10:16-32

I chose to read the lessons for Wednesday of Proper 11

The story of David, Nabal and Abigail is fascinating. Scholars believe the original version comes from what some call the "republican" or "Samuel" source, a tradition of stories from a perspective that favors a tribal confederacy form of governmental organization for Israel rather than a monarchy. Saul and David are not portrayed in an attractive light in that tradition. Most of 1 & 2 Samuel are from the "monarchical" or "Saul" source, a tradition seeing God's hand in the calling of the kings.

In this story David and his men act something like a gang offering protection for businesses in their "hood." When Nabal harvests the wool, which is a time of festival and feasting, David's men come for their payment for not harming, or for "protecting" Nabal's shepherds. When Nabal refuses, accusing David of being a runaway slave from his master Saul, David intends to kill him and every male of his estate. Such bloodshed would have been wrongful violence on David's part.

David is saved from his temper by the only person from Nabal's household who could have safely approached David, a woman. Abigail brings generous gifts and treats David with elaborate courtesy and respect. She convinces him that to shed innocent blood by killing all of Nabal's men would be a blot on David's honor. She also offers herself for future marriage, "When the Lord has dealt well with my lord, the remember your servant."

Nabal drinks and eats excessively at the feast, and in the morning when his wife tells him of his narrow escape, he has something like a stroke. Eventually he dies, and David sends to Abigail with a proposal of marriage. Yes, it sounds like a scene out of "Godfather" or a gang movie.

One of the attractive characteristics of the Hebrew scripture tradition is that they had such respect for their ancient stories and texts that the redactors who collected and composed the Torah sometime during the Persian period (between 540 BCE and 333 BCE) preserved versions of their texts that sometimes conflict with one another in detail, theology or interpretation. Our scripture record is immensely enriched by their willingness not to be slaves to consistency.

So today and yesterday, we have a story about David that is not particularly flattering. Elsewhere we have Samuel warning the people of disobeying God by appointing a king. We also have different voices in scripture reverencing David as the man after God's own heart and regarding the monarchy as God's own chosen anointed, a divine gift.

Our religious ancestors were not uncomfortable with such tensions and alternatives. Religious conversation within Judaism has always embraced the power of dialectic. Such an approach helps preserve the humility of our limited human vision before the mystery of God and God's ways.

It is un-Biblical, non-traditional and dangerous to believe that humans can contain the truth objectively. The original sin in the Garden was the desire to know right from wrong. The fatal flaw of literalism or other religious schemes making claims to certainty is that they try to reduce the divine mystery to something that can be objectified or known. The bible warns of the dangers of idolatry, reducing the mysterious living God to something made by hands, including texts. When God revealed the divine Name to Moses on Mount Sinai, the name YHWH reinforces God's free and mysterious character. "I am" or "I am who I am" or "I will be who I will be" or (there are lots of attempts to translate, and none is completely satisfying).

The Bible is far richer for being a diverse reflection of our experience as a people with our God and not something that has reduced God to one thing or one interpretation. Each generation learns anew who God will be in our day. We are forever in conversation with the knowledge and love of God in the past and in our present.

Lowell
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The Rev. Lowell Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, AR

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