In this passage, Absalom, one of David\u2019s sons, has rebelled against his father for the kingship of Israel, but this act of rebellion doesn\u2019t change the fact that David still loves his son and doesn\u2019t want him to be a casualty of the ensuing war. That\u2019s why he says to his commanders, \u201cDeal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.\u201d This instruction, however, is in vain. Chillingly, it\u2019s as if the Cushite (here, Ethiopian) who brings the \u201cgood tidings\u201d of Absalom\u2019s death has no idea either that Absalom is David\u2019s son, or that David had given instructions that Absalom not be harmed. As everyone else celebrates, David grieves the death of his son all by himself, in his \u201cchamber over the gate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This psalm of mourning, (proverbially) written by David himself, asks a central question of the human condition: \u201cIf you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, O Lord, who could stand?\u201d The answer, of course, is nobody. Nobody except God is sinless, and it\u2019s this inescapable reality of human sin that the psalmist is mourning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the psalmist is not without some hope, when he says to God, \u201cFor there is forgiveness with you.\u201d The psalmist knows that with God\u2014and God alone\u2014rests the authority to forgive sins. Since God\u2019s judgment is ultimate and true, our ability to turn to God for forgiveness should elicit some apprehension on our part: \u201cTherefore you shall be feared.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet, notice that the psalmist doesn\u2019t dwell on this fear, but rather on hope that \u201c[God] shall redeem Israel from all their sins.\u201d This is a sneak-peek of God\u2019s plan to definitively redeem all of God\u2019s people. As Christians, we believe this \u201cplenteous redemption\u201d is Jesus Christ, himself the very same God who has the authority to forgive sins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This passage from Ephesians does a pretty great job of showing how the above themes apply to our daily lives. Here, Paul discusses the importance of minimizing harshness and maximizing forgiveness in Christian community. It follows naturally from the above psalm that, if God is the one who forgives sins, our own acts of forgiveness are a participation in and a reflection of God\u2019s forgiveness: \u201cBe kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.\u201d That\u2019s how we become \u201cimitators of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, it\u2019s not enough simply to meditate on God\u2019s forgiveness of our own sins; rather, our active forgiveness of one another is a necessary part of how we make God\u2019s forgiveness known in the world. This also means that, even though Paul is talking about behavior in a specific Christian community (i.e., Ephesus), we must extend forgiveness to everyone, even if they\u2019re not part of the Body of Christ, as far as we can tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Christians in a Eucharistic tradition, we know, believe, and experience the truth of what Jesus is saying in this passage, often on a weekly or even daily basis. In the Eucharist, we have the great benefit of seeing how these words of Jesus are pointing to himself not simply in a figurative (or, for that matter, literal) sense, but in a much more profound sense, transcending categories like \u201cliteral\u201d and \u201cfigurative,\u201d implicating the entire creation story and transforming all of reality: \u201cI am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet, to many in Jesus\u2019 immediate audience \u2013 described here (polemically) as \u201cJews\u201d but which could also be skeptics of any background \u2013 this talk of \u201cliving bread\u201d and \u201ceternal life\u201d makes zero sense. Even now, to many people in the modern world, both those who are secular and those who adhere to other faiths, Jesus\u2019 claims are outlandish are unbelievable, perhaps nowhere more so than this passage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 In this passage, Absalom, one of David\u2019s sons, has rebelled against his father for the kingship of Israel, but this act of rebellion doesn\u2019t change the fact that David still loves his son and doesn\u2019t want him to be a casualty of the ensuing war. That\u2019s why he says to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201221,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,52,33,1953],"tags":[337],"class_list":["post-766925","bible_study","type-bible_study","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-studies","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-14b"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":23,"label":"Bible Studies"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":1953,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":337,"label":"Proper 14B"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bible_study"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952115,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766925\/revisions\/952115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}