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Our old testament reading this morning is from second Samuel chapter 21. Beginning with the first verse. Listen , for God's word to you today. Now there was a famine in the days of David for three

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years, year after year. And David inquired of the Lord. The Lord said. There is a blood guilt on Saul and on his house because he put the Gibian nights to death. So the king

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called the Gibian Nights and spoke to them. Now the Gibian nights were not of the people of Israel , but of the remnant of the Ameri. It's although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them

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Saul had tried to wipe them out in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. David said to the Gibian Nights, what shall I do for you? How shall I make expiation that you may

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bless the heritage of the Lord. The Gideon Knight said to him, It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house . Neither is it for us to put anyone to

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death in Israel? He said. What do you say that I should do for you? They said to the king, the man who consume dust and planned to destroy us, so that we should have

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no place in all the territory of Israel. Let seven of his sons be handed over to us and we will impaled them before the Lord at Gibby in on the mountain of the Lord. The king said

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, I will hand them over. But the king spared Madiba Chef, the son of Saul's son, Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them between David and Jonathan, son of

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Saul. The king took the two sons of response . Daughter of Ia whom she bore to Saul Armani and my feeble chef, and the five suns of Merab, Daughter of Saul, whom she bore to

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aid real son of brazil I the model a fight . He gave them into the hands of the Gibian nights and they impaled them on the mountain before the Lord The seven of them perished. Together. They

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were put to death in the first days of harvest . At the beginning of Barley. Harvest. Then respond, the daughter of Ia took sackcloth and spread it on a rock for herself from the beginning of

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harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens. She did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies by day or the wild animals by night. When David was told what respect Daughter

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uh via the concubine of Saul had done, David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the people of Jabba Gilead , who had stolen them from the public square of

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Beth sham where the Philistines had hung them up on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa. He brought up from, there are the bones of soul and the bones of his son Jonathan and they gathered

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the bones of those who have been impaled. They buried the bones of soul and of his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin and Zilla in the tomb of his father Kish. They did all that the

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king commanded after that God heated supplications for the land . The word of the Lord, the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit one God mother of us all. Okay,

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where is the good news in this story? I'm guessing. And I think it's probably a pretty good guess that none of you has ever heard this text read in worship. I haven't why not preach on

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it? It's a troubling text. It's a difficult text. It's a violent text, a text that focuses on revenge and the loss caused by revenge and it is not included in the revised common election.

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Eri some of you perhaps are hearing this text for the first time, so some background to it is probably in order. 1st and 2nd. Samuel focuses a lot of its attention on the rivalry between two

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houses in ancient Israel, the House of Saul in the House of David. And most of us know at least some of that story, Saul who is anointed as Israel's first king gradually loses God's favor as

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David rises to take his place. Yeah. And David, whose name means beloved is the textbook case of God playing favorites. Saul tries to be virtuous and pious, but experiences God's abandonment while David who

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sends boldly never loses God's favor. There was a lot that is not fair in this story, and it's no wonder that Saul loses his mind in the process. Kingship transitions from Saul to David. And

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as 1st and Samuel record this story, the pages become saturated with blood By the time we've reached the story we heard this morning, the body count is staggering. Nearly every surviving member of Saul's family is

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now dead. The Children of Saul's concubine response and the Children of his daughter Merab, our souls only remaining descendants. But even this meagre remainder constitutes a threat to the house of David. And so David

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, God's beloved. Maybe a bit too squeamish to have more blood on his hands, hands the remaining family members over to the Gibian knights who commit a ghastly murder. The setup is gruesome. The killing

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is meant to demean the last members of Saul's family . They are denied a proper burial left in the end as food for wild beasts. It sounds like a completely different world from ours, where violence is

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used to demean where ritual killings are used as propaganda to intimidate enemies or is it a completely different world ? Isn't it upon closer look, a world so very much like ours. In the last few weeks

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we have witnessed the ritual beheadings of american journalists on the World Wide Web. Over the summer, we have witnessed kidnappings and murder in the lands where jesus walked, where rockets got lobbed into jewish towns and

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missiles got fired back at Palestinian apartment complexes. The past year has also witnessed countless terrorist attacks and scores of drone attacks whose mission it is to root out the terrorists once and for all. Mhm. Acts

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of violence meant to send a message many with the intent of wiping the last person of this group or the last person of that group from the face of the earth. So as David hands over Saul's descendants

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to the Gibian Nights, he attempts to squash out the last remainders of souls family. And I would argue that these wishes for extinction have continued unabated for thousands of years. Perhaps the most dangerous words that

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we human beings can utter are these. If only we could get rid of them. We keep saying them though, don't we? And this story from scripture is not all that remote from our story,

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is it? Well for David personal and family honor gets mixed with theology. In the very first verse , we hear God's voice. There is blood guilt on Saul and on his house because he put the

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Gibian nights to death now. Mhm. Mhm. Even though the authors put these words in God's mouth , the bible does not record any crime that Saul commits against the Gibian nights. Really check it nowhere

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in scripture. Now. Nearly every grudge that one people has against another is grounded in some historical event . But this story this morning doesn't even seem to have that yet. It does have a theological justification

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. And that my friends is where the story gets perilous mixed personal honor or a historical grudge with a God is on my side and told me to do it kind of mindset. And you have a recipe

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for violent extremism. Yeah. Where is the good news in this story this morning? Thank you Amid all this violence. Is there not one gesture of hope? The good news here in this story is

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not found in God's words. It's not found in David's actions, but in the simple acts of care and respect paid by one of the last members of Saul's house response. Saul's form, your former concubine

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, who is the real hero of this particular story . Throughout the semester, we're going to hear sermons of various bible heroes. In one of the most violent stories of scripture comes a hero that many of

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us have never heard of before. What does respond do okay, She protects the bodies of her Children from further degradation. She refuses to let the violence of merciless foes have the last word. She shows

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respect for the dead. She mourns her beloved. Her actions are basic gestures of care of humanity, of hope in morning, but they are also a powerful witness against the blood and power struggles of kings

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, governments and armies. And they protest the theologies that bolster our own tendencies toward violence and revenge. You see, I would argue in this passage. Both David and the Gibian Nights operates out of a

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theology of death. Saul committed some crime against us . Therefore, the House of Saul needs to be punished even decimated tit for tat. You did this because you are guilty. You deserve that. And

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not only you, but your Children and your Children's Children. Yeah. Rizespor protests that kind of view of history in that kind of theology. She cares for the dead. Because men with power do not

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care enough for the living. Sounds a lot like our time, doesn't it? When those in power resort to further death dealing to avenge the living, Only the actions of Riz ba can stop the endless

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cycle of violence, caring for the victims of political vendettas. She cries out on behalf of those who are still alive. Response is the hero of this story, not David, God's beloved, not any

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one of the other characters who enacts revenge or holds a righteous grudge Brisbane is the hero. What grudge are you holding today against? What person do you harbor ill will because of something committed long ago?

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Or maybe yesterday is respond to and her story in her witness saying anything to you today. Yeah. Some would claim that response actions of mourning and compassion are passive but they are not. She is not

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someone who submits to whatever occurs. And even though she does not speak in this story, her actions accomplish a radical change, a change that gets directly to the seat of power King David. After seeing

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what response has done, David takes the bones of Saul and Jonathan and the bones of response Children to be buried in their ancestral homeland with the tribe of Benjamin. Now this may not sound like much,

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but it is how we treat the dead matters. It reveals our character when Saul and Jonathan die in battle. Earlier in first Samuel, the Philistines take paul's, take Saul's body and parade it like a

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trophy Here. The dead are presented to Humiliate 1's enemies. But after the Philistines are done with this rather macabre ritual, almost no one in Israel has the guts to bury Saul and Jonathan properly and as

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a result they are denied a grave in the family plots when David hears of Riz ba and what she has done. However, when he comes face to face with the devastation and loss that he has caused

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in Saul's house, his mind changes then and only then in these bitter and final years of David's reign do the bones of Jonathan and Saul come home for their final rest. It's a tardy homecoming but it's

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a homecoming nonetheless resolve. His actions have done nothing less than changed the mind of a king. And yet I would argue there is something even more to this story Now. I know many of you are

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just uh sitting for the first time, an introduction to old testament. And I promise you this semester , you're going to learn that the wide span of historical books from Deuteronomy to second Kings were written,

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compiled and edited by a school of authors that scholars refer to as the dude agronomist. This sound familiar yet maybe not The core of the Judah Ron Imus View of History has found in Chapter 11 of the

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book of Deuteronomy. Here it is see I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today and the

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curse. If you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way I am commanding you today to follow other gods that you have not known. These are words that moses

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relays to Israel as they are about to enter the promised land. And much of Israel's history makes sense . In light of this theology, the blessings that it experiences are related to faithfulness and the tragedies that

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Israel experiences are related to disobedience. But I think that resembles actions stand this theology in question. She does not acquiesce to the catastrophe in her own family as the result of her faithlessness or as the result

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of divine punishment. The tragedy that she experiences was not merited or earned. God did not will her suffering. Her suffering was the result of power hungry and violent men response, I think, recognizes that

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a simplistic cause and effect theology can quickly become perilous . And yet we hear traces of this dangerous theology even today. In 2010, for example, Pat Robertson claimed that the catastrophic ation earthquake was the result

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of a pact with the devil sealed long ago by the nation of Haiti's founders. I have heard. And you probably have heard this as well. Well , meaning christians say that a person's illness has not

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been healed yet because that person has not yet prayed hard enough. Well, the Judah rana mists theology at times like this can get carried too far. If we interpret everything that happens as the direct reflection

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of divine will, what kind of God will we end up with? In the end, I think we wind up with the God who is not particularly loving or lovable and who is certainly not a champion

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of the downtrodden friends. Everything that happens is not the result of an unchanging divine will. Much of what happens as in this story today is the result of violent people bent upon death and destruction and reserves

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basic acts of compassion and morning are also a gesture of protest against any theology that blames the victims of history for their own plight. Riz ba has changed the king's mind about how to handle the burial of

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his rival to the throne. But the text also mentioned something else at the very end. Only after this burial does God hear the supplications for the land ? After the burial, God heeds, Israel's crime

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. It is as if God's ears are being opened a new, perhaps risked. His behavior has changed God's mind as well, because the story does not end where it begins. It begins with theological justification

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for blood guilt and violence, but ends with prayers for Israel's release from that cycle. And it ends with the God who listens and loves Israel as God's very own the same. God even hears our cries

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today in jesus, christ, thanks be to God