When Necks Break
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle B
Object:
What is the point of war? Even wars of old? The horrible story of Absalom's neck breaking as he rides his horse as part of an ancient army is very hard to take -- and still many of us teach it in Sunday school! One picture that I remember from my own heavily Sunday-schooled youth is of Absalom, beautiful, long, black hair, riding along on a white horse, with a branch straight at his throat. Chapter 18 of the second book of Samuel tells quite a story of violence and death. We get nothing but a slight favoritistic demur from David: Please protect Absalom if you can. Please take care of my son -- as he sends three units out to war. The three units also have great casualties -- but Absalom is gone. "Oh, Absalom, Absalom, Absalom...." But David's cry might have been for every woman's son, every man's daughter sacrificed to war.
How are we to resolve human conflicts if we do not go to war? How are we to be people who understand the casualties of war, with David's agony in tow? Can we do something about conflict before our sons have their heads chopped off? I think we can.
Conflict is omnipresent, at family dinner tables, family reunions, the United Nations, and in most countries. No activist or virtuous person will be far from conflict for long. In our urge to make a difference in the world, we will run smack dab into human pessimism, cynicism, and grief over failed attempts at goodness. The majority of people will not want a good person to succeed at anything. They won't know why; they will simply know how important it is for them to sneer at decent objectives.
Conflict is normal, inevitable, ordinary, and expected. The cultural messages are omnipresent: You can choose your pleasure or the world's service, your time or time dedicated to others. "You have to take care of number one." "Life is relationships and taking care of others." There are different versions of these two diametrically opposed cultural instructions (presumably) and many people just fall off the high wire, drop to the ground, and sit there in a muddle. Those who want to walk the wire and not fall will have to realize early and often that conflict will be present in every single setting. For breakfast should they go to the park and sit alone with a high-priced coffee? Or should they sit with the child or husband who has become dull or demanding? Or should they attend a breakfast meeting, the real bane of existence for most activists and high-flying professionals? Why would anyone attend a breakfast meeting, knowing that the quiet moment in the park is the alternative? Conflicts like how to have breakfast are normal. They will join conflicts about gym or more email, a walk after dinner or returning a few phone calls, lunch at the river or reading a professional article at our desk, styrofoam take-out not far away. We live our lives in ordinary conflict -- ordinary conflicts, unresolved, lead to the horror of war.
Those who want to avoid the fate of Absalom will befriend conflict. We will make it our own. We will become experts at it. We will enjoy it. We will predict it, anticipate it, tame it, laugh at it, and revel in it. Of course, we will say, there are always two plus choices for every moment. I am a choice maker. I make choices. I am aware of the scripted life of the double bind and I unbind myself from it. I choose X sometimes and Y other times and I suffer the loss of the one I don't choose. I am not afraid to suffer. I sometimes choose X and Y at the same time. But I only choose a small pile of X twigs and a small pile of Y twigs. I go slowly. I am rarely the captive of what I don't have and more the captive of what I do have.
I sometimes call this conflict-loving, choice-making capacity that of the tough dove. There is nothing soft about making choices all the time. There is actually something very hard about it. We turn down people who want us. We say real "Nos." We get negative feedback. The people to whom we say no will not like it. The people to whom we say yes will rarely reward us, either. Tough doves live beyond both praise and criticism in an inner world they have created for themselves. They are highly strategic, highly directed, and highly focused at any given moment. Tough doves make tough choices. Do the tough choices that tough doves make avoid war over time? Are they any help to American Absalom or Iraqi or Korean Absaloms? I think yes. They are of help in that they practice the peacemaking muscles. Once we have confidence in our capacity with small conflicts, we are able to consider more. We are able to imagine a world of peace.
Simultaneously, tough doves get buried under and snowed over. Tough doves often fail. They also lose their way in the snow and fog of human interaction. They can feel like they are constantly digging out from a snowstorm. The desk that looked clear on Monday can be buried by Wednesday. I often feel that my life is a constant climbing out of a desk stress hole. The people to whom I should write, the people whom I should thank, join the people at whom I should yell, and the ever-present letters I should, as a Democratic citizen, be sending to my representatives -- all combine to turn me into something as small and inconsequential as a dove. We go from tough to dove and back in minutes. We fail at making peace as well as succeed at making peace.
This personal embrace of the inevitability of (actually non-paradoxical) conflict leads to social behaviors that are different from the norm. We are not allergic to conflicts in meetings or families or social interactions. We know that conflict arrives to make something happen. We know that when conflict comes something is about to be birthed. Tensions are being resolved, opposites are attracting, and energy is being created. The points on the battery are inserted in life correctly and we have energy. There is no energy when positive and negative are placed incorrectly in the flashlight. Get the nodes right and stuff happens. We may have to train our stomachs and our vocabularies to be the tough dove that we are in meetings and fights. Training is good. It begins, for me, in humming an old hymn, "Drop thy still dews of quietness, 'til all our conflicts cease...." I call it my Bob Newhart tactic. Newhart is one of my favorite comics and the reason is his timing. It is absolutely brilliant, also a beat behind the trouble. Newhart waits. He listens. He uses his eyes and face to help others see what is happening so he doesn't have to tell them.
When it comes to conflict, we can have tragic results or comic results. By my hymn (spiritual training) and my waiting, I am able to at least hope for comic endings to conflicts. Tough doves work for the comedy, the happy ending. Tough people work to win; winning ends in tragedy. Peacemakers keep our sons from having their heads chopped off by trees.
Once we understand that conflict is inevitable, and it is, we find ourselves in need of concrete strategies to resolve it. How we use our tongues, how we use our mouths, and how we use our speech is the best strategic first step. It is not an accident that parents intervene in children's squabbles to say, "Use your words, not your fists." Neither is it an accident that parents find themselves saying, "Watch your mouth."
Using our words well can contribute to peace in the kitchen and peace in the world. Living well involves finding our tongue's way to praise. We appreciate in a world of severe appreciation deficit. Simply: find something to appreciate even in a situation or person you adamantly dislike. Let what you say take the form of praise and appreciation. We truly can shape our tongues so that they speak the truth in love. Small actions like this result in large matters like peace. Small actions keep our sons and daughters alive. It was too late for David to save his son once the war had started. The point is to stop the wars in the first place. The picture I would really like to see in Sunday schools is a picture of Absalom riding free out of the war on his horse, having accumulated a large amount of small actions, which can be taught to all children about how to make peace. Amen.
How are we to resolve human conflicts if we do not go to war? How are we to be people who understand the casualties of war, with David's agony in tow? Can we do something about conflict before our sons have their heads chopped off? I think we can.
Conflict is omnipresent, at family dinner tables, family reunions, the United Nations, and in most countries. No activist or virtuous person will be far from conflict for long. In our urge to make a difference in the world, we will run smack dab into human pessimism, cynicism, and grief over failed attempts at goodness. The majority of people will not want a good person to succeed at anything. They won't know why; they will simply know how important it is for them to sneer at decent objectives.
Conflict is normal, inevitable, ordinary, and expected. The cultural messages are omnipresent: You can choose your pleasure or the world's service, your time or time dedicated to others. "You have to take care of number one." "Life is relationships and taking care of others." There are different versions of these two diametrically opposed cultural instructions (presumably) and many people just fall off the high wire, drop to the ground, and sit there in a muddle. Those who want to walk the wire and not fall will have to realize early and often that conflict will be present in every single setting. For breakfast should they go to the park and sit alone with a high-priced coffee? Or should they sit with the child or husband who has become dull or demanding? Or should they attend a breakfast meeting, the real bane of existence for most activists and high-flying professionals? Why would anyone attend a breakfast meeting, knowing that the quiet moment in the park is the alternative? Conflicts like how to have breakfast are normal. They will join conflicts about gym or more email, a walk after dinner or returning a few phone calls, lunch at the river or reading a professional article at our desk, styrofoam take-out not far away. We live our lives in ordinary conflict -- ordinary conflicts, unresolved, lead to the horror of war.
Those who want to avoid the fate of Absalom will befriend conflict. We will make it our own. We will become experts at it. We will enjoy it. We will predict it, anticipate it, tame it, laugh at it, and revel in it. Of course, we will say, there are always two plus choices for every moment. I am a choice maker. I make choices. I am aware of the scripted life of the double bind and I unbind myself from it. I choose X sometimes and Y other times and I suffer the loss of the one I don't choose. I am not afraid to suffer. I sometimes choose X and Y at the same time. But I only choose a small pile of X twigs and a small pile of Y twigs. I go slowly. I am rarely the captive of what I don't have and more the captive of what I do have.
I sometimes call this conflict-loving, choice-making capacity that of the tough dove. There is nothing soft about making choices all the time. There is actually something very hard about it. We turn down people who want us. We say real "Nos." We get negative feedback. The people to whom we say no will not like it. The people to whom we say yes will rarely reward us, either. Tough doves live beyond both praise and criticism in an inner world they have created for themselves. They are highly strategic, highly directed, and highly focused at any given moment. Tough doves make tough choices. Do the tough choices that tough doves make avoid war over time? Are they any help to American Absalom or Iraqi or Korean Absaloms? I think yes. They are of help in that they practice the peacemaking muscles. Once we have confidence in our capacity with small conflicts, we are able to consider more. We are able to imagine a world of peace.
Simultaneously, tough doves get buried under and snowed over. Tough doves often fail. They also lose their way in the snow and fog of human interaction. They can feel like they are constantly digging out from a snowstorm. The desk that looked clear on Monday can be buried by Wednesday. I often feel that my life is a constant climbing out of a desk stress hole. The people to whom I should write, the people whom I should thank, join the people at whom I should yell, and the ever-present letters I should, as a Democratic citizen, be sending to my representatives -- all combine to turn me into something as small and inconsequential as a dove. We go from tough to dove and back in minutes. We fail at making peace as well as succeed at making peace.
This personal embrace of the inevitability of (actually non-paradoxical) conflict leads to social behaviors that are different from the norm. We are not allergic to conflicts in meetings or families or social interactions. We know that conflict arrives to make something happen. We know that when conflict comes something is about to be birthed. Tensions are being resolved, opposites are attracting, and energy is being created. The points on the battery are inserted in life correctly and we have energy. There is no energy when positive and negative are placed incorrectly in the flashlight. Get the nodes right and stuff happens. We may have to train our stomachs and our vocabularies to be the tough dove that we are in meetings and fights. Training is good. It begins, for me, in humming an old hymn, "Drop thy still dews of quietness, 'til all our conflicts cease...." I call it my Bob Newhart tactic. Newhart is one of my favorite comics and the reason is his timing. It is absolutely brilliant, also a beat behind the trouble. Newhart waits. He listens. He uses his eyes and face to help others see what is happening so he doesn't have to tell them.
When it comes to conflict, we can have tragic results or comic results. By my hymn (spiritual training) and my waiting, I am able to at least hope for comic endings to conflicts. Tough doves work for the comedy, the happy ending. Tough people work to win; winning ends in tragedy. Peacemakers keep our sons from having their heads chopped off by trees.
Once we understand that conflict is inevitable, and it is, we find ourselves in need of concrete strategies to resolve it. How we use our tongues, how we use our mouths, and how we use our speech is the best strategic first step. It is not an accident that parents intervene in children's squabbles to say, "Use your words, not your fists." Neither is it an accident that parents find themselves saying, "Watch your mouth."
Using our words well can contribute to peace in the kitchen and peace in the world. Living well involves finding our tongue's way to praise. We appreciate in a world of severe appreciation deficit. Simply: find something to appreciate even in a situation or person you adamantly dislike. Let what you say take the form of praise and appreciation. We truly can shape our tongues so that they speak the truth in love. Small actions like this result in large matters like peace. Small actions keep our sons and daughters alive. It was too late for David to save his son once the war had started. The point is to stop the wars in the first place. The picture I would really like to see in Sunday schools is a picture of Absalom riding free out of the war on his horse, having accumulated a large amount of small actions, which can be taught to all children about how to make peace. Amen.
