Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

In our reading this morning from 2 Samuel, we see the conclusion of the feud between the House of David and the heirs of the House of Saul following the death of Abner, an influential player in the feud who had formerly sided with the House of Saul, but following a slight from Ishbaal, Saul’s son, worked to see David ascend the throne of Israel. At the end of chapter 4, we read that some of David’s men, avenging the death of their brother at Abner’s hands, have killed Abner, disrupting the fragile balance of power between the two houses and creating a power vacuum that others are keen to exploit. Ishbaal is subsequently assassinated by two of his own captains in much the same way Abner was killed.

Ishbaal’s murder at the hands of his captains was a deed of poor and craven political calculation: his murderers figured that David would reward them handsomely for their deed. But David is, instead, repulsed by it all. The murderers are killed and Ishbaal is given an honorable burial with his former friend and fellow victim, Abner.

Ishbaal wounded Abner’s honor, Abner turned on Ishbaal to help David, David’s soldiers turned on Abner to avenge a wrong, David curses Abner's murderers, Ishbaal’s captains murder Ishbaal, and David has Ishbaal’s murderers killed. This is not so much a cycle of violence as a tangled web of violence. And while it seem as if David might have escaped it or risen above it, violence and betrayal (particularly in the form of Absalom, David’s son) will thread their way through David’s life and reign. Mephibosheth (Saul’s son Jonathan’s heir mentioned in passing only to remove him from the intrigue) seems to escape all this, but not without first suffering a crippling injury…and his behavior later in the story suggests that he’s haunted by the trauma of the events that 2 Samuel 4 touch upon. Moreover, he’ll be caught up in another web of scandal and betrayal before his own course is run.

It would seem like the most obvious thing to draw from this lection is a particular lesson about not getting involved in cycles/webs of violence: that the only end of violence is more violence, that death resolves nothing and leads only to more death. Polish critic Jan Kott, in his essay on Macbeth called “Macbeth or Death Infected” summarizes the Scottish Play as the story of a man who is seeking to commit the ultimate murder…the murder that will put an end to murder, the murder that will stop the cycle of murders in which he’s found himself maddeningly embroiled. The difficulty, which Macbeth realizes too late, is that there is no such thing: murder begets murder. But more than that: perpetuating cycles of violence makes of us agents, instruments, vessels of the violence we simultaneously perpetuate and deplore. We may seek to put a violent end to violence, but that only serves to make us the doers of the violence we desire to end. Macbeth learns this to his chagrin. David learns this to his sorrow. We all learn this one way or another, in ways spectacular or pitiful, but always bitterly, and not without suffering.

We might be tempted to think Mephibosheth has the best deal here. But the trouble is: he doesn’t escape unscathed. And, indeed, as so many saints, peace-workers and organizers have affirmed, no one can think themselves untouched by the world’s violence: no one is an island, as Donne said; “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” as Dr King said. The violence of the world that we might see play out in the news is not a distant happening—it’s always an injury to our common humanity, it always hits close to home. And we might discover to our horror, and with only a minimal amount of introspection, that the seeds of violence that give rise to oppression “over there” have been sown in our own hearts right here…and have often borne in us and in our relationships their terrible fruit.

There is One, however, in whom death could work no victory. There is One in whom cycles of violence could find no agency nor purchase. There is One in whose life violence and death were ended: who, when he was unjustly tried and condemned, when he was tortured and publicly humiliated, did not allow the violence he suffered to become a desire for retribution or vengeance, but who, when he was hanging in agony on a cross, prayed for those who nailed him there, prayed for us; who, in rising from a death we designed for him, rose not in wrath but in mercy, with healing and forgiveness in his wings, saying to us, “Peace be with you!” (knowing the peace we need) and offering us, children of violence and wrath though we are, the opportunity to share his life of love with him, and be children of violence and wrath no longer, but heirs of eternal life.

Dear Beloved Friend! If we could live according to the pattern of this One’s life…how might that life, alive in us, begin to end--to gently unravel, untangle and undo--the cycles of violence in our own lives and relationships, the knotted webs of death to which and by which we’ve been too-long bound? Let us seek refuge in the wounded heart of our King and our God; let us not give up hope for this world and for ourselves, but constantly return, through repentance, with faith, to our Lord Jesus Christ, and ask from him the peace the world cannot give…so that we might be agents of that peace, doers of that peace, alive with that peace, filled with grace, and enflamed with love!

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+