This week’s Reflections is from a commentary I wrote for the on-line Center for Congregational Ethics, to go with the Revised Common Lectionary Reading for August 5, 2021, based on 2 Samuel 13:37-14:24.  It assumes the passage will be read before the article.

This Story Does Not Have a Happy Ending

Context matters. Beginning with chapter 11, the rest of the book of 2 Samuel reveals the dissolution of David’s family and the political struggles for his throne. The death of Amnon, the heir-apparent, left the exiled Absalom next in line. For three years the nation had faced an uncertain future. David is brokenhearted, angry, and depressed. Joab stages an intervention.

The plot is to trick the king into doing something about his situation. The script is written by Joab, the king’s harsh military general and confidant. An actress is enlisted to dramatically play the widow in distress: “Deliver us from the man who is trying to cut off both me and my son from God’s inheritance.” Coded language to make the point. As with Nathan the prophet, David is caught up in the tale, but then realizes the subtext. “Joab put you up to this,” he says. “Very well, I will do it. Bring back Absalom, but he must not see my face.”  It may have been the ending Joab was hoping for, but today’s audience is left unsatisfied. What about David’s heartache and depression?

Joab uses the king’s pain to his own advantage. All this elaborate subterfuge was to advance Absalom’s quest for the throne rather than seeking to heal the king’s heart and mind. In the end, there was no planned direct conversation between father and son, no opportunity for reconciliation, resolution, or forgiveness. No happy ending.

What are the ethical implications of this story for today? Are our political and personal conversations so filled with manipulation and coded language that we are missing the happy endings that honesty and truth afford?

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I am always asking myself, “What time is it?” That question ranks right up there with the other self-talk question, “What am I going to eat next?” I wore a wristwatch for many years, except for that brief period during the post-hippie era when three-piece suits and pocket watches were all the rage. I was hard on my wristwatches. They broke or they cracked or clouded up with condensation. I resorted to having a Sunday or special occasion watch, and an everyday one. I have discovered that it is not really about the watch; it is the tyranny of the clock I am wrestling with.

During my college days I served as song leader with Evangelist Bob Posey. We held revivals in small towns and in rural churches, mostly in Alabama, for 2 or 3 years. It is amazing how God puts unlikely experiences in our lives to help equip us for future service. We found one church that was dominated by the tyranny of time. It was an old country church near Phenix City, Alabama, which is a suburb of Columbus, Georgia. (That is the correct spelling of Phenix, founded in 1830 as Girard, but re-named in the 1880’s after the local mill.) To an outsider it can be the most confusing place in America. The town proper is in both Lee and Russell Counties Alabama, and spreads into Muscogee County Georgia. Therein lies the time problem. Alabama is in the Central Time Zone; Georgia is Eastern Time. Crossing the street can put a person across the invisible time boundary. Phenix City tends to be on Eastern Time even though it is in Alabama. But many hardcore time purists stay on Central Time for the principle of it. When we announced that revival services started at 7:30 p.m., we had to clarify that meant 6:30 p.m. Central Time. Starting things on the half-hour was sort of a compromise with the time to reach the community for Christ.

I no longer wear a watch, but I can learn the time from my cellphone. The drumbeat of time marches onward. Ephesians 5:15-16 teaches us to redeem the time, seize the opportunity, for the days are ever evil. 2 Corinthians 6:1-2 reminds us “now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Discern the time. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

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Meals on Wheels has been in the news and on my heart this week. You may have seen the coverage of the July 15th groundbreaking for the new Meals on Wheels of Metro Tulsa Service Center on 51st Street near Yale, beside the YMCA building. I was asked to lead the invocation to start the ceremony. This new facility will include a state-of-the-art kitchen, food preparation and delivery system, as well as a community event center. Why is healthy food and caring contact for sick and homebound seniors so important? The cost of one year’s worth of meals for one person is less than one overnight stay in the hospital for that same person. 

This past Monday, July 19, the coordinators from our Eastside Meals on Wheels churches met at our church to discuss a recommended plan for us to cautiously begin to restart delivery. The proposal is for volunteers from our churches to deliver seven frozen meals at a time to 20 residents in a single apartment building near 11th Street every Friday starting at 11 a.m. There is a phone app that volunteers would use to contact the recipient and update the office on the delivery and care that might be needed for these neighbors. I would like for you to prayerfully consider becoming a part of this ministry. We are having a meeting to learn the procedures for beginning delivery again, and to be trained on how to use the app on Friday, August 6 from 1:00-2:30 p.m. at the church.

The story of Tulsa’s Meals on Wheels organization goes back to 1970 and the kitchen at First Presbyterian Church downtown. The church provided a regular noonday luncheon for the business community. In the course of time someone suggested delivering some of those meals to homebound members. Someone else read about a program called “meals on wheels” in another state. Soon other churches were recruited, and the Tulsa program became an official Task Force of Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry, our local interfaith organization. In March 1978, I received a phone call from our own Waneta Reynolds suggesting that this might be something we should consider as a church.  The next month we held an organizational meeting in our Fellowship Hall with five of our neighboring churches. Eastside Meals on Wheels began serving meals from our kitchen in August 1978.  

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Thank you for serving. And let’s experience the love and power of God together. 

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