2 Samuel 23:1-7

We haven't heard from 2 Samuel in a couple months. The Lectionary skips the wars and politics and comes to these "last words" of David. Actually, his last words come in the next book, speaking to his son Solomon, " So act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray hair go down to Sheol in peace." In other words, kill the old guy, speaking of an old enemy. But the Lectionary glosses over that depiction of David and gives us the singer of Psalms. They are in the form of a poem, but often when extracted for a reading, they are reformatted into flat lines of text. That's unfortunate.

It would be great if the words here meant what they appear to mean on the surface, that a King anointed by God is just and makes his people prosper. The last line is a bit of a giveaway though. If the king had such powers, why could he not also include the godless? Wouldn't his just and righteous ways be a beacon for them? Apparently not. We get David the oracle, the prophet, the Messiah, saying those people shouldn't even be touched. A strong case can be made that justice is a central theme of who God is, but it is often paired with phrases like this.

We also hear of the "fear of God". Fear is associated with terror and certainly God's terror can be found throughout the scripture, but it can also mean "awe". I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but my understanding is that translation of "awe" includes some fear of disappointing God, or the feeling one might get when standing before any powerful being or just the powers of nature. The problem is; David thinks he is the arbiter of that power. Once that justification is paired with the station he is provided, tyranny is almost certain to follow. And that's just what we've seen, time and time again.

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 and Revelation 1:4b-8

Today, the last Sunday of Ordinary Time, is called the Reign of Christ or sometimes the Feast of Christ. So we hear from the king who was to reign forever, David, from Jesus himself, speaking of his kingdom, and some prophecy about how they all tie together. The book of Daniel includes a prophecy of a messiah dying just before the end of the world and all sins are forgiven. The first 6 chapters of Daniel are tales of the hero for whom the book is named. Then this section starts, although set in Babylon 4 centuries earlier, seems to parallel the events celebrated during Hannukah. Historically speaking, the Greeks under Alexander the Great had conquered the area and brought new literature and new ideas of openness and inclusion. Not all Jews accepted it and around 175 BC, their religion was outlawed.

A revolt followed, but the Hellenizing continued. No new messiah appeared. Judaism split into Essenes, Pharisees and Sadducees. The pattern of kingdoms being punished for their sins by empires but then being restored was no longer holding. Perhaps it had never happened the way the Torah said it did, but now history was written down and preserved by more than one culture and those cultures could read each other's account of the events. Uncertain times brought apocalyptic literature to the forefront. Daniel made it into the Bible, but there were others; Ezra, Baruch and Enoch. There may not have seemed to be a plan for the people of Israel but that's because they needed a visionary to interpret the secret messages.

This continued with books like Revelations. It made it into some Bibles, but not all traditions embrace it. The Lectionary only includes tepid passages like this one, not the parts about giant bugs stinging people. In this introductory passage, it appears to be a letter to churches at the time, admonishing them to get their worshipping right. But it gets pretty strange later and has been interpreted to mean any number of things. If you need special powers to understand the words, I'm not sure what value they have as guides for living.

John 18:33-37

We heard the next to the last words of David today and here is one of Jesus' last chances to speak. Instead of righteousness and fear, he invokes "truth". He doesn't need to answer questions from authorities. He is simply the embodiment of truth. Truth is something you can belong to, and if you belong to it, you can hear it. Pilate asks "what is truth", but unfortunately that is the extent of the philosophical discussion. Was this meant to be mocking, that there is no objective truth? Was it asked but not answered? Is the question there for us to consider?

Mark's version of this story was heard on Palm Sunday earlier this year and in this version we get an expansion of what Jesus said. In Mark, it seems significant that he only gave the almost non-answer of "It is as you say", but John is always offering more of an explanation of what Jesus meant. In both cases, the result is his people chose his crucifixion over Barabbas and he is mocked and beaten. John gives one more insight into "truth" in the next chapter when Pilate turns to Jesus and warns him he has the authority to put him to death. Jesus says that authority only comes from "above". This is in line with scripture, but leaves much unanswered. We have seen kings who murder and a God who asks children to be slain, words written but then re-interpreted by later generations, covenants made then replaced by new ones.