The strained relationship between father and son is a theme well represented in art and literature. From A River Runs Through It to East of Eden and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, novelists have dealt with, and even focused on, father-son relationships. Indeed, even the particular relationship between David and Absalom has been the subject of literature, poetry, and art. Marc Chagall has two paintings depicting this relationship: David and Absalom and David Mourning Absalom. The first is full of vivid colors and larger than life characters: Absalom appears to be kneeling at his father’s lap and David’s position is reminiscent of a father holding a baby. In the background, a lone figure by a tree seems to foreshadow the death to come. The focus, however, is on the love between father and son, even with the threat of death looming in the background. Chagall’s second painting, which actually was painted first, depicts David mourning Absalom. David sits, head in hand, outside the walls of the city. He is clearly alone and in grief, yet the walls of his kingdom loom large behind him, an ever-present reminder of the political power that has, at least in part, brought him to this place. There is something about the relationship between this father and this son that many of us can identify with: it is complicated and full of pain, but it is also full of love and perhaps even compassion.
The commentaries on this lectionary passage (2 Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33) are divided over whether or not David implicitly asks Joab to kill his son. Some scholars argue that despite David’s words, Joab knew David needed Absalom killed and so when the opportunity presented itself, he took it. These scholars point to the relationship between Joab and David and Joab’s ability to read between the lines and take care of some of the less than savory details of David’s job as king. Absalom, these scholars rightly point out, had become too big of a threat to David. Something needed to be done. Yet David could not order his son’s death outright, perhaps for emotional reasons, but certainly for political ones, so he hints at it and allows Joab to take care of it.
Other scholars disagree completely. David is clear, they argue, and the text is explicit: David asks/commands his armies to deal gently with Absalom. These scholars point to the divide between David and Joab that develops after Absalom’s death; moreover, these scholars remind us that Absalom is, after all, David’s son. No matter what has come between them, it is hard to imagine a father ordering the death of his own child.
There are strong arguments to be made for both sides of this debate, but the debate itself points to a larger theme in the text: the tension for David between his role as a father and his role as a king. The tension of dual roles is one all parents face, for we are never just parents. In Room by Emma Donoghue, Jack is a five-year-old boy who has never known more than the room in which he was born. His mother (Ma) was kidnapped by ‘Old Nick’ and has spent the past seven years confined to one room, the victim of kidnapping and serial rape. Jack is born into this situation and has spent his entire life in the Room, knowing nothing of the world beyond. The dilemma for Jack’s mother comes when she decides she must risk his safety in a bid for their freedom.
The cases of King David and Ma are extreme: rarely do we who are parents find ourselves in positions of power or extreme danger that ask us to risk our child’s safety for a larger purpose. Yet we have all experienced the tensions that emerge when our different roles in life conflict: when we want or need to spend time with family or friends but also need to have a sermon written on Sunday, when our ailing parents require our care, but our jobs keep us far away, or as teenagers when our friends expect one kind of behavior from us and our parents expect the opposite.
It would be easy with this lectionary passage to get caught up in whether or not David is a good father or a bad father, whether he is or is not responsible for Absalom’s death, or even on how the consequences of his earlier actions (and God’s judgment of them) are coming back to haunt him (and his family). But perhaps the larger theme, the more universal element, is David’s struggle to be both King and father. It is a struggle we imagine God must have had when Jesus was on the cross, and it is a struggle we are all familiar with in our own lives.
