I Samuel 25:2-35; Proverbs 15 and 25 (selections)
Gerald J. Mast, First Mennonite Church, Bluffton, October 27, 2019
The first thing to notice about this story of peace is that it is not about high-minded idealism or even costly discipleship. This is not about loving your enemies even though they kill you. It is not Dirk Willems going back to pull his jailer from the icy pond to be rewarded with an agonizing death in a windblown fire. It is not World War I conscientious objectors dying at Fort Leavenworth or in the Alcatraz dungeon because they refused to fight. Such stories of resilient and costly faith are of great value to us and we should cherish them. But this is not that kind of a story.
This is instead a story of survival and of staying alive, of savvy speech and creative conspiracy. In this story, a peacemaker thrives and a warmonger dies. In this story, soul force overcomes brute force. In this story wisdom speaks, as it does throughout scripture, with the voice of a woman, and men listen to her and live, or ignore her and perish.
THE FOOLISHNESS OF POWER
When Abigail finds out that her husband has foolishly thumbed his nose at David’s shakedown scheme, she understands immediately what Nabal can’t see: everything is about to be lost. The farm, the livestock, the land, and the men who protect all this property —all of it is at grave risk because Nabal has misjudged the situation. For the women of the household like Abigail, they surely know that this loss will likely include the life of the tribal patriarch who owns them and therefore the end of his protection from the heavily armed band of insurrectionists led by David. Abigail must know the miserable and violent fate that awaits her and the rest of the household.
But Nabal is oblivious. And the text is pretty clear about why. For one thing, his name is the Hebrew word for “foolish.” He is someone without moral or practical sense—“surly and mean,” verse 3 says. Plus he is wealthy—he owns a mega-farm of three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And he is a Calebite—a member of the leading clan of Judah. He is foolish and he has privilege. In the moral universe of the Bible this combination is a recipe for disaster. “Those who trust in their riches will fall,” according to the wisdom teacher in Proverbs (Proverbs 11:28 TNIV). Jesus echoes this teaching in his parable of the foolish man who builds bigger barns for his many crops only to die before he can enjoy all that excess wealth (Luke 12:13-21). Jesus says that it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God (Mark 10:24). In Nabal’s case, his riches made it hard for him just to stay alive, kept him from realizing that his patriarchal privilege would not save him from David’s armed anger.
Research conducted by UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner suggests some reasons for Nabal’s foolish behavior. As reported in the July/August 2017 issue of The Atlantic, over the course of a twenty-year longitudinal study, Keltner found that subjects who had been in positions of power acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury; which is to say that they acted more impulsively, they were less able to identify risks, and they had a hard time seeing things from other people’s points of view.
Keltner’s work was confirmed from another angle by research on mirroring—the ways in which our neural pathways are activated by the behaviors of others. When I watch someone, say, ride a bike or sip some coffee, the part of my brain that I use to do those things is stimulated; that is, this happens unless I feel excessively powerful or overwhelmingly in control. If I feel powerful, my brain instead has a significantly reduced empathetic response to the behaviors of others. This is because power alters our neural pathways to make it harder for us to imagine how others are feeling or what they are experiencing. And that makes us do foolish things. Like refusing to share some food with a hungry band of armed insurgents who have been kind to us up to this point.
David the insurgent leader also apparently has a bit of this same empathy problem, perhaps because he is traveling with a bunch of sword-bearing men who fight for him and protect him from his enemies. When Nabal thumbs his nose at David’s request for food and hospitality, David flies into a rage and prepares to destroy Nabal’s household, no doubt simply because he can; he has the power to do it and get away with it. His army of men and arsenal of weapons has already undermined his capacity for empathy. And that’s why he is about to do a terribly foolish thing.
It’s worth taking note of the destructive communication climate that Nabal has created with his disrespect for David. David had greeted him with words of peace. And Nabal’s response was dismissive and insulting: who do you think you are, asking me for food? And what minor league does your father come from that I—a Calebite—should pay any attention to you?
Being an alpha male with plenty of swords at hand, David’s response is completely predictable: I’ll show you who I am, you loser. Cross my heart and hope to die, if I don’t kill every male in your household.
The old King James Version that I grew up with translates David’s chest-thumping speech more literally and less politely: “So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.” When I was young, this is one of the verses that I looked up in my Bible during the boring parts of the church service. One Sunday, after I was old enough to sit with the youth near the front of the sanctuary, I was snickering with my friends over this passage, when I received a note passed up to me by my father requiring me to leave the youth section and come sit with him because of my disruptive behavior. And so I will always associate this Bible story with the red-faced embarrassment I experienced during that sad Sunday morning.
But the literal vulgar translation of the KJV highlights the escalation of conflict in the war of words between Nabal and David. Robert Alter, whose recent translation of the Hebrew Bible also uses the p-word in this passage, states in a footnote that this vulgar phrase is a “rough and vivid epithet” for ‘male’ that occurs only in curses. And so the exchange of insults has now become a dehumanizing chorus of curses—that prepares the way for the slaughter that will follow.
We hardly need reminding that the toxic communication climate depicted here is reflected in our own national political culture. The exchange of insults and curses across party lines continues to escalate as we careen through impeachment hearings toward the 2020 election. I will repeat from recent memory just two phrases that have been used by American political leaders to describe their adversaries. Basket of deplorables. Human scum.
The wisdom of scripture teaches us that there is no future in this game of insults and curses and name-calling. There is only death at the end of this spiral of vituperation.
There is one other lesson to learn here before we turn to Abigail’s intervention. In a book on politics and power in the book of Samuel, Bible scholars Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes explain how the historical books of the Hebrew Bible present an evolving critique of the popular ancient concept that the king is a God, a key figure in the cosmic order by which the world turns. This idea matters. If the king is a God, the king can do no wrong; the king is above the law; the king cannot be questioned.
According to Halbertal and Holmes, the biblical book of Judges offers the first step in a critique of this ancient conventional wisdom. In the stories of the Judges, the tribes of Israel display a communal transition from the assumption that the king is a God to the conviction that God is the king. In the stories of Judges, we might recall, everyone does what is right in their own eyes and flawed warrior-chieftains like Jephtha and Samson and Deborah rule the community as charismatic crisis managers chosen by God. There are no taxes and no draft and no standing army. So there are plenty of crises to manage. And disillusionment with flawed charismatic crisis managers leads the people to want the stability of a kingdom. In the book of Samuel we now get the picture of a kingdom shaped by a different premise. The new premise lies between the idea that the king is a God and the opposing idea that God is the king. The basic premise explored in the political theology of Samuel is instead that the king is not a God. There is a king to maintain order and stability by taxing and spending but this king is a flawed human being who cannot be trusted with anything that resembles worship.
And the king cannot be trusted with worship because of what we can see unfolding in the story of David and Nabal. The one who is going to be the king of Israel is capable of great and tragic foolishness. He is about to kill a bunch of men because of the selfishness of their master. His rage and power have overcome his empathy, as they will many times in the future when he is king.
THE WISDOM OF THE CROSS
Abigail, it turns out, does not have an empathy deficit. She is the picture of wisdom; her experience of being the wife of a surly fool has no doubt strengthened her hand here. This cannot have been the first mess of Nabal’s that was hers to clean up. The servants who came running to her for their lives know that she is their only hope. They have reason to expect that she will know what to do.
And she does know what to do. She gathers a generous stock of bread and wine and sends them ahead to her adversary. She presents herself without weapons and greets David with respect—bowing down in front of him. She accepts responsibility for the behavior of Nabal: “Upon me alone, my lord, be the guilt.” She expresses empathy: may you “have no cause of grief, or pangs of conscience.” And she affirms his calling and mission: “you are fighting the battles of the LORD.”
Generosity, Respect, Responsibility, Empathy, and Affirmation. These are the key practices in the peacemaking playbook that Abigail is following, the pillars of speech that make for peace, even when your enemy has shown up in your backyard locked and loaded.
The script for this peacemaking playbook comes directly from the wisdom literature recorded in books like Proverbs and Sirach. From Proverbs we learn: “If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on their heads, and the LORD will reward you” (Proverbs 25:21-23); “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1); “A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit” (Proverbs 15:4). And from Sirach we learn: “When an ungodly person curses an adversary, he curses himself” (Sirach 21:27); “Pleasant speech multiplies friends, and a gracious tongue multiplies courtesies” (Sirach 6:5).
The understanding of speech presented in this biblical peacemaking script differs from the Greek tradition of rhetoric with which we are perhaps more familiar. In Greek rhetoric as conceived by philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, as well as in most university communication classes such as public speaking or interpersonal communication, words are merely tools to express ideas or to make arguments. Words help us to explain what we want or help us to get others to do what we want. Words can be used to ornament a challenging concept or to sugar coat a bitter pill. Sometimes words confuse us or create misunderstanding. Sometimes they are intentionally manipulated in order to “spin” the truth. But in the common sense of our culture, words tend to be seen primarily as tools for getting across the thoughts in our minds, not themselves capable of doing anything. “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” That is the premise for a society that believes in freedom of speech: speech without constraint, say what you think, the more the better. Speech is only words, without capacity for real harm. And so we become careless with our words, as if they were shiny objects to play games with.
In the Bible, words are not fun and games. Words are more than things; words do things. Words bring creation into existence, distinguish light from darkness, and divide land from water. Words determine the conditions for judgment at Sodom—less than ten righteous and here we go with fire and brimstone raining down from heaven; words call forth plagues on the Egyptians: frogs, gnats, flies, boils, storms, locusts, thick darkness, blood in the river, and the death of the firstborn. We seldom tell the story anymore of Elisha the prophet who curses the children who mocked his hair loss (II Kings 2:23-24). This may have been an overreaction but that does not stop the bears from coming out of the woods to kill the children. Words can lead to death, even mass death.
Sirach says: “A slip on the pavement is better than a slip of the tongue.” And “The blow of a whip raises a welt, but a blow of the tongue crushes the bones. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not as many as have fallen because of the tongue” (Sirach 28:17-18).
In the story we have been following today, when Abigail tells Nabal what she has done to save the household, her words cause him to have a heart attack and within ten days, he is dead. The words of generosity, respect, responsibility, empathy, and affirmation that had made peace the day before now bring death. Nabal’s heart attack should clue us in to the astonishing and sometimes heartbreaking power of words acknowledged in biblical wisdom.
At the same time, the firepower of words can be unleashed as strength for the weak, for those without status and wealth. Abigail is not a patriarch but she does have words that help and hurt. The words of peace she chooses save many lives, and rescue her adversary David from committing a terrible crime. David acknowledges this: “Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from blood-guilt and from avenging myself by my own hand” (I Samuel 25:33).
Perhaps David could recognize that Abigail had saved him because he himself was following the same peace playbook that guided Abigail, at least on good days. I Samuel records two instances in which David had the opportunity to kill his adversary King Saul but refrained from doing so. The first time is in chapter 24 right before David’s encounter with Nabal. The second time is in chapter 26 right after he is married to Abigail. David’s speech performance in both of these instances is remarkably similar to Abigail’s speech confronting David. David generously spares Saul’s life. He respectfully bows down before Saul. He accepts responsibility for his actions with these words: “may the Lord judge between me and you.” He offers empathy by asking about Saul’s motivation: “Why does my lord pursue his servant?” And he affirms Saul’s calling and mission as king: “I will not raise my hand against my lord; for he is the LORD’s anointed.”
In both instances where David spares Saul’s life, Saul acknowledges that David has both saved and conquered him. He says, “You are more righteous than I; for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil…Now I know that you shall surely be king.” Saul, like David, was rescued and conquered by generosity, respect, responsibility, empathy, and affirmation.
As Christians we confess that the wisdom of the cross is the same wisdom that Abigail displayed in her peaceable actions toward her adversary David, that David displayed toward Saul. The God we serve is not a petty tyrant who rules without empathy, impervious to our joys and sorrows, our hopes and anxieties. The God we serve offers forgiveness and reconciliation to us even while we are yet God’s enemies. This is the God of Jesus Christ—who, to use the language of the Apostle Paul, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form, he humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8).
But, as I noted at the beginning of the sermon, this is not first of all a story of sacrifice, of doing the right thing even unto death. This is a story of triumph over adversaries and death and hell. Because Jesus Christ did not grasp at power, did not insist on being in charge, he is exalted above every other name, on heaven and on earth (Philippians 2:9). And this exaltation, unlike any other form of political exaltation, is also our exaltation. The form of Christ’s victory is the rescue of we who were his enemies, we who he forgives because again and again we know not what we do.
And we confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God, not because he stands over us, sword in hand, demanding our submission and threatening us with punishment. No, we confess that he is Lord because he comes to us like Abigail came to David, on the hills of Carmel, with bread and wine, and an invitation: take and eat, this is my body broken for you. Amen.
Anabaptist Persuasion 