Saga: The Story of David: A Woman of Wisdom
July 17, 2016
Dr. Tom Pace
I Samuel 25:23-27

Our Scripture today really is a very pertinent Scripture. It’s about peacemaking. We’re going to talk about peacemaking today, and here’s the context for the Scripture from First Samuel. It’s that David is getting ready to attack a household that he feels has insulted him and turned away from him. The woman Abigail who lives in the household has come out to intercede to try and make peace with David. So listen while we hear the Scripture read today.
As soon as Abigail saw David, she got off her donkey and fell on her knees at his feet, her face to the ground in homage, saying, “My master, let me take the blame! Let me speak to you. Listen to what I have to say. Don’t dwell on what that brute Nabal did. He acts out of the meaning of his name: Nabal, Fool. Foolishness oozes from him.“I wasn’t there when the young men my master sent arrived. I didn’t see them. And now, my master, asGodlives and as you live,God has kept you from this avenging murder—and may your enemies, all who seek my master’s harm, end up like Nabal! Now take this gift that I, your servant girl, have brought to my master, and give it to the young men who follow in the steps of my master. (I Samuel 25:23-27 The Message)
I want to talk today about peacemaking. Jesus takes his disciples aside at the very beginning of his ministry. And he gathers the twelve, and he takes them apart from the crowds, because he wants to talk to them specifically about how they’re going to be different than the world. That’s what the Sermon on the Mount is. He’s taken them apart so that his words are to them, not to the world. He says, “This is how you’re going to be different. You’re going to be merciful, and that’s going to be a blessing to you. Blessed are the merciful. You’re going to hunger and thirst for righteousness and that will be a blessing to you.”
“You’re going to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake and even that will be a blessing to you. And you will be peacemakers. That’s who we’re going to be. We’re going to be peacemakers.”
Paul picks up the same theme in Romans 12 when he says, “As long as it depends upon you, live in peace with all people.” In other words it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world does, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to be a people of peace.”
In Romans 14 he’s a little more direct. He says, “Pursue [sometimes its translated do] the things that make for peace.”
So I want to talk today about how Abigail is a perfect example of someone who is a peacemaker. And it’s a little bit of an aside. The story is in I Samuel 25, and it’s sort of an interruption of the story, because it has nothing to do with Saul or any of that. It’s just this isolated story. And I happen to think it’s kind of a “God thing” that as we planned this series in February it fell on this day.
Let’s pray. Lord God, open us up to your word today. Open our eyes that we might see and our ears that we might hear. Open our hearts that we might feel. And then, O Lord, open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
So here’s the whole story. Hang in there with me, because it’s a kind of interesting and kind of a fun story in some ways. Remember that David has run away from Saul’s home. He’s taken some men with him, and Saul has pursued him. Last week we learned about David sparing Saul’s life. But he’s still in exile. He has these men with him, and they’re living off the land. That’s the best way I can say that.
You remember he went into the house of the priests at Nob and ate the holy bread that was there. There was a big discussion about that, but that’s because he’s no longer in the royal army. He has nothing to supply him. So he’s got to live off the land.
So he comes across the household of a man named Nabal. Now Nabal is very rich. H has 3000 sheep, 1000 goats and land and servants. He’s rich. It happens to be sheep shearing time. Now that’s a big deal, because what it means is all the sheep are gathered together in one place. The shepherds are busy shearing. It’s like a harvest time of sorts. And they come across these shepherds shearing these 3000 sheep, and David and his men could have very easily taken some of the sheep for their dinner. It would have been simple and probably wouldn’t have created too big a problem. But they didn’t.
And not only that, they guarded the sheep shearers while they sheared. They formed a wall, a circle, to protect them. That’s because at sheep shearing time you have all the sheep together, and it’s a pretty vulnerable time.
So the sheep shearers finish, and they bring the wool into the household. At this time of year they have a big party, a big shindig. So they’re having a party there. David sends some of his men in. They say, “Hey, look, we’re hungry out here. Can you give us a little of your leftovers of the party?” They don’t ask to come into the party, just for the leftovers.
Now Nabal is not a good guy, and in fact his name means “fool.” I don’t know who names their child “fool,” it’s not a good thought. I can only imagine that maybe it was number one in the top names in Hebrew for that particular year. I don’t know. But they named him Nabal, and he doesn’t respond well. He says, “I’m not going to give you any food. You’re runaways from Saul’s house. You’re not important at all anymore. Why would I give you anything?”
He just rants and raves and hurls insults at David. So the men leave, and they go back to David. They say, “Hey, he didn’t give us anything. In fact, he insulted us.” And David is not happy. He’s mad – mad – mad. So he says to his men, “Gird on your swords. We’re going to go in and kill them all. By this time tomorrow there will not be one single one of them left. They will all be dead!”
Abigail is Nabal’s wife. She’s wise, she’s beautiful and she’s cunning in a way. The people come to her. They say, “Your husband has done a really stupid thing, and we’re in big trouble.” So Abigail decides she’ll get involved. She takes a bunch of stuff – gifts, food and puts them with a donkey and some other people, and they go out to meet David.
Now that’s pretty scary. They go out to meet David, and she sees David and you heard what she said in the Scripture. She sees him, falls on the ground in front of him and she says, “I am so sorry. My husband is an idiot.”
I wonder how many times my wife has said that in our marriage. I could be rich, I could count on my hands. Sometimes she says it under her breath. Sometimes she says it aloud. But she says it often, “My husband…whooo!”
So anyway, Abigail says, “Oh, I am so sorry. Here take these gifts. I’m going to give them to you.” And then she says something else that’s very interesting. She said, “You know, if you go kill everyone that blood would be on you, because you fired the first shot here. And this is really saving you, not just me. This is really saving you.”
She let him know it was in his best interest. So David says, “You’re amazing, Abigail. You’re right. You have saved me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
So Abigail goes back in, and she tells her stupid husband Nabal, “Hey, let me tell you what I did.” He doesn’t like it and he gets so mad at her that he has a heart attack at that moment. Then ten days later he dies. Then David takes Abigail as his wife. So now Abigail is David’s wife, and they ride off into the sunset, and they live happily ever after. That’s the way it works. That’s the story.
Okay, with that story what can we learn about peacemaking? Abigail is clearly a wise woman. I want to lift up three things for you today.
Here’s the first thing. Abigail stepped up and stepped in. She got involved. This is what it actually says in the Scripture from the story. Her servants come to her and she says, “Do something quickly because trouble is ahead for our master and all of us. Nobody can talk to him, it’s impossible. He’s a real brute.” That’s how Eugene Peterson puts it. So Abigail flew into action.
Did you ever see that TV show “What Would You Do?” I like that show. The way it works is that they’ll put some actors out on a street corner or something and they’ll simulate, they’ll have something terrible happen. There’s one where they’re making fun of – I can’t remember exactly – maybe a homeless person or someone who’s disabled. They’re around him, teasing him, making fun of him. And people are walking by. They tape, they film how the people respond.
Another one is where a guy comes out of a bar, and he’s staggering drunk, gets into his car, and he bangs into some trash cans. People are walking by and seeing that. The question is who’s going to step in? Who’s going to step up and step in? There are three responses. Some people walk along, and they don’t really notice or they pretend they don’t notice. Other people walk along and they stop, and they talk to each other but they just stop. They don’t get involved. They say, “That’s a terrible thing. Do you see what’s happening over there? It’s awful!”
They pass a resolution. No, they don’t but that’s what it is. They just talk to each other.
But some people finally step in, they get involved. They say, “What are you doing? You can’t do that? Why are you making fun of that guy?”
What I find most interesting is that the vast majority of the time it’s the women who get involved. Most of the men – it’s not always the case – but most of the men – and I know this would be the case in my house – are saying, “Honey, that’s not our business. It’s not our circus, it’s not our monkeys, let’s just move on along. We’re going to go on; we’ve got reservations at the restaurant. Let’s keep going. Who knows what’s really going on? We don’t really know the context. Let’s keep on going…..”
You know, you have to have somebody who steps up.
All through the Bible it is the most unlikely one who God uses to step up. A woman to intercede in this case? They were powerless in that culture – powerless. It would be really easy like I often may do, to say “I can’t do anything about that. I can’t do anything. I’m just a member of this thing…”
If you’ve ever been to the Holocaust Museum, actually any of them - they’re here in Houston, in New York, in Jerusalem. On any of the Holocaust Museums on the wall there at every one of them is a poem by a Lutheran pastor named Martin Niemoller. He was captured by the Nazis, held for seven years in two different concentration camps. He was at Dachau when the Allies liberated it. He became a writer and a speaker after the war. And one of the poems that he wrote when he was in prison in the camps is on the wall.
It goes this way: “First, they came for the socialists. And I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists. But I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak for me.”
It’s easy to just be silent. Let me make this a little bit more personal for a moment. Maybe there is a relationship in your life, and because of the conflict in it and the pain in it you have decided just to let it go. Someone’s hurt you and you want to be gracious, so you say, “I’m just going to let it go. I’m going to let it go. I’m going to be that kind of person and just let it go.”
But in the midst of doing that what you find yourself doing is letting them go. What you’re doing is distancing yourself from someone, because you don’t want to deal with that which is in between you. You’d just as soon be silent because it’s just too hard to face the issue. Sometimes you have to step up, like Abigail did. Maybe you’re the one, the unlikely one, who’s been called to make things right.
Here’s the second thing I want you to see about peacemaking and maybe this is the hardest part. The Scripture says, “As soon as Abigail saw David, she got off her donkey and fell on her knees at his feet, her face to the ground in homage. She said, ‘My master, let me take the blame.’”
She said, “I’m sorry.” It’s hard to say you’re sorry. When my kids were little we tried to get them to say “I’m sorry,” and some of them were better at it than others. Some of them just didn’t want to say it. Then we’d say, “Why don’t you go take a time out until you’re ready to say it?” They’d stay there till they were ready to die in a time out. We’d say, “You go to your room and think about it until you’re ready to come out and tell us what you have to say.” That’s what you say when you get older. They may stay in their room for days before they want to come out. A lot of us are like that. They get it from us, by the way. We don’t like to say we’re sorry.
Now as hard as it is to say “I’m sorry,” it’s even harder to say, “I’m sorry” for something you don’t feel like you did. That is what Abigail does. She says she’s sorry for something she didn’t really participate in. She says, “Let me take the blame.” Thanks for the great story, Julie, it’s a great illustration. Sometimes she’s taking the blame for someone else.
The term is called collective responsibility, and it’s hard for us as Americans to say, “I’m responsible for something I didn’t do, but the people I’m associated with or that which I’ve benefitted from, has done.” So I have some responsibility for that.
Let me give you a couple of examples. I want you to pretend something for me. This is not a real situation for anyone I know so don’t assume anything. Let’s say you have an adult son who is 30-something years old, and he has too much to drink and while he’s driving he hits a car and he kills somebody. How horrible would that be? It’s not your fault. This is a grown man. He makes decisions for himself. You were a good parent, you did everything you possibly could. He’s made this mistake.
What would you say when you saw the parents of the child he killed? That’s what you’d say. That’s right. You’d say, “I’m sorry.” Even though you didn’t do it, your son did, and you’re connected to him, you’re a part of him. He’s a part of you and so because of what he did and you were a part of that, a part of him, so you would say, “I’m sorry.” That’s a kind of collective responsibility.
When I was a kid I played on a little basketball team in third, fourth and I think in fifth grade. There are two kinds of coaches. One year we had one of the coaches who said, “Let’s have fun.” Then I got one of those coaches who would say, “Let’s win.” Those are the only two kinds of coaches there are, really. I preferred the former.
You know what happened in the second one is that he had a son who was a good athlete in the thing so he really needed him to win. So anyway, one day one of the kids was late for practice. So you know what we did? We all ran laps. We all did. I thought, “This is not fair. This isn’t fair. This is not fair that all of us are running laps because of something he did.”
Now why did he do that? He did that to demonstrate to us that we are together, we are a team. We rise together, we fall together. We triumph together, we fail together. And what one of us does, all of us own. Boy, that’s hard. That’s hard for us to do.
I’ve mentioned Martin Niemoller. After the war he was the author of something called the “Stuttgart Declaration.” This was a group of Lutheran pastors who got together after the war. Now, remember, and think about this, he’s been in a concentration camp for seven years. These pastors came out with this statement: “Through us infinite wrong was brought over many peoples and countries. That which we often testified to in our communities we express now in the name of the whole church. We did fight for long years in the name of Jesus Christ against the mentality that found its awful expression in the National Socialist regime of violence. But we accuse ourselves for not standing to our beliefs more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not believing more joyously, for not loving more ardently.” They were in effect saying, “We were a part of this. We didn’t believe in it but we were a part of it because we just didn’t step in.”
I want you to think about this. The whole idea of the Christian faith is based on this concept. That’s hard to get. Sometimes that’s why it’s hard for us to understand the faith. That Jesus took responsibility for something we did. That’s what it is. We get our salvation because of his goodness. We are clothed in his righteousness, not because we’re good but because he’s good. And he takes the sin that would have belonged to us because we’re together. Wow!
That’s the idea of collective responsibility.
Okay, here’s the last thing. Let me just say that for many of you that’s hard, and I understand that. I wrestle with it myself. But just hear this, one of the steps to peacemaking, very simply, is to say, “I’m sorry.” It’s that simple. To step up and to say, “I’m sorry.”
The last thing is this. The Scripture says, “Now take this gift that I your servant girl, have brought to my master and give it to the young men who follow in the steps of my master.” This next part wasn’t in the Scripture we read, but I want you to hear it, “Forgive my presumption but God is at work in you, David, developing the rule solid and dependable. You fight God’s battles. As long as you live, no evil will stick to you. If anyone stands in your way, if anyone tries to get you out of the way, know this. David, your God-honored life is tightly bound in the bundle of a God-protected life. The lives of your enemies will be hurled aside as a stone is thrown from a sling.”
So what she did was that she brought a gift and a blessing. She said, “I’m here, David, to give to you. I’m here to proclaim that you’re going to do amazing things. I want to bless you in every way, and I want to help you in every way.”
This is the guy who was getting ready to kill her. She says, “I want to bless you in every way.”
There was a woman in our family, a distant relative on my wife’s side, she was married and the man wasn’t a good guy. He did a lot of things that hurt her and others, and her family. They divorced many years ago. He had a number of other wives after that. He managed to alienate almost everybody in his life. And when he was in I think his 60s, he got cancer. He was the father of this woman’s children and she knew that her children would have to take care of him. But she didn’t want them to have to do that, so she reached out to him and said, “I’ll take care of you.” So this ex-husband who had been so difficult, so terrible, she took him into her home and cared for him until he died of cancer.
If you talked to her you’d know that it’s just because that’s who she is. She’s a blesser. She doesn’t bless based on what the other person does. She blesses based on who she is. That’s different. It’s not, “You bless me, and I’ll bless you.” It’s rather “I’m going to bless you no matter what you do. I’m just a blesser. That’s what I do. That’s who I am.”
Some of you were at the event last Tuesday that was when St. John’s and St. Paul’s churches got together. It was intended to be a prayer rally service for us about the difficulties in our country. It was not exactly what we expected, let me just say that. I was taken aback by what happened there, what it was like there. I just wanted to share with you a little of my journey while I was sitting there because I had enormous emotions. First, I thought, “Well, this isn’t a prayer rally. This is something else.” I was just sitting there and got angrier and angrier and I felt tricked and all of those things. I was so disappointed because I felt we could have built unity if it had been more balanced. There was so much going on in my heart. And I kept praying and kept praying, and I began to ask, “Okay, God, why am I here? Why am I here?” This whole thing came as sort of an aside, it came from the side. I thought, “Hey, let’s do that.” I got maybe 150 to 200 people there, and it was a big crowd, to have all of our congregation there to support this.
I kept asking, “Why am I here? Why are we here?” And I came to the conclusion that we’re here because God has something for us to hear. I’ve been saying over and over that we’re supposed to listen and now I’m stuck. I’m stuck here in this pew and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t have any choice except to sit here and listen. To pray and to listen. So I did that.
And as we got to the end Pastor Rudy Rasmus from St. John got up. He said, “I can’t believe that you guys are all here. “ I’m paraphrasing what he said. “I can’t believe you’re all here. I’m a cynic and I thought nobody cared.” All these things kind of wanted to shout, I kind of wanted to say something. But he said, “I thought nobody cared. And I looked out and you’re all there. And you do care.”
And it occurred to me in that moment that that’s why I was there. Here’s a group of people who are hurting so badly – right or wrong, they could be right or wrong it didn’t matter. They were hurting so badly and we were there just to be present and be a blessing. Just our presence was a blessing. I could have been asleep in the pew and it would have made no difference. We were just there as a blessing.
I so wish it had been different but I just kept thinking, “Okay, God, you’re in the midst of this and that’s what we do, we’re people who bless. So let’s do that.”
I don’t know what it is in your life, where the place is that there’s a relationship that’s strained or broken or difficult. I know our country is going to need lots of peacemaking. It’s going to need lots of peacemaking. Our hearts are just broken. And I suspect there are some things that are a little more personal in your life that you need to wrestle with. I just want you to know that you might be the Abigail; the one God has called to step up and step in to say you’re sorry. And maybe to bring a gift and a blessing.
Let’s pray. Lord God, we want to be a part of doing the things that make for peace, and sometimes we know what to do, and sometimes we don’t know what to do. We hurt for those who feel on the edges of our society. We feel for our police officers who work so hard to protect us, who are afraid. It just makes us angry and we hurt so much, God, we don’t know what to do. But we believe that you are a God of peace, and we are called to be makers of peace. Not just waiters, or peace-hopers, but peacemakers. So show us how with our presence and our attitude, our prayers and our deeds, and words and everything we are to do the things that make for peace. In Christ we pray. Amen.