What kind of a retirement party was this? He had worked so long, he had struggled with so many things, and now, here, at the end, it seemed there was still unfinished business. His worries were not behind him, nor were all the issues settled. And why not? Had he no right to expect that now life would cease to be a struggle? Had he no right to hope that as the specter of death loomed on the horizon, there might be a time of peace and quiet? He had struggled all his life. Why could he not put it all behind him now?
His boyhood had been a struggle. The farm was poor, and as the youngest son it seemed he had had to take on all the chores his brothers didn’t want to do. The dirty work with the animals; the long lonely hours way off from the homestead, all of that had been dumped on him. His brothers had had all the glamorous opportunities -- off to battle they went, wearing their spiffy uniforms, while he, too young to fight, was relegated to carrying out sandwiches and first aid kits. As a youngster, he had had a struggle to be taken seriously. It seemed as though when there was something distasteful to do, some job too hard for anybody else, they put it on him. III equipped, ill trained, too small and inexperienced, still they expected him to be able to slay giants! It really had been too much! Life had always been a struggle. Was it really too much to expect that now, after all these years, life might cease to be a struggle?
Forty years! A whole generation! Nobody knew the trouble he’d seen. Nobody knew his trials. Rebellion from within the ranks, in fact, rebellion from within his own family. His own son fighting against him! "How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful child!"
Struggles, too, of his own making. He had been headstrong and covetous. He had had a wandering eye, he had been too much in love with power, but he had paid the price for that. He had suffered enough! Must that follow, even in old age? No, now it was time to rest, time to back off, time to get out the old fishing pole and just let life roll by. Now was the time to expect that life would cease to be a struggle.
But it was not to be. For there was as yet unfinished business, there were as yet incomplete battles and unresolved conflicts. David, King of Israel, discovered what all of us must discover: that if one of our great expectations is that life will cease to be a struggle, we are mistaken. If one of our great expectations is that all the questions will be answered, all the issues done with, all the loose ends wrapped up, then we are in for a huge disappointment.
But an early hint: there is a source of strength with which you can carry on the struggles. There is a source of strength.
David, after forty years on the throne, speaks to his son Solomon about these incomplete struggles. David had been formed in struggle, matched up with Goliath the giant. He had been launched in struggle, subject to the moodiness and the bad temper of old King Saul. He had been tempered in struggle, battling ceaselessly with the Philistines. David had been matured in struggle, handling the arrogance of his general Joab and crushing the rebellion of his son Absalom. And, most of all, David had been disciplined in struggle, for the Lord God would not tolerate his dalliance with another man’s wife nor his wanton destruction of that same man’s life.
Look with me at the stuff David still had on his plate, after forty arduous years:
I
First, he was still struggling with injustices not fully corrected. David was not at ease, for there was still an injustice that had not been resolved, a wrongdoing that had not been corrected. Life will always be a struggle, and should be, as long as we know there are injustices we could confront.
David spoke of Joab, his old general. Joab, that capable, effective, but headstrong and willful soldier. "You know what Joab ... did to me, how he dealt with the two commanders of the armies of Israel, Abner ... and Amasa .... whom he murdered, retaliating in time of peace for blood that had been shed in war ... Act therefore according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace." David is saying, there is unfinished business, justice business, which I never finished. I let it go. But it cries out to be finished. Justice must be done, Joab must pay for his crime. I’m not going to be able to rest as long as injustice remains.
It ought not to be too hard for us as Americans to understand lingering issues of justice, for our history is writ large with injustices not fully corrected. When the founders of this nation declared their independence from a far-off King and fought a war to secure for themselves and their posterity the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they thought it would be a short run. They imagined that they could fight that battle and then go home to farm and raise their families in peace. General Washington, among others, was a part of a club called the Society of the Cincinnati. This club was named, not for a city in Ohio, but for an ancient leader who had led Rome in a time of crisis and had then left the battlefield to go right back to the farm field. Washington and the other members of the Cincinnati thought that it was all over after Yorktown and that they could go home and live in peace, without any more struggles.
But it was not to be. Life is not that simple. Nor is justice that easy. They had to go to work to create out of the wilderness a new nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. And even then the work of justice was not fully done. The trouble is that what they meant was men, not humankind, and they meant white men, propertied white men at that. When women could not vote and when persons of African descent were counted as only three-fifths of a person and were shackled in slavery; when those who held no property had no political influence, when native Americans were rounded up into reservations and driven off their ancestral lands, clearly there were many injustices not fully corrected.
Like David remembering Joab’s crimes, we too must remember the struggle for justice, we too are a part of the race that has not been won, we too must struggle to create one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Some of us don’t really want to be reminded of all that. Some of us don’t want to think about issues of race or poverty or discrimination. We’re ready for that struggle to cease.
But I tell you, life will not cease to be a struggle as long as there are injustices not fully corrected. Just remember, I’ve hinted at it before, there is a source of strength for the struggle for justice. There is a source of power. There is.
II
Now there was something else on David’s plate, toward the end of his life. There was another kind of struggle which was not yet behind him. And that was his struggle to deal with feelings not fully expressed. The struggle to say what ought to be said to those whom he loved. David felt deep dissatisfaction and tension at this moment in his life, because he had not completed the task of expressing gratitude.
Listen to what David told his son Solomon. "Deal loyally ... with the sons of Barzillai, and let them be among those who eat at your table; for with such loyalty they met me when I fled from your brother Absalom." Solomon, my son, there are some people out there you don’t even know. You scarcely know they exist. And I have not treated them well. They were good to me, they helped me, they put up with me when I was rotten, they held my hand when I was down, they defended me when I was under attack, and, most of all, they stayed right at my side when even my own flesh and blood was against me. But Solomon, I never really thanked them. I couldn’t get it out, I couldn’t say it, I took them for granted. My gratitude was never fully expressed, my feelings were bottled up. And that is a struggle.
It may not sound like much of a struggle, but it is. Because when you do not get out your interpersonal stuff, when you do not air your feelings, life becomes troublesome and burdened. Are you filled up to here with all the things you have never said, all the opportunities you have missed, all the words you just held back, too shy to say them, too inhibited to get them out, too proud to say what needed to be said?
Someone is about to die. The members of the family gather around to say good-bye. As they stand around that bed, through their tears they begin to say the things they never got around to saying before. "I love you", said now to deaf ears when it was never said to the one who could have heard and responded. No, we were too busy. "Please forgive me", spoken now to a mind clouded with pain and drugs, but never spoken when it could have been answered with, "Yes, I do forgive you". But no, we were too proud. It would have sounded artificial. It would have been emotional. And so we stuffed it. We kept it. We didn’t say it. And because we did not say what we needed to say to one another, now our lives are in struggle. Now we are remorseful. Now we feel tension. Now we wish we had just one more chance.
Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to one another in love as well as everything to God in prayer.
My high school principal made a suggestion a few days before we were to graduate from high school. She said, "Write your parents a letter. Tell them you appreciate all they have done for you as you graduate. Let them know that you are aware of their sacrifices." Well, I did that. I wrote a letter and propped it up on my father’s dresser as I went off to the senior prom. I wrote that I did know that they had worked hard to get me through school. I told them that I did understand that they loved me. And I told them that I intended to make them proud of me as I continued to grow up. I could not somehow have said any of that face to face, but it was easier to do on paper.
Well, the next morning I waited for their response. "We got your letter." Huh? "We got your letter." That was it! No comments, no remarks, no nothing. They let it drop there. For, you see, if you think I am inhibited about expressing myself, well, I came by it honestly, having been born to two of the quietest people God ever put on this earth. None of us really knew how to say, "I love you."
But I want you to know that thirty years later, when my parents had both died, as I was going through their papers, I found that letter, carefully preserved as if it were a certificate of deposit or the deed to the family fortune. It meant something to them, as it meant something to me, but none of us could quite get out of the emotional struggle of gratitude not fully expressed! None of us could quite overcome our inhibitions, our shyness, our crippling introversion. None of us could just blurt out what ought to have been said, "I love you. Thank you. I love you."
Life will not cease to be a struggle as long as we bottle up our authentic feelings. Life will not cease to be a struggle as long as we fail to express our hearts for those who have been there for us along the way. As King David had never fully thanked the sons of Barzillai, but now wanted his son to care for them, we may not think we can overcome the deficiencies in our personalities. We may not think we can become expressive people. But, let me hint again, there is a source of strength. There is a way to become. There is a place of power to overcome this struggle too.
III
So, do you still want life to cease to be a struggle? Not much chance, as long as there injustices not fully corrected. Not much chance, as long as there are emotions not fully expressed. And not much chance, either, while there are wrong decisions not fully reversed. Not much chance your life and mine will be without struggle as long as there are things we’ve done which we have not turned around, as long as there are things we’ve said for which we have not been forgiven, as long as there are relationships which have never been fully reconciled. Life will always be a struggle, and it should be, wherever our wrong turns have not been turned back.
How poignant are the final words of David, speaking about one of David’s decisions, which seemed so right at the moment. But it was a spineless decision, it was a wrong turn. "There is also with you Shimei ... who cursed me with a terrible curse ... but when he came down to meet me.... I swore to him by the Lord, ’I will not put you to death with the sword.’ Therefore do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man; you will know what you ought to do to him."
David knew he had made a mistake with this man Shimei. He knew that he had let him get away with a terrible wrong. But David had not screwed his courage to the sticking-place, and had let Shimei get by. And thus David compounded the wrong. I don’t need to tell you, do I, that whoever permits evil is just as guilty as whoever commits evil? David had a bad conscience about this. He knew that he was, in part, responsible for Shimei’s sin, for he had let it go on and on. And it worried him.
Any of us who are parents know how David felt. We chose not to correct our children when we should, and now we think it’s too late. We made a bad decision and don’t think we can change it. Any of you who are supervisors know how David felt. You didn’t help a subordinate solve his job problems, and so now his career is not what it ought to be, and you know you are guilty too. Any of us who are Christians know how David felt. We saw somebody getting deeper and deeper into a life of sin, and we didn’t say anything. We kept quiet when we could have said something. We lost our nerve and made a bad decision, and it’s never been turned around.
And now life is a struggle because there is somebody out there we didn’t help when we should have. Life is a struggle because there is something we could have done, but failed to do. Life is a struggle because we made a bad decision and never fully turned it around. And we think it’s too late.
But I hint again: there is a source of strength for the struggle. There is a place of power to overcome. Because there is one who knows our struggles. There is one who knows all about our struggles, and in His life and death we find our tensions gathered up and redeemed. I tell you, it is not too late to find peace in the throes of struggle, direction in the crucible of decision, and safe harbor in the midst of the storm.
For there is one, you see, who has fought the good fight, and has won it, for us. There is one who has struggled bitterly until the very end, for the world in which he died was a world of monstrous injustice. There is one who struggled mightily to tell us how much He loved us, and who loved us to the end. There is one who struggled in pain and in agony because we would not turn back, but who promised that if He be lifted up, He would draw us all to Him.
There is Christ Jesus, and through Him all struggles have meaning. There is Christ Jesus, and in Him all struggles find resolution. There is Christ, who is reconciling us to God, Christ, in whose agony all our struggles are gathered up, all our anxieties are put to rest, all our weariness finds succor, all our hopelessness finds fulfillment. There is Christ, whose risen life guarantees that finally justice will be done and injustice corrected. There is Christ, whose love unlimited means that those whom we did not thank will receive their rewards in heaven. There is Christ, whose open arms of embrace mean that we can always turn around, we can always repent, we can always be forgiven.
There is Christ, in whom we can do all things; Christ, our fellow struggler, who died in struggle, but who lives and gives a peace that passes all understanding.
