When justice and mercy embrace

David, and the Son of David. Quite the combination in our readings today. And quite the revelation of the pathways of justice and mercy. Allow me to elaborate.

King David finds himself in a dire predicament. One of his own sons, Absalom, has sought to claim the crown and force his abdication in a power struggle largely the result of David’s own weaknesses as king. Absalom was hardly a man of integrity, being full of the lust for power and bent on using his inherited position to force through his own standing. This was the son who, with nothing beyond his desirous long hair and good looks, groomed others who sought to ride the wave of favouritism to claim authority that was entirely un-earned. Absalom was not a particularly noble or upright man.

Yet, he was not entirely self-created. His father, David, had himself weakened in his righteous leadership and turned from the path given to him by God. In his older age, family intrigue and internal power plays had become his preoccupation, the ancient version of ‘Succession’. No longer was he the king of God’s people, the Israelites, in any noble way. A life of service unto his people had been discarded for a life of self-centred rule. David was forced to flee his city with his tail between his legs. Shimei’s not entirely unjustified curse reveals David’s cruel vengeance on the survivors of Saul’s clan. The King had abandoned the ways of justice and mercy.

Compare King David to the one who would be called the Son of David, and King of the Universe. Jesus comes among the gentile peoples of the Decapolis region, east of the Sea of Galilee, not in abandonment of his mission but to bring it to fulfilment. In one of those towns, he comes across the un-named man in among the tombs, existing – barely living – among the dead. Here was a person whose life was rotting away, both figuratively and literally, who had lost any sense of control over his life. It is a terrible scene of mental and existential woundedness.

The man is then found by Jesus; not the near animal that the townsfolk had reduced him to, or the demons in possession of him. Jesus finds the man, the person, the individual son of the sons and daughters of God. And in finding the man, Jesus transforms him from a raging beast, naked and tormented, to his new-found friend, calmed and clothed. In justice, and with mercy, Jesus had come in service of this man, and then gave him a commission to share his story of a new life with others.

King David, in his undignified retreat, reveals to us the outcome of a lost life of service for others in justice and mercy. The Son of David, in his serving of the Gerasene man, reveals how life can be won when justice and mercy embrace.

In this annual moment of prayer for the commencement of the Law Term, may we seek the way of the Son of David, Jesus Christ, in the services we bring to the people we encounter and the processes we engage in.