Friday • 8/18/2023 
Friday of the Eleventh Week After Pentecost (Proper 14) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; 2 Samuel 15:19–37; Acts 21:37–22:16; Mark 10:46–52 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 14 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel 15: David’s walk of shame. King David’s departure from Jerusalem marks the nadir of his rule: “But David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, with his head covered and walking barefoot; and all the people who were with him covered their heads and went up, weeping as they went” (2 Samuel 15:30). As he hits bottom, though, he begins to show once again signs that he is indeed “a man after God’s own heart.” Vindication will follow.  

He fully accepts the disgrace that his actions have merited. As one of his old enemies, a Saul loyalist, throws rocks and dirt at him while calling down curses upon him, David says: “If he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’ … [L]et him curse; for the Lord has bidden him. It may be that the Lord will look on my distress, and the Lord will repay me with good for this cursing of me today” (2 Samuel 16:10–12).  

Shrewdly, because he does believe the Lord has not written him off, David leaves behind spies who will report the usurper Absalom’s machinations to him. And he encourages loyalists to stay and undermine Absalom while feigning loyalty to him (2 Samuel 15:32–37).  

David refuses to disrupt Jerusalem’s worship by taking the ark of the covenant into the desert with him: “Then the king said to Zadok [the priest], ‘Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back and let me see both it and the place where it stays. But if he says, ‘I take no pleasure in you,’ here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him’” (2 Samuel 15:25–26).  

Indicative of the heart re-set that is taking place within David is the fact that, according to its superscription, Psalm 3 pours forth from David on this occasion:  

Of David, when he fled from his son Absalom: 
 
1 Lord, how many adversaries I have!  
how many there are who rise up against me! 
2 How many there are who say of me,  
“There is no help for him in his God.” 
3 But you, O Lord, are a shield about me;  
you are my glory, the one who lifts up my head. 

David knows that the shame he experiences that day does not mark God’s final word about him. He is confident God is his champion and will maintain him on the far side of this well-earned disciplining.  

4 I call aloud upon the Lord,  
and he answers me from his holy hill; 

David knows that even though he leaves the ark of the presence of God behind in Jerusalem, Yahweh will hear his cries for help even in the heart of the deepest desert.  

5 I lie down and go to sleep;  
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. 

Such a peace has settled over his soul that even under these shaming circumstances he knows he will sleep soundly at night, and will wake the next day expecting his Lord’s care and provision.  

6 I do not fear the multitudes of people  
who set themselves against me all around. 
7 Rise up, O Lord; set me free, O my God;  
surely, you will strike all my enemies across the face, 
you will break the teeth of the wicked. 

David knows his God’s opinion of him counts far more than that of the consensus currently against him. And he knows that it is Yahweh who will be able to set things straight far better than he ever could.  

8 Deliverance belongs to the Lord.  
Your blessing be upon your people! 

And remarkably, the bottom line of his prayer is that God will work more to the betterment of His people than to the betterment of David himself.  

I pray that in both the best and the worst of times such bold and resolute faith takes hold of and sustains each of us.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+