Well, like the final scene of some Hollywood epic, this morning we reach the end of the riveting, costume drama King David.  Over nine weeks it’s been sometimes bloody, often heroic, occasionally sleazy, but always fascinating.  We’ve followed David from obscurity in a nowhere town looking after sheep to the throne of Israel, via battlefields, a 9-foot man, the death of friends and the loss of family, the building of a palace, the establishment of a capital, an ill-fated rooftop stroll, and all with a passion for the moment that makes it the surefire box-office smash that it is.

In today’s final reading we meet one of David’s offspring, by the name of Absalom.  The house of David is reeling form the aftermath of his moral failings that we’ve learned about over the weeks.  In fact there has been almost continual turmoil in David’s home since the business with Bathsheba and Uriah.  It all started when David’s firstborn son, Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar.  Her brother Absalom pledged vengeance against Amnon and killed him.  Absalom then fled the palace, fearing the consequences of his revenge killing.  Eventually he returns to Jerusalem and conspires to overthrow his father David from the throne.  David and his loyal forces escaped from the city.  So here’s the rightful king in exile following a coup by his son.  Naturally, this provoked war between father and son, and although David issued orders that Absalom should be taken alive, the commander of Israel’s forces, Joab, kills Absalom and the coup is over.  But don’t forget this is David’s son.  Yes, he was a rebel and overthrew David’s authority, but he was still David’s flesh and blood.  And so when David learns of Absalom’s death he is as distraught as any father would be.  “O my son Absalom!  My son, my son Absalom!  If only I had died instead of you – O Absalom, my son, my son.”

We’ve come to know David to be a man of great passion.  He feels things deeply.  He gets carried away easily by feelings of happiness and elation, and feelings of sadness.  He feels great loyalty to his friends and those in authority.  But when he messes up it is as a result of his headstrong, passionate failure to control his selfish urges. 

Now, I suspect that passion is something that human beings need.  That drive within us that spurs us on to do great things.  The fire in our bellies that makes us sacrifice for others, pursue the wonderful goal, or create the beautiful piece of art.  The drive to merely get out of bed in the morning and do something productive, to in some small way make a difference to something.  And loss of passion is a sad thing, but is also very common condition in modern Western society.  Fatigue, exhaustion, disappointment, disillusionment, loss of passion.  We see around us a process – an erosion of enthusiasm, a wearing away of joy.  We lose heart and motivation; we no longer care as much as we did about meeting a high standard, following through on our commitments, getting involved.  Often this creeping loss of passion reaches a dramatic climax with someone quitting or becoming physically sick.  People who used to be at the center of things drift to the edges and even disappear.  Lettie Cowman was a missionary in the early part of the 20^th Century and she wrote this is little book called ‘Springs in the valley’.  "In the deep jungles of Africa, a traveler was making a long trek. Coolies had been engaged from a tribe to carry the loads. The first day they marched rapidly and went far. The traveler had high hopes of a speedy journey. But the second morning these jungle tribesmen refused to move. For some strange reason they just sat and rested. On inquiry as to the reason for this strange behavior, the traveler was informed that they had gone too fast the first day, and that they were now waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.

"This whirling rushing life which so many of us live does for us what that first march did for those jungle tribesmen. The difference: they knew what they needed to restore life's balance; too often we do not."

Those of you who work in today’s economic climate know well the ever increasing demands in the workplace.  You become pawns in the game of cost-cutting, captives to the tyranny of economics.  Both in the public sector and the private.  Those of you who do not work have no end of options for how to use your time and energy.  There are countless good things we can be involved in.  And our years of leisure can be as busy and overcrowded as when we worked.  And it’s true in our church life.  We can be so busy doing things for God that we end up spending little time with God.

But it’s not just the things around us that cause us to lose our passion.  Forces inside us can do it too.  In an excellent book called “Restoring your spiritual passion” Gordon McDonald says there are four ways in which our own internal feelings can strangle the life within us and leave us weary and disillusioned.  One, he says is envy.  When we are looking at others and secretly curing their success or rejoicing in their failures our spiritual life is sucked dry.  Oscar Wilde once told a story about the power of envy.  "The devil was once crossing the Libyan desert, and he came upon a spot where a number of small demons were tormenting a holy hermit. The sainted man easily shook off their evil suggestions.  The devil watched their failure, and then he stepped forward to give them a lesson.  'What you do is too crude', he said. 'Permit me for one moment.'  With that he whispered to the holy man, 'Your brother has just been made Bishop of Alexandria.'  A scowl of malignant jealousy at once clouded the serene face of the hermit. 'That,' said the devil to his imps, 'is the sort of thing which I should recommend'." 

Another internal sapper of spiritual energy is, says McDonald, a critical spirit.  Last week, I received a letter form the United States Citizen and Immigration Services.  It told me that I had to appear at their office in Grand Rapids for fingerprinting, to confirm that I’m still me.  Only then will they consider removing the conditions on my Green Card and finally making me a permanent resident.  And that was fine except for the time of the appointment.  It was 9am on a Saturday.  Now my instant reaction was “I didn’t know the government worked on Saturdays.”  Then I thought “Oh no.  Saturday’s my day off when I want to have a lie in and a leisurely morning with my wife, maybe see if there’s any good sport on TV, and I have to get up and be in Grand Rapids by 9am, to roll my fingers in ink for Uncle Sam.”  And like the doctor tapping my knee and my leg jerking, I had this almost involuntary reflex to complain.  And Cindy said, “Well, let’s be thankful that you’re able to do it, and we can get all that stuff out of the way for good.”  And I said, “Gee, thanks, honey.”  I didn’t, actually.  But it’s right.  I was exposed to my critical spirit.  And so often that urge to complain or be negative saps our spiritual energy.  It really does strangle the spiritual life of a person.

The third blight on our spiritual passion McDonald mentions is what he calls the vain spirit, or pride.  It’s that inner demand to be first, to be the centre of attention, to have every conversation about me, to bring it all back to me somehow, because it is all about me after all.  And fourth what he calls the adversarial spirit, we might call it resentment.  Those ill-feelings we are harbouring against someone else, that gnaw away at us. 

So the point is that those four things – resentment, pride, criticism and envy are powerful things.  They slip into our hearts, where they steal our peace and our energy.  They work unseen beneath the exterior of our peaceful, but insincere faces.  No one might guess that they’re there, lurking beneath the surface of our smiles, robbing us of our life-force, depriving us of passion for God and for life.  So maybe the next time I feel overwhelmed by weariness and bereft of all desire and enthusiasm I need to look, yes at my external life, my business and my commitments, but also at my inner life.  Is there any critical, prideful, envious or resentful spirit that is sapping my energy and strangling my passion?

Back in the day when I used to sit and listen to sermons in church each week there would be something that would frustrate and annoy me.  It was the preacher telling me what I should be like but not telling me how I might achieve that.  You know, the preacher says “be like Jesus, be holy, be peaceful, be joyful”.  I’m wondering, “OK, I know I should be those things, and I want to be, but how do I get there?”  So this morning I know you’ll be glad when I say “we should be like David and have his passion for God”, I’m not just going to leave it at that.  We’ve looked at what can stop us having passion for God, but what can we do to gain and to build it up?   

And here I want to return to David.  He finished today’s reading, in a palace.  But over the last nine weeks we’ve read about him being in other places.  In fields, looking after sheep, in a cave hiding from Saul, in a field saying farewell to his friend Jonathan, in forests to escape his son Absalom, and on mountaintops.  Often he was driven there for his own safety.  David knew when he needed to retreat, regroup, be refreshed and rebound.  And I want to suggest that one of the secrets to his spiritual passion lay in those four words beginning with ‘re’ – retreat, regroup, refresh and rebound.  We can only wonder at the relationship David cultivated with God when he was alone in the fields as a young shepherd, and again when he was seeking safety from his enemies.  But one thing we can be sure of – this became a devotion for God that was out of the ordinary.  We have dozens of psalms that testify to that special friendship between God and David.  Take today’s, for example, “I wait patiently for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.”  How does a watchman wait for the morning?  With eagerness.  He wants to finish his shift and go home and get some sleep!  He watches the clock and can’t wait.  That was David’s longing for God.

Robert Kennedy once visited the jungles along the Amazon River and talked with many of the aborigines of the area. One of the tribesmen had been a recent convert to Christianity and through a translator Kennedy asked, “What do you most like to do?” The young Kennedy expected an answer like hunting, canoeing, or fishing. He was surprised when the man answered, “Being occupied by God.” Kennedy said to the translator, “Ask him again. Something may be lost in the translation.” The truth was the man knew exactly what he was saying.

So let’s do the same thing.  Let’s retreat regularly from the business and noise and demands of the world.  Create space and time for solitude and quiet.  Do it daily, if that’s possible.  Do it with God too.  Use that time to pray, to read Scripture, to meditate on Christ and his work.  There can be no better way to ignite your passion for God than actually spending time with him alone.  And then rebound from those times of quiet.  Because David didn’t stay in the fields and the forests and the hills.  His destiny was a palace.  He had work to do.  And so do we.  But how on earth can we do it unless we make space for prayer?  We would be running on empty.  We would be trying to give when we have no resources. 

Let me finish with the words of a Dutch Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, who spent some years in Rome and despite the huge bustling metropolis, found God.  “In the midst of this lively and colourful conglomeration of houses, people and cars, there are the domes of Rome pointing to the places set apart for the Holy One.  The churches of Rome are like beautiful frames around empty spaces witnessing to him who is the quiet, still centre of all human life.  The churches are not useful, not practical, not requiring immediate action or quick response.  They are tranquil spaces, strangely empty most of the time.  They speak a language different from the world around them.  They want us to be silent, to sit or kneel, to listen attentively, and to rest with our whole being.  A city without carefully protected empty spaces where one can sense the silence from which all words grow, and rest in the stillness from which all actions flow, such a city (such a life) is in danger of losing its real character.”