Preached at Cragsmoor Stone Church in Cragsmoor, NY
Have you ever had a nemesis–someone or something that seemed to exist only to annoy you and make you miserable?
The person who works in your office who has the unique talent of getting under your skin with everything they say, do, or think;
The friend of a friend who interjected themselves into your social group and now makes you the butt of all their jokes;
The gopher who drove Bill Murray the groundskeeper mad in the comedy classic Caddyshack.
Have you ever had to deal with someone or something like that?
I have a nemesis, but I’m a little reluctant to talk about them here, less they get wind of what I say and redouble their efforts to do me wrong.
For the sake of this sermon, however, I’m willing to risk it, and name them publicly.
My nemesis is the boiler in my church’s basement.
Good Lord, this thing drives me crazy.
I’m told that the boiler runs on natural gas, but I’m convinced it just burns money.
$1000 here, $5000 there, $10000–I’ve authorized so many repairs after walking into a freezing cold sanctuary that I just have to laugh at the thought of it.
And just to keep me on my toes, there was even one time that the boiler wouldn’t turn off and I walked into a fellowship hall that was 90 degrees and getting warmer in the middle of winter.
One boiler guy once told me, “You really do have a Ferrari, Rev. Beautiful to look at, but good luck if something goes wrong with it.”
The fun with the boiler never ends.
Last year the heat went out the week of Halloween. We didn’t get it fixed until the Friday before Christmas–a saga that upended the church’s Thanksgiving and Advent celebrations, as well as lowering my holiday cheer to Scrooge levels of bah humbug.
The seasons in which the boiler doesn’t require extensive work are few and far between, a problem that’s exacerbated by the fact that every replacement part apparently needs to be handforged at some undisclosed location that is perpetually eight to ten weeks away from the New York metropolitan area.
And of course I take all of this personally. The boiler obviously wants me to fail, wants me to feel discouraged, and wants everyone in town to go to that other church with the elitiest theology, but dependable heat in the winter and, God help me, air conditioning in the summer.
There’s an inverse correlation between the amount of time I spend in the church’s boiler room and my happiness.
That’s the power of a persistent nemesis.
We’ve read a passage from the Bible this morning about King David, a man with a long list of rivals, enemies, and antagonists.
There was Goliath–the giant who tried to kill him, Saul–the old king who tried to kill him, and Absalom–David’s own son who tried to kill him.
Compared to those figures, it’s easy to overlook Shimei (Chamay-e), son of Gera, but I rather like his story, and I believe that it’s there that we find the point of contact between our lives and God’s Word today.
Shimei was angry enough to kill David, but all he did about it was cuss him out.
It happened at a real low point for David.
Devastated by the personal and political chaos his son Absalom’s betrayal unleashed, David’s life and kingdom were in tatters and Absalom had a real chance of seizing his old man’s throne.
At this moment, while David and his loyal forces were making a rather pitiful retreat from Jerusalem, Shimei, one of Saul’s kinfolk, appears on the scene and, according to the scripture, “he came out cursing.”
He really let David have it.
Shimei shouted while he cursed, “Out! Out! Murderer! Scoundrel! The Lord has avenged on all of you the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned, and the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, disaster has overtaken you, for you are a man of blood.”“You’re getting what you deserve, you blood thirsty tyrant!”
“You’ve taken other people’s lives and their wives, and I think it’s hilarious that someone has finally taken something of yours.”
Shimei was on fire, bringing down insult after insult upon David’s head.
One of the king’s generals eventually had enough and offered to take Shimei’s head off, but David was resigned to his fate.
“My own son seeks my life,” he said, “[so what’s it matter to me if this guy wants to curse me]! Let him alone, and let him curse.”
So David and his men went on the road while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went, throwing stones and flinging dust at him. The king and all the people who were with him arrived weary at the Jordan.
Time passed, David’s foul mouthed nemesis lived, but Absalom’s rebellion didn’t, and as David was settling back into power, guess who showed up?
Shimei, son of Gera. Only this time, he sang a very different tune.
“May my lord not hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong.” (2 Samuel 19:19)
“Yeah, I’m really sorry about all those things I said about you, King, but we’re all good, right?”
And the scripture says that the same general looked at David again and said, “Now? Now do I get to kill him?”
But David chose forgiveness. He spared Shimei’s life and sent him on his way.
And there you have it. The story of David and Shimei–a story about choosing forgiveness instead of revenge, a story about being humble in defeat and magnanimous in victory–another shiny treasure pulled from the mess of David’s life.
But wait a minute. There’s a shocking twist still to come–and it’s the twist that’s so important to us.
Years later, as David was dying, he called to his side Solomon–his son who would become king, and said, “[Remember] Shimei son of Gera “who cursed me with a terrible curse,” but who I forgave and promised not to kill? That doesn’t apply to you. Once I’m gone, you should get rid of him, too.” (1 Kings 2:8-9)
And that’s what Solomon did.
So you see, the story of David and Shimei isn’t so much an inspirational tale about forgiveness and taking the moral high road as it is a cautionary tale about how twisted our hearts and minds can become when we hold on to grievances, wrongs, and slights and give our nemesis a power over us that they could never earn on their own.
It shouldn’t be lost on us that when David first came into the spotlight he had the faith and the courage to face down Goliath, but as he made his exit, he was plotting, scheming, and making his own promises worthless because of he wouldn’t let go of one man’s curses and insults. That’s the power of a persistent nemesis.
I’m sure that all of us carry within us genuine hurt, heartbreak, and scars, but I’m convinced that so much of what ails us is attributable to the fact that, like David, we seize upon trivial and insignificant things and allow them to short circuit our capacity for growth, healing, and transformation.
We give small things so much power that we’re too exhausted to tackle the things that really matter.
The opening line of the Serenity Prayer is on point, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Bono also provides a bit of wisdom when he sings, “Choose your enemies carefully 'cause they will define you.”
Do I really think the boiler in the church basement is out to get me? No.
Is it annoying when there’s no heat in the building? Of course, it is.
But is being so obsessed with that annoyance that I make my wife and kids miserable when I come home from work really the choice that I want to make, the decision I want to live by? No, that’s not what I want to do. That’s not who I want to be.
Maybe you feel something similar about the impact your nemesis has on you, too.
Saint Paul tells us that one of the gifts given to us by God to help break such unproductive habits and cycles is communion with Christ that is so liberating and transformational, so rooted and grounded in God’s love, that our thoughts and our actions actually become Christlike.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” Paul proclaimed.
As we go from this place I pray that that’s what we’ll do.
I pray that we will let go of grievance and take hold of God’s gift.
I pray that we will know Christ and walk with him on our path.
I pray that we will face every nemesis, hardship, and challenge with serenity, courage, and wisdom.
And I pray that will never cease to give God thanks for the Good News that makes this and all signs of new life with Christ possible.
Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.
Image: The Stone Arch overlooking the Rondout Valley
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