Welcome to this week’s message. Below you will find the full video and transcript of my sermon for this Sunday. It has been a dark week in our nation, and a dark Sunday to gather together, but in Scripture we are reminded that God has walked with His people through darkness before. From the psalms of David to the Cave of Adullam, God’s Word speaks into our times of fear, confusion, and even despair. I invite you to watch, listen, and reflect with me as we open Psalm 14 and ask what it means to hold onto hope in days like these.
A Dark Sunday
I’m not going to lie—it’s a dark Sunday.
A dark Sunday, after a dark week, after a really dark start to the school year, after a—let’s be honest—a really dark year.
This time last year we were at each other’s throats over a horrendously divisive election. We had a coup against the sitting president—silent and non-violent, but still, that’s what it was. And then we ended up with a whole election cycle that was just this exhausting three months of bad political strategies and pre-school playground level name calling.
And then, after all that was decided, votes had been cast, tallied, the voice of the people of this land was in fact heard—after that came the tantrums. Literal tantrums, from the losing side. Grown adults, voluntarily and intentionally filming themselves having actual screaming fits over the election—and choosing to post those videos to the internet.
But somehow, it gets worse, because we also had, in the wake of the election, people who call themselves therapists and psychologists going on national television and telling that same group of people—who are emotionally mature enough to film themselves having breakdowns in their cars—that they should probably just avoid, shun, and cut off any family members who voted the “wrong way” over the holidays.
Because we’re in November 2024 here, remember? Just beginning the season of family gatherings—a time when loneliness among certain people creates a mini mental health crisis every year anyway. So yeah, now’s a great time to tell a whole host of people, who have already been taught through various media outlets to exist in a state of panic over the results of a political election—something that literally happens every four years in this country… Yeah, this is a great time to tell that group of people to cut off their families over the holidays. That’s going to turn out fantastic, right?
But you know what? It absolutely did turn out great, because this last year has been… well, honestly, this whole last year has been exactly what you would expect a year that started out with that kind of advice to be.
A Year of Division and Violence
People insulating themselves from anyone who might be willing to express a remotely different opinion. Deeper and deeper polarization, demonization, and rising violent rhetoric—by which I mean the encouragement of literal, actual, physical violence against those with whom you disagree.
Several months ago, a man named Luigi Mangioni propelled himself to the status of folk hero outlaw by literally murdering a man in the street. But that man was the CEO of a health insurance company so—instant folk hero outlaw status.
A few months ago, a Democrat Representative and her husband were killed, by someone who seems to have considered himself a Conservative Republican. He had a whole hit list that seems to line up with Conservative opponents.
A few weeks ago, first day of school, another school shooting. And the person responsible appears to have been exactly the kind of person who would be mentally and emotionally susceptible to the violent socio-political messaging floating around us right now. A person with some underlying mental health issues, brought up in this state of continual panic with no actual, rational justification behind it. Because that state of panic has become our messaging today—social media, legacy media, schools…
Universities.
Universities in Decline
Those beacons of higher learning, of reason, of truth-seeking. Institutions based on the principles of lecture and debate in the Greek classical academy, that from their inception in the Dark Ages were designed as havens of knowledge, truth, and the free exchange of ideas.
Universities.
I picked up my phone on Thursday morning just to scroll through the news—I intended to spend maybe five minutes on this. At first, I thought the headlines I was seeing were clickbait—which is the use of a sensational headline to get people to click on the article, even though what the headline implies is almost always misleading to outright false. That’s what I thought these headlines were, at first.
Because when you see headlines saying that one of the most significant political activists in the United States right now has been assassinated at the age of 31 on a university campus where he had been invited to speak— I mean… that’s not real… right?
Because we’re not talking about another random school shooting—as horrible as that would be. We are talking about a single-victim event targeted with sniper-level accuracy. In other words, the actual, successful, and sophisticated assassination of a public figure in plain sight on a university campus.
I mean… that’s not real… right?
A Political Assassination
And here’s the terrifying thing in this—which should be actually and honestly terrifying for every person in this country, no matter your politics, no matter what you thought of Charlie Kirk, the man who was killed in front of a gathered assembly of college kids.
Yes, that’s all tragic, and yes any decent person feels sympathy for his wife and his children, and yes, violence should in general always be condemned. But the terrifying part of this, the thing that makes it the horrendously perfect climax to this whole horrible year, is that we are talking about the political assassination of someone who held no political office, had no ability to enact or enforce actual policy or law, who made his name and his living going to college campuses and talking to students.
Which means, when all is said and done, this person was just assassinated for talking. For having an opinion and talking about it—when invited to talk about it, with the people who invited him to talk about it.
I mean… that’s not real… right?
Psalm 14
Video Lyrics (Psalm 14 text – modified King James Translation)
The fool says in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable things, there is none that does good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
They are all gone aside, they are all together become corrupt: there is none that does good, no, not one.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.
They were in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.
Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.
Oh that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! when the Lord brings back the captives of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel be glad.
The Psalm for a Dark Week
That’s our lectionary Psalm for this week. Psalm 14, by David.
I’ve been kind of obsessed with the Psalms over the last few months. And it’s because I’ve been making these videos—which are AI, by the way—and I’m actually going to talk about that more next week. I was going to talk about it this week but… then we had a political assassination on Wednesday.
Anyway, this is our lectionary Psalm for this week. Psalm 14, by David. I’ve been obsessed with the Psalms over the last few months. I’ve wanted to talk about them more specifically. And there was just something about this week.
I had a whole other bulletin based on the other lectionary readings. I had a sermon title and idea of what I would say about the Gospel story all worked out. And there was just something about this week… Something saying this is the week you start talking about the Psalms. This is the Psalm you start with.
And so I rewrote the bulletin, had a whole new plan, featuring King David, basically going through his whole life story, explaining this Psalm… And then we had a political assassination on Wednesday.
An assassination, moreover, as the punctuation mark on this ridiculous year, in, moreover, what is going on half a decade now of ridiculous years.
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have done abominable things, there is none that does good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God…”
You know what’s been running through my head since I woke up and saw those headlines? Not all the mixed up things I’ve been thinking and pondering. There’s an actual line that’s been running through my head since Thursday:
“Speak to me, speak to me in my Cave of Adullum. Reach to me, reach to me, no one cares for my soul. I thought I saw your kingdom, but it’s not gonna happen like I thought it would happen…”
That’s part of a song by an artist named Sarah Groves. First CD I ever owned, back in middle school: Conversations, by Sarah Groves. There’s a song in there called “Cave of Adullum.” It’s a reference to the Old Testament story that we read today.
David in the Cave of Adullam
Twice in his life, David was forced into exile. Once when he was a young man. Once again when he was an old man. These were formative events. They were undeniably the lowest points of David’s life—especially the second one.
And in so many of the psalms attributed to David, there is this darkness:
“The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become corrupt: there is none that does good, no, not one…”
In his most famous Psalm, 23, David references this “valley of the shadow of death,” right? I think that idea is actually lurking over many of his psalms, just unstated.
Twice in his life, David is forced into exile. The first time, he’s running from King Saul, who wants to kill him, for no rational reason except that Saul is in the middle of his own mental health crisis. And with nothing left, forced from his home by a madman, David ends up in this cave above this place called Adullam.
There are two Psalms attributed to David’s time in Adullam. One reads:
“When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, Then You knew my path. In the way in which I walk They have secretly set a snare for me. Look on my right hand and see, For there is no one who acknowledges me; Refuge has failed me; No one cares for my soul,” (Psalm 142:3–4).
“Speak to me, speak to me in my Cave of Adullum. Reach to me, reach to me, no one cares for my soul. I thought I saw your kingdom, but it’s not gonna happen like I thought it would happen…” (Sara Groves, “Cave of Adullum.”)
Wrestling with Despair
I did nothing on Thursday. And I mean, actually, nothing. I tried to watch TV. I don’t remember what I watched, really. Basically I sat and stared at a wall.
And it wasn’t the tragedy of one more death in this world of death. It was the reason. The politics. The online brainwashing that has everyone afraid of everyone.
The significant and growing number of young people who now believe merely existing in the same space with a person of differing political opinions is intolerable—the growing number of people who now believe if you cannot convince or bully someone into silence, it is justified to silence them—forever.
The punctuation mark that this event is on the last year—and on the last five years. It took me a day to process all this. To even begin processing it. And to start coming to terms with my own despair in the part of me that believes we’re just at the start of something really not good.
“David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. So when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them.” (1 Samuel 22:1–2)
Or in other words…
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ …Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord. They were in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous… Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! when the Lord brings back the captives of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel be glad.” (Psalm 14)
Or in other words:
“Speak to me, speak to me in my Cave of Adullum. Reach to me, reach to me, no one cares for my soul. I thought I saw your kingdom, but it’s not gonna happen like I thought it would happen. So remind me, remind me of the vision. Remind me, remind me what anointing oil is for. I need to know you’re near me. I need to know you’re holding me just as closely… As the day you took my life, and gave me a vision. As the day you poured the oil and gave me a dream. I can’t believe this has happened. How does a shepherd become a king?” (Sara Groves, “Cave of Adullum.”)
That’s the full chorus for that Sarah Groves song.
Darkness and Hope in the Psalms
There is this darkness in David’s songs. The darkness of life experience, of abandonment, and frustration, and exile into a cave after having tried several other safe hiding places first.
But there’s also the thing that David comes back to, again and again and again:
“For God is in the generation of the righteous… Salvation will come to Zion, when the Lord brings back the captives of his people…”
The other side, the hope, the truth—the thing that keeps him going. The thing keeping me going.
And this too I think is based in life experience. David was exiled to a cave—and ended up with an army. 1 Samuel 22:1–2 is a remarkable passage when you stop to think about it.
It just brings me back to this Psalm, to this insistence I felt about us having to look at this Psalm this Sunday—this dark Sunday. It just keeps bringing me back to this thought that we are right now as a nation inside our own Cave of Adullam. That there are two paths diverging from this moment, and that I cannot say which one we will take. And the very real chance that we might take a certain one of those paths is terrifying.
But if there is a glimmer of hope here, it is the glimmer that is seen through the mouth of the Cave of Adullam and throughout David’s life. Because those darkest hours in David’s life were the hours when God did show up.
A Glimmer of Hope
I take hope too, because I know that most people in this country do not in fact think this way. I know that most people in this country do believe in the principles of free speech, of life and liberty—whether we like another person’s liberty or not. I know that most people in this country are not willing to become one of those countries where it’s just expected that around half of all political candidates will be assassinated during their campaigns. I know that most people in this country are willing, within reason, to live and let live.
So maybe if the majority of people in this country just stop being silent—
Maybe if the majority of us who really don’t care that much about how our neighbor voted as long as he is a decent neighbor—
Maybe if enough of us just start telling the vocal minority the truth: that enough is enough. Knock it off. You’re being ridiculous.
Maybe if enough of us just come out and tell the truth, that we have had it with the immaturity, with the fearmongering, with the hysteria, with the polarized sides hating on each other—that we are just done indulging this now. That this is just not how we deal with our problems in this country.
One of the most profound experiences I ever had with a youth group—two pre-teens were getting into some sort of heated squabble. And the other youth leader beside me turned to them and said: No. Enough. This is not how we treat each other here.
No rationales, or long drawn out reasons why. Just, NO. And yes, the girls did stop bickering, right then and there.
And as a second-year seminary student right in the middle of deconstructing everything about everything anyone had ever thought about anything… that moment was incredible. Wait, I don’t have to explain to these twelve-year-olds all the theological and philosophical reasons they should be nice to each other? I can just tell them NO?
No, this is just not how we do things in this country.
Maybe if enough of us just start saying that, often and with conviction, maybe then there is hope.
Thank you for spending this time with me in God’s Word today. My prayer is that even in the darkness, you will glimpse the same hope David clung to: the Lord is with His people, salvation will come, and His light cannot be extinguished. If this sermon spoke to you, I encourage you to explore the full archive of my weekly messages here on the sermon category page.
